CHAPTER X.

CIVIL LIFE THE REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS.

WH

HEN the troops of Illinois "came marching home," crowned with laurels, the voters of General Logan's Congressional district, who had seen with pride upon the battle-flags the record of his victories, insisted upon inscribing his name upon their political ban

ner.

He declined the appointment as minister to Mexico, tendered him in 1865 by President Johnson, but he accepted the nomination of the Republicans of Illinois as their candidate for Representative-at-large in Congress. He received 203,045 votes against 147,058 votes for Mr. Dickey, a Democrat. Going to Washington, accompanied by Mrs. Logan, to take his seat in the Fortieth Congress, General Logan lived in the same unostentatious way that he had observed before the war. No one could see any assumption of superiority on his part, founded on the fact that he was the only citizen who had volunteered as a private, risen to the rank of major-general, and successfully commanded an army in the field. Yet he had a new class of constituents, not only from Illinois, but from every section of the Union—

soldiers who wore the blue and soldiers who wore the gray-and he has invariably made their wants his cause. Claims for pensions, for supplies furnished Union troops, for bounties, and for aid have always received his careful attention, although they have often required investigations at the executive departments, the taking of testimony, the identification of the claimants, a large expenditure of time, and often of money never to be repaid. A true friend of the soldiers, General Logan has never failed to urge their claims before Congress, and much of the liberal legislation which has cheered the last years of thousands of maimed and battle-worn veterans was originated and carried through Congress by his personal exertions. He has not been a scrambler for executive patronage, but it has ever been his pride and his pleasure to secure appointmentscivil, military, or naval-for those who served honorably in the war.

Early in the first session of this Congress, General Logan, learning that there was an organization formed in this country for the invasion of the Republic of Mexico, and the overthrow of its government, introduced a resolution into the House declaring such attempts to violate the neutrality laws at variance with the wishes and feelings of all good citizens of the United States. The resolution, which the House promptly passed, directed the President, in case he should

be satisfied of the existence of such organizations, to issue his proclamation commanding the execution of the laws, and warning all persons who might depart from the United States for the purpose of invading the Republic of Mexico or any other country, or creating any disturbance therein, that they would thereby forfeit all rights to protection under the laws of the United States.

Congress had been convened, by a special law, on the 4th of March, that the question of reconstruction might not be left in the hands of the President, who was defying the legislative department of the Government, yet in a few weeks a resolution was introduced providing for an adjournment until December. This General Logan opposed, saying, as he concluded his remarks: "Shall we place ourselves before the country as if enacting a farce? Did we assemble here to place ourselves in that ridiculous attitude before. the country, as a set of men without backbone enough to do that which we called ourselves together to do?"

On another occasion General Logan urged the reference to the Committee on Indian Affairs of a joint resolution for the payment of Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian claims. It had been passed by the Senate and an attempt was made to hurry it through the House, but General Logan presented a statement from the chief of the tribe showing that while the loyal Choctaws had suffered severe

losses by the Rebellion, no thoroughly loyal man had presented a claim for damages. "If these things are true," said General Logan, " then these claims should not be paid. And if the gentleman know of their falsity, then that is a good reason why this bill should be referred to a committee." The House referred it.

advocating them does not

As the close of the session approached a resolution was introduced authorizing the publication of speeches in the Congressional Globe after the adjournment. To this General Logan objected. "I suggest," said he, "that all speeches which are handed in prior to the adjournment might be printed. But the proposition to give gentlemen an opportunity of going home and writing out answers to speeches made in the House and publishing them in the Congressional Globe is certainly, in my estimation, very objectionable. If gentlemen will give me an opportunity to go home and write a speech in reply to some already published I may malign and libel a member as much as I have a mind to and there is no reply to it. If speeches are to be printed they should at least be presented and printed in the Globe while Congress is in session, so that if there is any attack or misstatement it might be replied to before the adjournment of Congress."

General Logan spoke at some length on reconstruction. He declared that the Union soldiers never dreamt that for every rebel they killed

at the South they were making an enemy at the North, now that the brave men who fought them, and whom they had to literally overwhelm before they could conquer them, were ready to forget the past and be friends, as we all ought to be again. In conclusion he said: "I have seen quite enough of carnage and private and national distress, and long to see the day come again when we shall be as peaceful, prosperous, and happy as we were before that crawling serpent, Secession, sought to strangle us in our national cradle. That day may soon come again if the South will rise up sternly resolved that they will follow Naaman through the Jordan of repentance until the leprosy of treason and Democracy shall be washed out of their political system. How much they have been benefited by the sympathies of the Democracy they ought by this time to be able to estimate and appreciate. The hour they discover they possess the good sense and courage to repudiate openly and emphatically treason and embrace warmly and sincerely loyalty, they will see dawn upon them the bright morning of their regeneration and deliverance."

When the Army of the Tennessee was homeward bound, its principal officers organized in the Senate, Chamber of the capital at Raleigh, North Carolina, a society to "keep alive and preserve that kindly and cordial feeling which had been one of the characteristics of that army during.