James Harlan

JAMES HARLAN.

HON. JAMES HARLAN, late Secretary of the Interior and now United States Senator from Iowa, was born in Clark county, Illinois, August 26th, 1820. When he was three years of age his parents removed to Indiana, where he was employed during his minority in assisting his father upon the farm. His early advantages of education were small but they were improved to the utmost. In the year 1841, he entered the preparatory department of Asbury University, then under the presidency of the present Bishop Simpson. He graduated from the university with honor, in 1845, having paid his way by teaching, at intervals, during his college course.

In the winter of 1845-6, he was elected professor of languages in Iowa City college, and removed thither. He soon became popular in the city and State, and in 1847 was elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction. His competitor for this office was Hon. Charles Mason, a distinguished graduate of West Point, who had served as Chief Justice of the Federal court of Iowa Territory during the whole period of its existence, a gentleman of great ability and unblemished reputation, and the nominee of the Democratic party, who had been, and subsequently were, the dominant party in the State. His election over such a competitor was highly creditable to him, especially as he bad been a resident of the State but two years.

In 1848, Mr. Harlan was superseded by Thomas H. Benton, Jr., who was reported by the canvassing officers elected by seventeen majority. The count was subsequently conceded to have been fraudulent, though Mr. Benton was not cognizant of the fraud. Mr. Harlan had been for some time engaged in the study of law, in his intervals of leisure, and now applied himself to it more closely, and was admitted to the bar in 1848. He continued the practice of his profession for five years, and was eminently successful in it. During this period (in 1849) he was nominated by his party for governor, but not being of the constitutional age for that office, he declined the nomination.

In accordance with the custom and the Constitution of Iowa, the Senate and House of Representatives of the Iowa Legislature met, in joint session, soon after the first of January, 1855, to elect a Senator and judges. The two parties were nearly balanced in both houses, and at first there was no election; they adjourned from day to day, when the Democrats found that a majority could be obtained on joint ballot for Mr. Harlan as Senator, and to prevent this, the Democratic members of the State Senate withdrew, intending thereby to render an election void. But as the Democratic members of the House remained, there was a quorum of the joint session present, and Mr. Harlan was elected by a clear majority of both houses.

On his election to the Senate, Mr. Harlan resigned the presidency of the university, but accepted the professorship of political economy and international law, to which he was immediately elected, and which he still holds.

He took his seat in the United States Senate, December 3d, 1855, and his first formal speech was made on the 27th of March, 1856, on the question of the admission of Kansas. It was pronounced at the time, by both friends and foes, the ablest argument on that side of the question delivered during the protracted debate. Later in the session, on the occasion of his presenting the memorial of James H. Lane, praying the acceptance of the petition of the members of the Kansas territorial Legislature, for the admission of their territory into the Union as a State, he administered a most scathing rebuke to the Democratic majority in the Senate for their tyrannical and oppressive course in regard to Kansas. The Republicans at this time numbered but a baker's dozen in the Senate, and it had been the fashion with the Democratic majority to refuse intercourse, and a place on the committees, to some of them on the ground that they were outside of any healthy political organization. They had been disposing, as they hoped, forever, of the Republican leader in the Senate (Mr. Sumner), by the use of the bludgeon, and they were greatly enraged at the castigation which they now received from another member of the little band, and resolved to rid themselves of him.

For this purpose, nursing their wrath to keep it warm, called up the action of the Democrats of the Iowa Senate to which we have already alluded, and early in the second session of the Thirty-fourth Congress, introduced a resolution that "James Harlan is not entitled to his seat as a Senator from Iowa." The resolution was fiercely debated, but the majority, confident in their strength, passed it by a full party vote on the 12th of January, 1857.

Their triumph was short. Immediately on the passage of the resolution Mr. Harlan left Washington for Iowa City, where the State Legislature, now unmistakably Republican, was in session; he arrived there on Friday evening, January 16th. On the next day, Saturday, he was re-elected by both houses to the Senate, spent a few days at his home in Mount Pleasant, returned to Washington, was re-sworn, and resumed his seat on the 29th of January. The next session of Congress brought valuable additions to the strength of the Republican party in the Senate, but it had no truer member than Mr. Harlan, and his fearlessness, conscientiousness, industry, integrity, and ability as a debater, made him an acknowledged leader in it. In 1861, he was re-elected for the term ending March 4th, 1867, without a dissenting voice in his party at home.

He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1861, but after seeing the members sent from the slave States, and witnessing the election of Ex-President John Tyler presiding officer, be predicted that its deliberations would end in a miserable failure.

