Part 16

JACOB COLLAMER.—Born at Troy, New York, about 1792, and removed in childhood to Burlington, Vermont, with his father; graduated at the State University at that place in 1810; served during the year 1812 a frontier campaign as a lieutenant in the service of the United States; admitted to the bar in 1813; practised law for twenty years, serving frequently in the State legislature. In 1833 he was elected an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the State, from which position he voluntarily retired in 1842. In the course of that period he was also a member of a convention held to revise the Constitution of the State. In 1843, elected to Congress to fill a vacancy, and re-elected for a full term in 1844, and again in 1846. Appointed postmaster-general March 7, 1849,—thus forming one of the Cabinet of President Taylor. He resigned in 1850, with the rest of the Cabinet, on the death of the President, and was soon afterwards reappointed on the Supreme bench of his State, which office he held until 1854, when he was elected a Senator in Congress from Vermont for six years from 1855; and in 1861 he was re-elected for the term ending in 1867, serving as chairman of the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads, also that on the Library, and as a member of several other important committees. He received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Vermont and from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

He died on the 9th of November, 1865, at Woodstock, Vermont, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. Mr. Collamer was one of the most distinguished of our statesmen, and one of the oldest members of the Senate.

NATHAN KELSEY HALL.—Born at Skaneateles, New York, March 28, 1810; removed to Aurora, in the same State, in 1826, and commenced the study of the law with Millard Fillmore; removed with the latter to Buffalo in 1830; admitted to the bar in 1832; appointed First Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1841; in 1845 elected a member of the State legislature, and in 1846 a member of Congress. He was appointed postmaster-general July 20, 1850, and in 1852 United States Judge for the Northern District of New York.

It was during his administration that the change was made in the rates of postage, by making letter-postage three cents to every part of the United States, except California and the Pacific Territories,—the weight of letter one-half ounce, and prepaid.

SAMUEL DICKENSON HUBBARD.—Born at Middletown, Connecticut, August 10, 1799; graduated at Yale College in 1819. He was admitted to the bar in 1822, but subsequently engaged in manufacturing enterprises. He was mayor of the city of Middletown, and held other offices of local trust. In 1845 he was elected a member of Congress, and re-elected in 1847. He was appointed postmaster-general September 14, 1852. Died at Middletown, October 8, 1855.

JAMES CAMPBELL.—Born September 1, 1813, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; admitted to the bar in 1834, at the age of twenty-one years; in 1841, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Judge of the Common Pleas Court for the city and county of Philadelphia, which position he occupied for the term of nine years; in 1851, when the Constitution of the State was changed, making the judiciary elective, he was nominated by a State convention of his party as a candidate for the Supreme Court of the State, but was defeated after a warmly-contested and somewhat peculiar contest, securing, however, 176,000 votes; in January, 1852, he was appointed Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, which he resigned to assume the duties of postmaster-general: he was appointed to that office on the 8th of March, 1853.

There was no particular feature in the postal department to render this gentleman’s name in its connection popular during his term of office. It is somewhat curious, however, that the administrations of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan—_both peculiarly political_—should have furnished to the Southern Confederacy more prominent men who were engaged with them in office than did all the other administrations combined. Is this accident, design, or the effect of their political education under their reign?

AARON VAIL BROWN.—Appointed postmaster-general under James Buchanan’s administration in 1857; was born August 15, 1795, in Brunswick county, Virginia; graduated at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, in 1814; studied law and soon commenced practice in Nashville, Tennessee; he was partner in the law business of the late President Polk; served in almost all the sessions of the legislature of Tennessee between 1821 and 1832; he was a member of the House of Representatives from 1839 to 1845, and was in that year elected Governor of Tennessee.

In his first report as postmaster-general, made December 1, 1857, he very modestly stated that, “entering on the administration of the Post-Office Department,” he “ventured on no new theories, nor attempted any innovations on the well-tried system established and practised upon” by his predecessors.

It was during his administration that the route from New York to New Orleans was considerably improved and transportation facilitated;[41] also the mail-service on the Mississippi River below the Ohio was materially changed and improved.

The overland mail-service to California by the Southern route by contract became an agitating subject, and under proposals approved by an act of Congress, March 3, 1857, various bids were made by parties for carrying the mail. The contract was made on the 16th of September, 1857, with certain parties, at a cost of $600,000 per annum. (_See Report for the year 1857._)

JOSEPH HOLT succeeded Aaron Vail Brown, who died March, 1858, in alluding to which Mr. Holt uses the following language:—

“POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, December 3, 1859.

