Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois (Classic Reprint) Review
FOREWORD
OH, that mine adversary had written a bookl"
Such was the exclamation of one who, through the
centuries, has been held up to the world as the symbol of patience
and long sufi' ering endurance, and who believed that
he thus expressed the surest method of confounding an
enemy.
I have come to that age in life where I feel somewhat indifferent
Soc; to consequences, and, yielding to the suggestions
and insistence of friends, I determined that I would undertake
to write some recollections, as they occurred to me, of
the men and events of my time.
Naturally, to me the history of the period covered by my
life since 1829 is particularly interesting. I do not think
that those who do me the honor of reading this narrative will
say that I am prejudiced when I assert that while this period
has not been great in Art and Letters, from a material,
scientific, and industrial standpoint it has been the most wonderful
epoch in all the world's history.
About the period of my
Table of ContentsCONTENTS; PAGE; BIRTH TO ADMISSION TO THE BAR, 1829 TO 1855 1; SERVICE AS CITY ATTORNEY AT SPRINGFIELD, 1855 AND; 1856 14; ELECTION TO THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE: LINCOLNDOUGLAS; DEBATES, 1856 TO 1858 • ££; OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS OF THAT DAY, 1858; ANn 1859 33; NOMINATION OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS FOR THE PRESIDENCY,; 1859 AND 1860 57; SPEAKER OF THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE, AND A MEMBER; OF CONGRESS, 1860 TO 1865 74; LINCOLN, 1860 TO 1864 82; NOTABLES IN THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS, 1864 TO; 1870 109; IX THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON 143; X SPEAKER OF THE LEGISLATURE, AND GOVERNOR, 1871 TO; 1883 159; XI GRANT 169; XII GENERAL JOHN A LOGAN • 180; XIII