they have done, and all that they are doing, for the physical
welfare of mankind. Nor can I think it altogether fair or wise
to take up too seriously a somewhat sudden and sensational
suggestion for enlarging the sphere of Hospital statistics. The
subject of that suggestion, if not beyond the range of human
argument, is certainly far beyond the reach of medical or mate
rial experiment. It is enough, perhaps more than enough for
me, to express the conviction, that no fears or doubts or faintest
misgivings, that nothing, nothing but the profoundest compas
sion and sorrow, in every Christian breast, will await or follow
an attempt, should it ever unhappily be made, to prove that
prayer to God for the sick, the suffering, and the dying is not
the rational and natural, as well as the revealed, resort and
refuge of the anxious and agonized heart. Every such heart
will utterly disown the jurisdiction, and pour out its petitions
with renewed faith and fervor.
The sense of an all-seeing Eye, of an all-hearing Ear, of an
all-pervading and all-controlling Providence, is the strongest
safe-guard of Society, as well as of the individual man. It
must be cherished by the sons, as it was by the fathers, if our
liberty is not to degenerate into licentiousness, and our boasted
Self-government into anarchy or despotism. Massachusetts was
founded, and has been built up, as a Christian Commonwealth,
and as a Christian Commonwealth it must stand or fall. Con
science must be free as the air. Sects and denominations must
range themselves, according to their own convictions, under
banners of their own choice. The State can never again sup
port or favor any particular creed or form of religion. But
Religion, in all its forms, must still support the State ; must
still supply the corner-stone and the capstone, the strong foun-
236 THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON.
dations and the sustaining buttresses and bulwarks, both of
O
State and Nation, if free government, or any government, is to
endure and prosper.
" Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity," said he whose birthday we commemorate, in that
Farewell Address, which ought to be read in our schools on
every anniversary of its date, " Of all the dispositions and
habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality
are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the
tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pil
lars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men
and of citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man,
ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace
all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it
simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputa
tion, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths
which are the instruments of investigation in courts of Justice ?
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality
can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded
to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar struct
ure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National
Morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles."
All other words of Washington may become obsolete. His
great appeals for Peace, domestic and foreign, for Union and
the Constitution, may be shorn of their application and signifi
cance. The Constitution may be discarded, and the Union
itself perish. His own example may cease to be reverenced,
and his memory lose its hold upon our hearts. But even should
such deplorable and unimaginable results ever be witnessed in
our land, these noble words will be as just and true as when
they first issued from his lips or from his pen. And at this mo
ment, above all other moments in our history, when National
Morality is in danger of becoming a jest and a by-word, they
should sink deeper than ever before into the soul of every
American Patriot.
To the glory of God, then, as well as to the relief of man s
estate, let us dedicate our Hall this day ! And may the blessing
of God ever overshadow it, and ever rest upon all who, in sue-
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON. 237
cessive generations, shall be gathered within it ; until, with the
lapse of years, these glowing colors shall have faded, these mas
sive walls shall have fallen, and all the high hopes and joyous
associations of this occasion, with the remembrance of all who
have participated in it, shall be buried in oblivion !
JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D.
REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
ON THE EVENING OF MARCH 13, 1873.
GENTLEMEN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, We
have so recently been called to attend the funeral of our late
venerable Senior Member and former President, the Hon. JAMES
SAVAGE, that it is only as a matter for record that his death, on
Saturday, the 8th inst., requires any formal announcement to
the Society this evening. I need hardly say that we cannot
consider it a subject for the expression of sorrow. Even those
nearest and dearest to him, who have so tenderly watched over
him in his infirmities, during the last eight or nine years, must
have abundant consolation for their bereavement. We may all,
indeed, have found cause for satisfaction and gratitude as we
learned that, in the good providence of God, our aged friend
was at length happily released from the burdens of the flesh and
of the spirit, which have weighed upon him so heavily since he
had come to fourscore years.