“SIR:—In the month of March last, the sudden decease of my enlightened and deeply-lamented predecessor, immediately preceded as it was by the death of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General,—so long and so honorably connected with the administration of the postal revenues,—filled this department with discouragement and gloom. Associated with this double calamity came another, which awakened painful anxieties, not only from its intrinsic magnitude, but from the fact that the history of the government, from its foundation, furnished no parallel for such a disaster. My allusion is, of course, to the failure of Congress to pass the customary appropriation bill for the support of the Post-Office Department, whereby, with all its responsibilities resting upon it and the fulfilment of all its duties demanded by the country, it was still deprived of the use of its own revenues, and thus, necessarily, of all means of complying with its engagements to the faithful officers toiling in its service. The ordeal so unexpectedly prepared for it was, in all its aspects, as novel as it was perplexing; and disquieting apprehensions were naturally felt for the result.”

This was rather discouraging to Mr. Holt, who, however, displayed much business tact and perseverance under the circumstances, for he immediately issued the following notice:—

“TO POSTMASTERS AND OTHER AGENTS AND EMPLOYEES OF THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT.

“Congress having failed to make the necessary appropriation at its last session for the publication of a Manual of Post-Offices, Laws, and Regulations, now greatly needed, and the department not having sufficient clerical force at its disposal for the preparation of such a work, I have deemed it proper, in accordance with the course pursued by two of my predecessors, to purchase, for the use of the department, the necessary number of copies of a private edition, having first caused an examination to be made as to its correctness.

“The volume now sent is adopted as official, and you will be guided by it accordingly.

“J. HOLT, _Postmaster-General_.

“POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, May 15, 1859.”

The consequences resulting from the failure of Congress to make the necessary appropriation alluded to by Mr. Holt were materially felt by those who in good faith had performed their duty, by being compelled to obtain advances on their claims at a fearful sacrifice. Mr. Holt, alluding to this, says,—

“It is to be feared, however, that those whose circumstances obliged them to dispose of these securities have in many cases been compelled to submit to a heavy discount. I would most earnestly urge upon Congress the necessity of making an early appropriation to meet all the existing liabilities of the department. As the faith of the government has been broken, not only should the principal of these debts be promptly paid, but interest on them should also be allowed. In many instances this may prove but an imperfect indemnity for the damage which the creditors of the department have actually sustained; but this much, at least, is due, from the gravest considerations of public justice and policy, and cannot, in my judgment, be withheld without national dishonor.”

HORATIO KING was postmaster-general for a short time. He had, of course, no opportunity of displaying those qualities which a long connection with the postal department had enabled him to acquire. The appointment of Montgomery Blair, which was a settled matter, as the successor of Mr. Holt, limited his services. Glancing over official postal documents, we find his name frequently coupled with important matters in the department. It was during his short service as postmaster-general that the celebrated additional articles were made to those of the convention of March 2, 1857, between the post-office of the United States and the general post-office of France. (_See Report of the Postmaster-General for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1861._)

MONTGOMERY BLAIR.—This gentleman was appointed postmaster-general in 1861, forming one of the Cabinet under the administration of Abraham Lincoln.

Perhaps history affords no parallel to the state of affairs in our country when Abraham Lincoln took the Presidential chair. Our readers are all familiar with the history of this rebellion. We will not go over the grounds, dark and bloody as they are: suffice to say, the blow was struck, and treason assumed a bold and formidable front. The Constitution, even from its adoption, with all its amendments, has ever been a fruitful subject of dispute, more particularly with those whose interests were identified with the institution of slavery. To keep that peculiar institution—a relic of barbarism—intact, with their ideas of labor, men South advocated the idea that a sovereignty of States and their separate independency of the Union were guaranteed to them by the Constitution. This fatal error misled the ignorant: men of intellect, men educated in the Union, living under its Constitution and heretofore abiding by its laws, preached up a Utopian scheme to these misguided men. The South was to become the Eden of the world, and slavery its _Magna Charta_.

