Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-07
HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
AN EaRLY LANDMARK OF THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY.
The Last OF the Men Who in 1860
We're Candidates on the
National Tickets

The anniversary of Lipcoln's birthday
which was never so widely celebrated as in
this year, 1883, brought many of the first
ns-oid-timers-into notice. All
over the country they have been heard of
by hundreds, who for years have imagined
that most of them had long since paid
their last debt to nature Perhaps, says
the New York Graphic editorially, among
all the veterans that the occasion brought
out none was at one time more prominent,
in war days, when history was made, than
Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine. He is one
of the few men still living who were con-
spieuous in the Republican party at the
time of its first national canvass, in 1856.
Forty-five years have rolled away since
Mr.. Hamlin, then in his thirty year,
was elected to Congress, after having made
an unsuccessful fight for the place two
years before. He was Democrat, and
considered strong and faithful party man.
Indeed, he was sent to the United States
Senate by that party, and was practically
its leader in Maine. When the Republi-
can party was organized he fell away from
his old political allegiance, and since that
time has been an aggressive leader Of the
most advanced and radical wing of the Re-
publican organization. Nearly eighty years
of age-he was born in lS09-he still APP
parently retains much of the physical and
mental vigur which thirty years ago made
him recognized as one of the best political
campaigners in New England. He has
grown to be an historical character. OF
the eight men on those famous national
tickets of 1860, when the country stood on
the verge Of great CONFUSION, he is the
only one now living. John Bell, who car
ried the standard Of the Union party in
that campaign, lived long enough to learn
that the arbitrament OF battle had forever
settled the questions of slavery and seces-
sion in this country, and before he died IN
his home in Nashville, Tenn, in 1860, he
had acknowledged that the temporary truce
his party had held out would have only
postponed the struggle and would not have
forever prevented it.
Edward Everett, the great Massachusetts
orator, who was Mr.. Bells associate, passed
away amid the sounds of the last guns of
the war that he had in his brotherly,
kindly way hoped to suppress He did not
live long enough to hear the echoing
shouts of victory that greeted the grand
army as it marched through Washington
in the bright spring days of 1865, for early
i'll January of that year all Boston, and
much of New England, had stood with I'M
covered heads and watched the cortege
that bore him to the grave.
Stephen A. Douglas looked his last look
on this earth during the first throes of the
rebellion that he had foreseen and was pre-
pairing to aid in suppressing, for in the
June days of 1861, at Chicago, he, too, was
laid at rest amid the sorrow, not Of State
alone, but of the nation he had served so
we'll. Herschel V. johnson, who was the
candidate on the ticket with the little
giant" dropped away after the war out of
public notice, and died quietly and almost
forgotten in his Georgia home nearly ten
years ago.
John c. Breckenridge ought to have
been living and in the prime of life to- day
in his early sixties, but the war left him
poor, stranded and a fugitive from his
home among the rollicking, careless-lived
habitues OF the Students Quarter in Paris.
When he could return he did so, and in
May, 1875, breathed his last at his old
home, Lexington, KY.
Joseph Lane, of Oregon, who in the
fighting days of the Mexican war was the
idol of the Northwest, and Governor.
member of Congress and Senator from the
new State, saw his political future forever
clouded when he and Breckenridge met
their great defeat. He died in obscurity
and poverty about two years after Breck-
enridge had been carried to the grave
So the old Maine statesman is the last of
the list, and as he stood up in the rooms of
the Republican Club at Portland, Me-, on
Lincoln's anniversary, is it to be wondered
that with dimmed eyes and sometimes
tremulous voice he talked of IT, past and
of his friends and associates Ia the old
days, with the tone of man whose race
in life was finished, and who was longing
for the rest that the grave brings to us all