Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

[375] figure in a bitter controversy. The next evening Mr. Fish left a ‘good-by’ note, as he was to return home the morning after, in which he expressed the wish to see Sumner in New York for a talk. But he was soon called back by the offer of the vacancy in the state department. His appointment was not expected by himself or the public. He had served one term as governor of New York, and one term in each house of Congress, where his service was altogether without note, and in neither case ratified by a re-election. All he had to say in the Senate was usually comprised in a dozen lies or so,—only once or twice equalling half a column of the Congressional Globe; and this brevity was accompanied by neither wisdom nor felicity of speech. No service of a senator was ever more undistinguished; and while it continued, the representation of New York fell almost wholly on his colleague, Seward. During six years—a memorable period though it was—he did not develop a single subject, or throw on any the light of experience or study. He never rose even to the celebrity of ‘a single speech.’ He is quite unknown to the Globe's ‘Appendix,’ where the well-considered arguments made in either house appear. What he did and said in the Senate was to answer calls for the yeas and nays, present petitions, offer a few resolutions, report one or two bills, reply now and then to questions from his associates, make an inquiry, or explain some interlocutory matter,—and this was all. Not a word came from him, even during the struggle on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, or the invasions and violence which followed in Kansas,—an historic contest in which every man who had any earnest feeling for or against slavery took part.

Outwardly Mr. Fish maintained relations with his colleague; but at heart he was antipathetic to him,¹—very hostile to his antislavery position, and to his candidacy for President.² He was utterly out of sympathy with the antislavery movement which resulted in the Republican party. He was opposed to the efforts in the State of New York in 1855 to form a Republican party, in which Preston King, John A. King, and Edwin D. Morgan co-operated; and he rejoiced over its defeat by the union of pro-slavery ‘Americans’ and ‘Silver Gray’ Whigs,