The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-03
HEREDITARY LEGISLATORS ENGLAND
AND AMERICA


HEREDITARY LEGISLATORS ENGLAND
AND AMERICA.
From the NJ y. sun.
A thoughtful antiquarian has said that the
tendency of families, whose founders were
great or brilliant, is to dwindle and fade
when exposed to the storms and heats of a
long series of years. In a recent attempt to
test this theory by a reference to the British
House of Peers, we by no means meant TO in
sinuate that family decadence was peculiar
to Englshmen, or to an assembly of here
ditary legislators.
Among the wild projects ahoat at the close
of our Revolutionary war was plan to make
the United States Senate an hereditary body.
If this notion had been reduced to practice.
Washington, Adams and Jay would have
been provided for 10y making them President.
Nice-President, and Chief Justice respective
ly. To have filed the twenty or thirty Sena-
torial seats, resort would of course have been
had to conspicuous actors in the great drama
of the Revolution. The army would have
furnished Knox, Schuyler, Greene, Hamilton
and Gates; and had the current set strongly in
that direction, it might have swept in Light
horse Harry, Swamp-Fox Marion, Old Put,
and Mad Anthony Wayne.
From the civil ranks New England would
have supplied Sherman, Hancock, Ellsworth,
and George Cabot; the Middle States Frank
and Robert Morris; while the South might
have contributed Jefferson, Patrick Henry,
the two Pinckneys of South Carolina, both of
whom were run for the Presidency by the
Federalists, and Madison, called the father of
the Constitution.
Following the English example, the twenty
years Immediately succeeding the adoption of
the Constitution would have seen some fresh
| blood infused into our republican House of
In Nov
| Ames, and Samuel Dexter could not have
| been overlooked: and the Middle States
| would have doubtless secured baronial honors
| for Gailatin, Gouvemeur Morris, Kent, and
| Samuel Smith of Maryland who served nearly
| forty years in Congress-, and whom Benton
| pronounced one of the wisest of American
statesmen. The South would have obtained
coronets for Monroe, Marshall, Gaillard who
| was President pro tem of the Senate for fif-
teen years, and Farmer Giles, the idol of JEFF
| ferson; while the West, then rising into
| notice, might have been content with John
| BreCkinridge, the founder of the Kentucky
family, and Joseph Anderson, whom Tennes-
see kept in the Senate from 1898 to 1915.
During the next period of twenty years,
| from the Inauguration of Madison in 1909 to
| the advent of jackson in 1929, more fresh
| blood would have been needed, not only to
| keep up the vigor of the Senate but to keep
| pace with the increasing number of States.
In allotting lordly escutcheons east of the
| Hudson, John Quincy Adams, Webster, the
classic Everett, John Holmes, as a reward for
services rendered to Maine in the Missouri
struggle, and jeremiah Mason, who served
| New Hampshire III the Senate, who success
fully defended the Rev. Ephraim X Avery
| for murder, and whom Webster pronounced
the greatest lawyer of his acquaintance, must
| have been made recipients.
In the Middle States we should have had De
| Witt Clinton; Decatur, our chief naval hero
William Pinkney, the eloquent lawyer and
accomplished diplomat; Writ, and Van Buren,;
and the South would have received titles for
Calhoun, Crawford, Macon, Mr.. Speaker
Cheves, and General Scott, the hero of Chip
pewa. The West would have bestowed her
honors upon Jackson, Clay, and Benton, and,
the country being hard up for military chief
tains, very likely upon General Harrison,
whom the Democrats used to call by the fond
name of Granny" and upon Colonel Dick
johnson, who was at one time charged,
though we think uniustly, with having cut
short the earthly career of Tecumseh.
We will not come down any later, lest we
tread on delicate ground. The fifty or sixty
names we have presented were, in their seve-
raj eras, vOcations, sections, and parties, the
most eminent and conspicuous in the country.
Omitting three or four obvious exceptions,
which Will occur to every reader and without
reference to original members that would
have been added to the Senatorial rolls since
the commencement of Jackson's administra.
ton, we ask what sort of an Upper House
should we have had to-day if its chairs were
filed with the tirst-born heirs of the great
historic characters we have enumerated:
With three or four exceptions the descend
ants of those distinguished men are SO OBJ
scure and uninfiuential that, in regard to most
of them, even well-informed persons hardly
know whether there are any such descendants
or not.
When brought home to ourselves, and
ence, this system of hereditary Senate ap
pears exquisitely absurd. Is there any rea
son why it should work less absurdly in Eng
land In a word, if blood will tell, why
doesn't it?