CHAPTER V.

THE CONGRESSMAN AND HIS RECORD-CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES.

R. FILLMORE was re-elected, and again took

his seat in December, 1839. The House was again organized in the interest of the Democratic party, but not without a noteworthy contest, in which Mr. Fillmore took an active part. The division of the House between the two parties was now very close, and five of the six seats from New Jersey were contested, although all of them had certificates signed by the governor. The Whigs contended that the certificates of the governor were enough to give the five members their seats in the organization, which, it was believed, would put that party in the majority. But the Democrats as stubbornly held that the House should organize without these members, and then investigate their right to seats. The five claimants were Whigs, and this altered the case.

The Democrats carried their point in the organization, and also afterwards succeeded in having the five contested seats filled by Democrats. Mr. Fillmore was placed on the Committee on Elections, and more than at any former time displayed his real ability and strength.

One of his campaign biographers and friends wrote of his course in this exciting contest:

"Mr. Fillmore was assigned a prominent place on that committee, and distinguished himself by the zeal and ability with which he supported the claim of the New Jersey members. But with a majority, both of the House and the committee, against him, it was not to have been expected that he would be successful in controlling a result which was determined on strictly party grounds. The investigation ran on until nearly the middle of March. Mr. Fillmore was prevented from reading a minority report, and, by an appeal from the decision of the Chair, who, in determining a point of order, had assigned him. the floor, he was silenced while attempting to make a speech. Mr. Fillmore was justly indignant at treatment. so unfair, and finding it impossible to gain a hearing in the House, he addressed a long and very elaborate letter to his constituents, in which he ably, and with great clearness, argued all the questions involved in the New Jersey case. The manner in which he was treated by the majority showed how formidable they considered his opposition. The ability and spirit he evinced in that celebrated controversy had a great influence in gaining for him the confidence of his party, and giving him his important position in the next Congress, when the Whigs came into power. His immediate constituents testified their approbation of his course by bestowing on him at the next election the largest majority ever given in his Congressional District."

In representing this case and himself to his constituents, Mr. Fillmore said:

"Let us, like true philosophers, draw wisdom from this calamity, and turn to that revered charter of our liberties and calmly review its provisions, before we conclude its

venerated authors contemplated a proceeding so revolting and dangerous as that which has just been witnessed. The Constitution provides that 'each House shall be the judge of the election returns and qualifications of its own members.' It is clear that this clause of the Constitution created the House a high judicial tribunal to hear and finally determine, first, who was 'elected;' secondly, who was returned;' thirdly, whether the person thus elected and returned possessed the requisite 'qualifications.' I conceive that these three subjects of judicial investigation by the House are entirely distinct, and that any attempt to confound them must inevitably lead to confusion and error.

"It is obvious that one man may be duly elected by receiving the greatest number of legal votes; and that, by some accident or fraud, another may be duly returned; and that a man may be duly elected and returned, and yet not be qualified; for the Constitution expressly declares, 'that no person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States; and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant, of that State in which he shall be chosen.'

"I, therefore, submit it to you, as my immediate constituents, to whom I am responsible for my official act, to say whether I have done right in opposing this disorganizing and unlawful proceeding from the commencement; whether I have done right in insisting that the persons, only, returned should, in the first instance, take their seats; whether I have done right, after these returns and the laws and commissions from the executive of a sovereign State were trampled under foot, to insist on a full inquiry into all the frauds charged, to ascertain who was elected; and, finally, whether I did right, when I saw the most venerated and sacred principle of the Constitution about to be desecrated, and the right of speech tyrannically sup

pressed, to stand up and resist the despotic assumption of power to the last."

Fillmore's course in Congress had given great satisfaction to his supporters. In the election of 1840 they attested the fact by giving him the highest majority he had yet received. The Democrats were everywhere discomfited and defeated at this time. Not only were the Whig President and Vice-President elected by a vast electoral majority after a most wonderful contest, but both Houses of Congress were captured by the Whigs, and to all appearances a new order of things was about to be organized upon the top of Jackson's revolution. Few men, perhaps, doubt to-day that the establishment of another United States Bank on the plan of the first would have been a calamity and a retrogression in national growth. Not a few men have believed that General Harrison would not have sanctioned such a course in spite of the Whig leaders. However this might have been, the result was not destined to hang upon this uncertainty. Yet it is not designed here to put forth the theory that the removal of General Harrison, and the substitution of one who had always been unfavorable to the old Government banking system, was a part of the "mysterious Providence that shapes all things well." To those who find consolation in such an optimistic solution of human affairs on this globe there has long been apparent a complete compensatory ground for the early death of the generous and trusted Harrison, on the supposition that he would have sanc

tioned a restoration of the Bank when the country was well over the convulsions occasioned by its overthrow, and on the way to a better state of finance.

Nor is it necessary to stop here to question the fact that the history of the past, where men have been most disappointed and aggrieved, has again and again been greatly relieved by the light of future events. Thus in the flight of time and the growth. of mind and life, little and great calamities are softened or disappear. The violent deaths of Abraham Lincoln and General Garfield have not yet been mitigated by ameliorating circumstances and benefits, and especially in the case of the latter the people gave way like idol-worshiping children, and acted as if Heaven had also been worsted, and as if God could not at any time be able to help man to a grain of consolation or compensation for a calamitous event.

Mr. Fillmore again took his place in Congress in the summer of 1841, at the extra session called by President Harrison. The great expectations of the Whigs were not unmixed with anxiety; but the House was organized by the election of Whig officers, and the appointment of Whigs to the leading places in the important committees. The Democrats had fallen to a minority of forty or fifty in the House, and even in the Senate the Whigs had a majority. A Vice-President now for the first time became President. It was a remarkable and exciting period in the country's history. Three memorable sessions. of Congress now followed, made especially so by the