During the whole course of the war, he was the earnest sup-porter of President Lincoln, whose personal friendship he enjoyed; and through all the light and gloom of that dark period, his faith in the right never faltered, and his activity and zeal were not checked by depressing emotions. He and his accomplished and gifted wife were throughout the war among the most active helpers in the work of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, ministering in person to the wounded, and aiding, with pen and purse, the efforts for their welfare.

As a Senator, as the published debates of Congress show, he argued and elucidated with great clearness and conclusiveness every phase of the question of slavery and emancipation, in all their social, legal and economic ramifications—the exclusion of slavery from the territories—the constitutional means of restriction—climatic influences on the races, white and black—the necessity or propriety of colonization—and the effects of emancipation on the institutions of the country North and South.

He was the earnest advocate of the early construction of the Pacific Railroad—had made himself, by a careful examination, master of the whole subject—was consequently appointed a member of the "Senate Committee on the Pacific Railroad;" and when the two bodies differed as to the details of the bill, he was made chairman of the committee of conference of the two houses, and did more than any other living man to reconcile conflicting views on the amended bill which afterwards became the law of the land.

As chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, he exerted a controlling influence in shaping the policy of the Government in the disposition of the public domain, so as to aid in the construction of railroads, and the improvement of other avenues of intercourse, as well as to advance the individual interests of the frontier settler, by facilitating his acquisition of a landed estate, and also by securing a permanent fund for the support of common schools for the masses, and other institutions of learning. Under his guidance the laws for the survey, sale, and pre-emption of the public lands were harmonized, and the homestead bill so modified, as to render it a practical and beneficent measure for the indigent settler, and at the same time but slightly, if at all, detrimental to the public treasury. And on this as well as that other great national measure, the Pacific Railroad bill, above mentioned, when the two houses disagreed as to details, Mr. Harlan was selected by the President of the Senate, to act as chairman of the committee of conference.

His thorough acquaintance with the land laws, his clear perception of the principles of justice and equity which should control in their administration, and his unwearied industry and care in the examination of all claims presented to Congress growing out of the disposition of the public lands to private citizens, corporations, or States—caused him to be regarded almost in the light of an oracle, by his compeers in the Senate, whenever any of these claims were pending; his statements, of fact were never disputed, and his judgment almost always followed.

Immediately after he was placed upon the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, it became manifest that he had made himself master of that whole subject in all of its details. He consequently exercised a leading influence on the legislation of Congress affecting our intercourse with these children of the forest; humanity and justice to them, as well as the safety of the frontier settlements from savage warfare, with him were cardinal elements, to guide him in shaping the policy of the Government. The effect of the repeal, over Mr. Harlan's earnest protest, of the beneficent features of the Indian intercourse laws, under the lead of Senator Hunter, which, all admit, laid the foundation for our recent Indian wars, furnishes a marked illustration of the safety of his counsels in these affairs.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, lie was the ea-nest advocate of every measure calculated to develop and advance that great national interest, and prepared the only report, marked by scientific research, made on that subject by the Senate Committee during the last ten years. He gave his earnest support to the Agricultural College bill, though in conflict with his views of the proper policy for the disposition of the public lands, because he regarded it as the only opportunity for laying firmly the foundation for these nurseries of scientific agriculture, which must prove of vast consequence for good, to the whole people of this continent, and the toiling millions of the old world.

Though never unjust or illiberal toward the older and more powerful members of the Union, he has ever been the vigilant guardian of the peculiar interests of the new States, including his own. He has also been a no less vigilant guardian of the public treasury, though never lending himself to niggardly and parsimonious measures.

His inauguration of the proposition for the construction of a ship canal from the northern lakes to the waters of the Mississippi (see Congress. Globe, 2d session, 36 Congress, Part I.); his opposition to legislation on the Sabbath ; his introduction of resolutions on fasting and prayer; his propositions for reform in the chaplain service of the army and navy ; in aid of foreign emigration; the reconstruction of the insurrectionary States ; the reclamation of the Colorado desert ; the improvement of navigation of lakes and rivers ; the application of meteorological observations in aid of agriculture to land as well as sea ; for the support of scientific explorations and kindred measures; for reform in criminal justice in the District of Columbia and in the territories; and his remarks on such subjects as the bankrupt bill; the Kentucky Volunteers bill; the bill to re-organize the Court of Claims; on the resolution relating to Floyd's accept. ances; on the bill to indemnify the President; on the conscription bill; on the conditions of release of State prisoners; on the disqualification of color in carrying the mails ; on the organization of territories; on amendment to the Constitution; on the district registration bill ; on bill to establish Freedmen's Bureau ; on inter-continental telegraph; on bill providing bail in certain cases of military arrests ; on the construction of railroads; on education in the District of Columbia for white and colored children; on the Income Tax bill; altogether furnish an indication of the range of his acquirements, the tendency of his thoughts, and the breadth of his views, which cannot otherwise be given in a sketch necessarily so brief as to exclude copious extracts from published debates.

