Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois (Classic Reprint)

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 Contents

CONTENTS; 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

Isham G. Harris of Tennessee: Confederate Governor and United States Senator (Southern Biography)

Isham G. Harris of Tennessee: Confederate Governor and United States Senator (Southern Biography) Review

In 1931, when the Nashville Banner conducted a survey to determine the "Greatest Tennesseans" to date, the state's Confederate "War Governor," Isham G. Harris (1818-1897), was tenth on the list, behind such famous Tennesseans as Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1976, however, when the Banner once again conducted the survey, Harris did not appear in even the top twenty-five. The result of fading memories and the death of the generation that knew him, the glaring omission of Harris's name still seemed striking and undeserved. In Isham G. Harris of Tennessee, Sam Davis Elliott offers the first published biography of this overlooked leader, establishing him as the most prominent Tennessean in the Confederacy and a dominating player in nineteenth-century Tennessee politics.

Harris grew up on the frontier in Middle Tennessee, the youngest of a large family. He left home as a teenager, and found and lost a fortune in the boom and bust times of 1830s in Mississippi and West Tennessee. Admitted to the bar in 1841, he enjoyed almost immediate success as an attorney because of his quick intellect, naturally aggressive nature, and native ability to influence people. He launched a political career in 1847 that lasted, with some interruption, for fifty years, having never lost an election. Harris rose to prominence in the 1850s as the leader of the southern rights wing of the Democratic Party, fiercely advocating the right to hold property in slaves. He served in the Tennessee state Senate, as a U.S. congressman, and as governor during the secession crisis, when, Elliott contends, Harris used his political influence and constitutional power to trample on the state constitution to align Tennessee with the Confederacy.

As governor, Harris tirelessly dedicated himself to the Confederate war effort, raising troops and money and establishing a logistical structure and armament industry. When the Federals overran large portions of Middle and West Tennessee in 1862, he attached himself to the headquarters of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. As a volunteer aide, he served each of the army's commanders on nearly every one of its famed battlefields and was deemed a possible successor to Jefferson Davis should the new republic survive.

After the war, Harris went into voluntary exile in Mexico. He returned home in late 1867 and worked behind the scenes to "redeem" Tennessee from Radical rule and eventually became the most famous of the state's Bourbon Democrats. Elected to the U. S. Senate in 1877, he held that seat until his death in 1897. He successfully used the Senate's arcane parliamentary rules to block assertions of Federal power at the expense of states' rights, but advocated imaginative application of Federal power where clearly authorized by the Constitution.

The story of nineteenth-century Tennessee remains incomplete without a thorough understanding of Isham Green Harris. Elliott's exhaustive and entertaining biography provides essential reading for anyone interested in the political and military history of the Volunteer State.