383

SOMETHING OF MEN I HAVE KNOWN

I
ON THE CIRCUIT

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY AFTER THE CIVIL WAR--SLAVERY THE APPLE OF
DISCORD BEFORE THE WAR--LINCOLN AS A COUNTRY LAWYER--SOCIABILITY
OF THE LAWYERS OF THE PERIOD--THEIR EXCELLENCE AS ORATORS--HENRY
CLAY AS A PARTY LEADER--EULOGIUMS ON LAWYERS--LINCOLN'S ADMIRATION
FOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT--THE WRITER'S ADDRESS ON THE LAW AND
LAWYERS.

The period extending from my first election to Congress in 1874,
to my retirement from the Vice-Presidency in 1897, was one of
marvellous development to the country. Large enterprises were
undertaken, and the sure foundation was laid for much of
existing business conditions. The South had recovered from the
sad effects of the Civil War, and had in a measure regained its
former position in the world of trade, as well as in that pertaining
to the affairs of the Government. The population of the country
had almost doubled; the ratio of representation in the Lower House
of Congress largely augmented; the entire electoral vote increased
from 369 to 444. Eight new States had been admitted to the Union,
thus increasing the number of Senators from seventy-four to ninety.

The years mentioned likewise witnessed the passing from the national
stage, with few exceptions, of the men who had taken a conspicuous
part in the great debates directly preceding and during the Civil War
and the reconstruction period which immediately followed. By
the arbitrament of war, and by constitutional amendment, old
questions, for a half-century the prime cause of sectional strife,
had been irrevocably settled, and passed to the domain of history.
New men had come to the front, and new questions were to be discussed
and determined.

To the student of history, the years immediately preceding the
Civil War are of abiding interest. In some of its phases slavery was
the all-absorbing subject of debate throughout the entire country.
It had been the one recognized peril to the Union since the formation
of the Government. Beginning with the debates in the convention
that formulated the Federal Constitution, it remained for seventy
years the apple of discord,--the subject of patriotic apprehension
and repeated compromise. The last serious attempt to settle
this question in the manner just indicated was by the adjustment
known in our political history as "the compromise measures of 1850."
These measures, although bitterly denounced