In the early part of Mr. Lincoln’s administration we edited a paper established for the purpose of maintaining his position and opposing the spirit of treason working its way North. We annex the following extract from an editorial article we wrote in 1861, being one of the editors of the “National Guard,” a paper devoted to the cause of the Union, the whole Union, and nothing but the Union:—

“When this distinguished man was first nominated for the Presidency, the grounds taken by the opposition were his abolition proclivities. Few people in the North were willing that the institution of slavery should go down beneath the Lincoln banner, and hence the increased opposition to the nomination and the powerful efforts to frustrate his election. _He was elected_: he became the President of these United States lawfully in the sight of men and of nations, and equally so in the sight of the Almighty. As President of the whole Union he took his seat. Men who expected to hear the thundertones of his official voice, “down with the South and slavery,” were surprised when they read his opinion upon the subject as President, differing in some respects from that expressed as a mere citizen. Being President, the various State interests had to be consulted: the South was upheaving with the curse of slavery upon it, and four millions of human beings were crying out for mercy. The position in which Mr. Lincoln was placed was a most delicate one: he could not maintain the high fanatical notions of many Northern men, nor would he indorse the actions of the Southerners, who feared that if the administration limited slavery it would ultimately lead to a decadency in their trade in human flesh. This was the state of matters when, in his appeal to the people for aid, he assured the South that he did not intend, in his official capacity, to interfere with their peculiar institution. Then the South dashed back the offered cup of peace presented to them in good faith, and spurned the hand that held it towards them. They feared the man; they feared the popular opinion uprising against slavery, and, deeming a portion of the North favorable to their cause, reared at once the standard of rebellion.

“Let our readers glance back to that period; let them take a view of a tall, pale man seated in the chair of state; let them look into his eyes, his soul, and see and even hear the beating pulse of the nation’s heart in his every fibre; let them look out and over the land and hear the maniacs of treason crying for his blood; let them look North, and even there hear the rebel sympathizers breathing curses loud and deep; let them read the first call for 75,000 troops, written with a nervous hand and a quailing heart; then look! behold! a nation obeys the call of the President, and the voice of the Union-loving people cheers and upholds him in his seat. The rebels find _no open aid North_. Covert, treacherous scoundrels, descendants of traitors, thieves, and murderers, met, it is true, in secret councils, but soon fell into their earthly hell before the indignant glance of an aroused people.

“Where now is slavery? Who struck at its very root and sent it shivering into pieces throughout the land? The very men who perfected and planned this revolution.

“Serpent-like, they bit themselves, and are now dying of the poison. Throughout the whole of these trying scenes—from the firing on Fort Sumter to the present—Abraham Lincoln has stood up firmly and consistently for the nation. Party questions have been repudiated and all sectional distinctions laid aside; for he had but one object, _that of saving the Union_! If to do this the destruction of the institution of slavery was necessary, its being powerless, helpless, and dead cannot be laid to his charge: it fell a victim to the acts of men who attempted to place it above the Constitution, and in the doing of which they have _crushed it and themselves out of the Union_. Thank God for this, the only good they have done!”[42]

Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet was composed of men who set themselves to work in earnest. What they have done is now our country’s glory, our nation’s triumph.

Mr. Blair, in his first report, speaking of the commencement of his term of office, says,—

“Soon after the commencement of my term of office, the country felt the shock of internecine arms. In view of the great crime attempted against the existence of the nation, it became the duty of this, in common with the other departments of the government, to put forth all its energies to prevent the consummation of that crime. By the existing laws, all postmasters and mail-carriers, and all other persons engaged in handling the mails of the United States, or in clerical service, were required to take the usual oath of allegiance to this government, as well as for the faithful performance of their duties. Whenever it was made apparent by their declarations or by their conduct that there was a practical repudiation of the obligation of this oath, whether the party was a postmaster or a postal contractor, I ordered a removal from office in the one case and the deprivation of contract in the other. Not only was it unsafe to intrust the transportation of the mails to a person who refused or failed to recognize the sanctions of an oath, but to continue payment of public money to the enemies of the government and their allies was to give direct aid and comfort to treason in arms. I could not thus permit this branch of government to contribute to its own overthrow. No other course could have reasonably been expected by such contractors. The _bonâ fide_ observance of that oath, and the duty of allegiance itself, entered into and became a condition, a part of the consideration, of the contract itself. This failing, the department was equitably and legally discharged from its literal obligations. Protection on the part of the government and allegiance on the part of the citizen are correlative, and are conditions mutually dependent in every contract; and the highest public interest demanded the rigid enforcement of this rule of action. Occasional local and transient inconvenience resulted of necessity, but far less than would reasonably have been expected. Loyal men everywhere sustained this action, and speedily furnished the requisite means for continuing the service without increased expense. These changes were mainly called for in parts of Virginia and Maryland and in Kentucky and Missouri.

“In the same and in neighboring districts the duties of the appointment-office have been very onerous, from the great number of changes required in post-offices, according to changing phases of public sentiment, individual action, and military occupancy. It is believed that these positions, with rare exceptions, are now held by men of unquestioned loyalty. Where such men could not be found, the offices have been discontinued rather than they should be held by repudiators of public faith and used for purposes hostile to the perpetuity of our national institutions.”