Among his numerous eloquent and elaborate speeches in the Senate, we have only room for a brief abstract of one, which must serve as a sample of the whole. It is that delivered in reply to Senator Hunter of Virginia, during the winter of 1860-61, immediately preceding the first overt acts of the rebellion. This speech was characteristic in clearness, method, directness, force, and conclusiveness, and was regarded, by his associates in the Senate, as the great speech of the session. In the commencement, he examined and exposed, in their order, every pretext for secession, and proceeded to charge upon the authors of the then incipient rebellion, with unsurpassed vigor and force, that the loss of political power was their real grievance. He indicated the impossibility of any compromise, on the terms proposed by the southern leaders, without dishonor, and pointed out the means of an adjustment alike honorable to the South and the North, requiring no retraction of principle on the part of any one, by admitting the territories into the Union as States. He warned the South against a resort to an arbitrament of the sword; predicted the impossibility of their sec 'ring a division of the States of the northwest from the Middle and New England States the certainty and comparative dispatch with which an armed rebellion would be crushed, and concluded with a most powerful appeal to these conspirators. not to plunge the country into such a sea of blood. Upon the conclusion of this speech four fifths of the Union Senators crowded around to congratulate him, and a state of excitement prevailed on the floor of the Senate for some moments, such as had seldom if ever before been witnessed in that body.

He was selected by the Union members of the House and Senate as a member of' the Union Congressional committee for the management of the presidential campaign of 1864. Being the only member of the committee on the part of the Senate who devoted his whole time to this work, he became the active organ of the committee—organized an immense working force, regulated its finances with ability and unimpeachable fidelity, employed a large number of presses in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, in printing reading matter for the masses, which resulted in the distribution of many millions of documents among the people at home, and in all our great armies. To his labors the country was, doubtless, largely indebted, for the triumphant success of the Union candidates.

With the foregoing record, it is not remarkable that he should have been selected by that illustrious statesman and patriot, Abraham Lincoln, immediately preceding his lamented death, for the distinguished office of Secretary of the Interior.
  

The fact becoming manifest to the people of Iowa, that Mr. Harlan could not long remain as a confidential adviser of President Johnson, on account of the early and repeated aberrations of the latter from the cardinal principles of the political party by whom he had been elected to the vice-presidency, and not being disposed to dispense with the services of so faithful a public servant, he was re-elected by the Legislature of 1866, to his old seat in the United States Senate. The following August he resigned the office of Secretary of the Interior, and re-entered the Senate Chamber on the 4th of March, 1867, with the full period of six years before him. He was immediately appointed _chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, also chairman of the joint committee of the two Houses of Congress to audit expenses of executive mansion, and was assigned to membership on the important committees of Foreign Relations, Pacific railroad, and Post Offices, and Post roads, respectively.

Mr. Harlan is still (1872) a member of the Senate, though his term expires March 3rd, 1873, and Hon. James F. Wilson, an able statesman of the same party, has been elected his successor.

Mr. Harlan's early record was so pure and creditable to him, that it is hardly probable that he has done anything to mar it; yet it is very difficult for a Senator or Representative in Con. gross who pushes forward the great land jobbing grants to the Western Railroads to avoid a suspicion of having shared in the profits thus ensured to his clients. Mr. Harlan has been accused, and with great vehemence, of participating in the benefits of these land-grants, but he has defended himself with a good deal of ability, and some asperity, and his innocence is to be presumed. That these charges defeated his re-election is asserted, and is probable, but their truth is not proved thereby.

Source: Source: Men of Our Day; or Biographical Sketches of Patriots, Orators, Statesmen, Generals, Reformers, Financiers and Merchants, Now on the state of Action: Including Those Who in Military, Political, Business and Social Life, are the Prominent Leaders of the Time in This Country, by L. P. Brockett, M. D., Published by Ziegler and McCurdy, Philadelphia Penna; Springfield, Mass; Cincinnati, Ohio; St. Louis, Mo., 1872  

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