The Irish standard., 1905-03-04
He Was Retired Because He Refused to
Vote Johnson Guilty After Serving
Illinois For 18 Years.
Now His Action in Voting Not Guilty is
Commended For the Case Against
johnson Was Due ito Malice.

Some ten years ago Champ Clark
delivered a most entertaining and in
structive speech in the House of Rep
resentatives on the subject of COB
scure Heroes" and on that occasion
Mr.. Clark impaired to his colleagues
a big batch of curious and more or
less valuable information, says the
Cincinnati Enquirer. Mr.. Clark might
supplement the speech with chapter
on statesmen conspicuous and obscure.
The list is large, and such a speech
might be elaborated into voluminous
history. And the best chapter of that
history would be that devoted to men
once in the forefront on the public
stage, but later retired to private life
by an erratic and whimsical constitu-
ency, and that very thing has deprived
America Of the services of many Of it's
ablest and best, though it never affects
your charlatan or your blatherskite in
craftsmanship. A footman in Parlia-
ment could have carried out the in
structions of the constituency of Bris-
tol; it took q Burke to disregard them.
Lyman Trumbull might have ended
his days Senator in Congress had he
voted Andrew Johnson guilty, and
sustained the administration of Gen
eral Grant. He did neither, and was
retired, though he had served Illinois
for 1S years in the Senate with sig
nal ability unequaled by any other
man save Stephen A. Douglas, and
that no other Senator from Illinois, be-
fore or since, ever approached. John
G.. Carlisle and William Lindsay
would be Senators from Kentucy this
moment had they stopped to the prac-
tices and the acts Of demagoges Or the
faker. The list is innumerable.
There was time when men volun-
tarily retired from high place at
Washington to accept subordinate
service in the state government. I be-
1ieve Henry Clay resigned seat in
the United States Senate to become a
member of the House of Representa-
tives of the Kentucky General Assem-
bly,. De Witt Clinton resigned seat
in the Federal Senate to become May
or of New York, when New York was
about the size of the Omaha Of today.
Caleb Gushing was a member Of the
Massachusetts, Legislature after he had
held a seat in Congress for many
years. Can you imagine Henry Cabot
Lodge, if not the first man Of the
United States Senate of 1905, next to
frst-can you imagine Mr.. Lodge in
the Massachusetts, Legislature? AS
well try to put Webster or Sumner
there. 1t is perhaps, worthy Of note
that in that admirable Grafton he pro-
nounced in eulogy Of his dead col
league, Mr.. Hoar, Senator Lodge en-
ploys the expression, Ambassador
from a sovereign state," when defining
the Office of United States Senator,
and that is very good title for it; but
1ACny w 1lSOll, OuCc IL EScilitlOI lIOl1
Massachusetts, would not have
touched the phrase with the tongs,
and had Garrett Davis, of Kentucky,
instead of John T. Morgan, of Ala
bama, been the inventor of it, there is
small doubt that Wilson would have
made it count in his accusation of
Davis in the Senate of some 40 years
ago.
Lyman Trumbull was one of the
very great Senators at time when
the golden age of America parliamen-
tary eloquence and excellence was yet
at it's zenith. In the fifties he was
prominent among Douglas, Davis,
Toombs, Benjamin, Green, Critenden,
Sumner, Chase, Seward, Mason, Hun
ter, Slidell, Houston and others of that
race Of giants, and for eighteen years
he was leader in one of the greatest
deliberative bodies in the world. He
came to the Senate in 1856, and his
election was the protest of Illinois
against the Kansas-Nebraska bill of
Stephen A. Douglas. In 1850 Douglas
had returned home and dispelled the
storm the compromise and the fugi-
tive slave law had occasioned, but he