On the 23d of September, 1864, Montgomery Blair tendered his resignation of the office of postmaster-general, and the resignation was accepted by the President.

The causes which led to this action on the part of Judge Blair were of a political character, and of such a nature as to clash with the opinions of men who could have no feelings of sympathy with rebels in arms. Among the charges brought against Blair were those of opposition to the general acts of the administration. In answer to one of these, made by the editor of the “National Republican,” the judge wrote as follows:—

“WASHINGTON, September 26, 1864.

“EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN.—DEAR SIR:—The statement contained in your paper and other journals that my resignation was caused by the resolution of the Baltimore Convention referring to the Cabinet, has, I observe, led to the inference that the principles adopted by that body were objectionable to me. This is not true. On the contrary, my offers were made in good faith, with a view to allay animosities among the friends of those principles, and in order to secure their triumph.

“Yours, respectfully, M. BLAIR.”

The editor of the “United States Mail,” a most valuable post-office assistant, published in New York, noticing Judge Blair’s resignation and letter, says,—

“That the official course of Judge Blair as postmaster-general has furnished no cause of dissatisfaction, and had no connection with his resignation, is a fact vouched for by the President, who, in his letter of the 23d, says,—

“‘While it is true that the war does not so greatly add to the difficulties of your department as to those of some others, it is yet much to say, as I most truly can, that in the three years and a half during which you have administered the general post-office I remember no single complaint against you in connection therewith.’

“Judge Blair’s administration of the post-office department has given evidence of a sincere desire to promote the efficiency of the service, and has been marked by the introduction of many important improvements and reforms,—among them the establishment of the money-order system and the new travelling post-office, the simplification of post-office accounts by the substitution of salaries in lieu of commissions as compensation to postmasters, the free delivery of letters by carriers, with various other plans calculated to increase the postal accommodation of the public and further the interests of the service. He has been a faithful and efficient head of the department, and, as such, leaves a record of which he has no cause to be ashamed.”[43]

There is no question whatever that Postmaster-General Blair studied the interest of the department with an eye to its future destiny. He nourished it, watched it, and we may well say the postal tree is now known and appreciated by its fruit. In 1863 the “Boston Weekly Gazette” thus speaks of him:—

“At a time when war and finance are the all-absorbing themes, nationally speaking, but little attention is paid to the most quiet of our government departments, but none the less important,—the post-office. Of the management of this department too much cannot be said in its praise. When every thing is confused with crowded railroads and the interruption of conveyance threatened by the exigencies of other public service, every thing proceeds in the post-office department with almost the regularity of clock-work. Scarcely a mail fails in its destination, any more than if peace prevailed in the land and men had nothing to do but to think of duty connected with transportation exclusively. We think Postmaster-General Blair entitled to the warmest praise for this state of things, that certainly redounds greatly to his credit. No man has ever filled his position who has received more unanimity of approval; and not a complaint is heard of his management. We make these remarks simply because it has surprised us that our own papers to the farthest points reach with such regularity and promptness, and letters from all parts of the country come to us strictly on time.”

The history of Judge Blair since his resignation is identified with that of our politics, in which he seems to take _a peaceful interest_.

WILLIAM DENNISON.—On the resignation of the Hon. Montgomery Blair, the President appointed this gentleman postmaster-general. This appointment, of course, was made to reconcile political interest and extend to Ohio the right hand of government friendship, and not from any great knowledge Mr. Dennison was supposed to have of postal matters. In this country prominent positions under government are the result of the recipient’s _status_ in political circles. It is, therefore, evident that a knowledge of its duties is not an important requisite qualification for the office.

William Dennison was born in the city of Cincinnati, on the 9th day of November, 1815. His father was well known through more than half a century as a popular and prosperous innkeeper in the young and rapidly growing city, no citizen in the whole community being more respected for probity and general worth among the pioneer settlers of Ohio and their descendants. He took great pride in his promising son, young William, and largely devoted his pecuniary means to secure the boy a thorough and solid classical education. In preparation for his college course he had the benefit of the best schools and teachers in his native city, and in the year 1831 he entered freshman in the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, then and now a flourishing and highly-respected institution, which has educated many of the most prominent and powerful minds of the great and populous region north of the Ohio River, among whom are Caleb B. Smith, late Secretary of the Interior and formerly United States judge in Indiana, now deceased, Major-General Robert C. Schenck, Samuel Galloway, William S. Groesbeck, George E. Pugh, and others of equal note.