Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-08-04
JUDGE BLACK ON HANCOCK.

HamcocIc's Louisiana Orders the " Spoken
dot" of a Soldier ,cso SaUed OiviI Liber-
ty-"If Washington had been In Hun
cocks Place He ,vomld haze Done schat
Hancock Did,
To the Editor of the World.
PARIS, July 18.-Sir: cable dispatch
reached me at London, whence I answered
it more briefly, perhaps, than you expected,
but thought intelligibly enough. Your
later dispatch, which came to me here yes
terday now reply to by mail.
I infirred from your interrogatory that
some evil-disposed persons had been attrib-
uting to me the au thorship of the orders and
letters issued by General Hancock while he
commanded in Louisiana and Texas. NV
denial by telegraph was intended to cover
the whole ground. I neither wrote those
papers nor suggested word of them; had
no precognition of his views on the subject
to which they relate, and heard nothing
from him concerning it until he had taken
the public into his confidence. Indeed, my
personal acquaintance with him was then
very slight, and our relations not at all init
mate. The opinion that I would off er or he
would require my aid in producing such an
order as his No. 4Oj is absurd.
His determination to stand by
the constitution and the laws needed no ex-
preston but what he could give it better
than any man alive. 1t was not an argu-
ment, not an exposition of the law, not an
essay on the rights of man that was wanted
at that critical time. The spoken act of a
patriot soldier in high command alone
could save civil liberty from the destruction
with which it was threatened. That was
what Hancock did, and it was the timeliest
lift that the great cause ever got from any
hand except that of Washington.
| hope my admiration of the order in ques-
ton and the gratitude which have felt to
him for issuing it can reasonably be account
ed for without supposing that framed or
was general among the friends of constitu-
tional liberty, and expressed by many others
as strongly as by me, that General Hancock
had done much, and done bravely to rescue
the nation and save it alive, first from seces-
sionists, and afterwards from the more dan
gerous and more unprincipled oligarchy into
whose hands it fell after the war. At the
date of his service in Louisiana the beau
ideal of a "strong government" was in full
operation at Washington. conducted by men
who claimed to be absolute masters Of the
country. State rights, and, as q necessary
consequence, individual liberty, were vio-
lently trodden down, and the constitution
which should have made US free was habit
ually over ridden and insulted. What those
men called "the government" was not only
wondrous strong, but corrupt beyond all ex-
ample in modern times. Between its force
and its fraud the people were powerless, and
their despair was aggravated by an indefn-
able dread that the whole army might at any
moment be used to sink the nation into still
further degradation, if below that lowest
depth lower deep could be rescued. It was
in these circumstances that Hancock spoke
out those words of truth and soberness which
treasured the friends # free gov
eminent and inspired them with new
hopes. All who were near enough to watch
the current of that unequal contest between
absolutism and law can remember how the
enemies of the constitution were startled and
scared when they found that the most bril-
liant general of the Union had officially de-
clared himself opposed to their Savage
policy" They could not go upon him, nor
send upon him, nor in any manner destroy
him, for not only was the law of the land on
his side, but the army was found to be full
of sympathy with its conspicuously gallant
and faithful leader. So they were fain to
content themselves with harmless sneers and
petty prosecutions. But they removed him
from the place where his devotion to the
constitution was specially interfering with
their schemes to subvert it. When
they made up their minds to
strangle the liberties of State, to disperse q
legal legislature by brute force, to inaugur-
ate for governor shameless adventurer
known to have been defeated at the polls, or
to pin the people down with bayonets while
they were plundered by alien thieves vino
claimed to be their representatives and Off
GERS, somebody else was employed to do the in
famous work. Still more carefully did they
avoid his presence when the whole nation
was to be swindled at Presidential election.
| 1t was for such reasons that the heart of the
country warmed to General Hancock az its
predestined deliverer.
It has often happened that the best things
of the greatest men are attributed to others
who are wholly incapable of them. The
opinion was industriously propagated and
accepted by great many as true that Ham
ilton wrote the farewe II address of Washing.
ton, but the evidence is conclusive which
shows that every word of that immortal pro-
duction came from Washington himself; and
Hamilton could not have written it any more
than he could have made world. Some of
Jackson's most characteristic papers, bear
ing the full impress of his own mind, were
habitually credited to persons of far inferior
ability. When it was charged against
Jefferson that he wrote Logan's speech,
he solemnly declared that he was
unequal to such composition. am not
affecting modesty when claim credence of
my present denial for similar reason. I
could not have written Hancock's No. 40
not because pretend to be dumb or alto
gether unskiled in the use of English
words, but because il l had undertaken to
write it the chances are ninety-nine in a
hundred that my augmentation would have
marred its majestic simplicity and greatly
diminished its power. When public man,
especially military man, meets grave re-
sponsibllity, saying no more nor less than
| just the thing he ought, but saying that
with unequiyocal clearness, you may be
sure he is the interpreter of his own
thoughts. At any rate, the attempt is un-
Just to bastardize No. 40 by assigning to 1t
an origin totally different from the true
/ one.
Why shonld my opinion be asked or
volunteered on General Hancock as q
civilian? Anybody else who has watched his
| life ia "a good a iudpe as l. and there are