Yet none of us, I am sure, can see his name disappearing at
last from the very top of our living roll, altogether without
emotion ; and, certainly, not without pausing to pay a more
than common tribute of respect and affection to his memory.
Quite apart from all the personal qualities and associations
which had endeared him to us so warmly, we cannot forget
that the removal of his name from that roll has sundered the
last link between our Society of this generation and the little
company of historical students and lovers of antiquity in which
it originated more than eighty years ago. We have, it is true,
[238]
JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D. 239
still in our ranks, and we rejoice to remember that it is so,
more than one of those who have seen as many years of human
life as our departed friend. But there is no one now left, among
our existing members, whose relation to our Society commenced
within a quarter of a century of the date of his election ; no
one, who witnessed the small beginnings of our work, or who
was associated, as he was, with any of those by whom that work
was originally organized.
Mr. Savage was chosen a member of this Society on the 28th
of January, 1813. He had thus been a member for a little
more than sixty years, a longer term than any on our records,
as I believe, except that of the late venerable Josiah Quincy,
who had completed his sixty-eighth year of continuous member
ship, when he died, in 1864, at ninety-two years of age.
When Mr. Savage was elected, Dr. Jeremy Belknap, our
honored founder ; Governor Sullivan, our first President ; the
Rev. Dr. Thacher, and the Hon. George Richards Minot, were,
indeed, no more. But the Rev. Dr. Eliot, the Rev. Dr. Free
man, the Hon. William Tudor, Thomas Wallcut, Esq., the Hon.
James Winthrop, and the Hon. William Baylies, six of our
Decemvirs, six of the ten whose election dates back to
the 24th of January, 1791, and who met on that day and
organized the Society, were still living and active members.
With them, when Mr. Savage was elected, were associated,
among others, Governor Gore, then the President of the Society;
Judge Davis, and Lieutenant-Governor Winthrop, who suc
ceeded him in that office ; Dr. Manasseh Cutler, who, twenty
years before, had led the way of the pioneer emigrants to the
Ohio River ; Dr. Thaddeus Mason Harris ; Dr. Prince and Dr.
Bentley, of Salem ; Dr. Homer, of Newton ; Dr. Morse, the
geographer ; Dr. Abiel Holmes, the annalist ; John Adams,
Caleb Strong, Alden Bradford, Professors Peck and McKean,
President Kirkland, and Dr. Pierce, besides Josiah Quincy
and John Quincy Adams, whose membership, to a few of us, at
least, is something more than a tradition.
Mr. Savage was but twenty-nine years of age when he be
came associated with these men in our ranks ; and as no profes
sional or public duties ever took him far away from his native
240 JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D.
place, for any considerable length of time, his services to our
Society, and his attendance at its meetings, were in the way
of being, and unquestionably were, more prolonged, continu
ous, and constant, than those of any other member, from its
foundation.
Accordingly, we find him Librarian, from 1814 to 1818 ; a
member of the Publishing Committee of five several volumes
of our Collections, in 1815, 1816, 1819, 1823, and 1825;
Treasurer from 1820 to 1839 ; a member of the Standing
Committee from 1818 to 1820, and from 1835 to 1841; and
the President of the Society from 1841 to 1855. Having then
passed the term of threescore years arid ten, he claimed, as he
certainly had a right to claim, an honorable dismission from the
routine of official duty.
It seems but yesterday that I succeeded him in this chair, at
the close of our Annual Meeting, on the 12th of April, 1855,
when, on motion of our late accomplished associate, Mr. Tick-
nor, it was unanimously resolved, " That the members of this
Society, mindful of the excellent services which, for fourteen
years, the Hon. James Savage has rendered as its President,
and of his peculiar fitness for that place, not only on all other
grounds, but from his extraordinarily accurate knowledge of
whatever relates to the early history of New England, do
now express their great regret at his resignation, and offer him
their thanks for his long-tried and uniform fidelity to their inter
ests." It seems but yesterday that, in taking the seat which
he had so held and honored, I was speaking of that fulness of
information, that richness of reminiscence, that raciness of re
mark and repartee, which had so often given the highest relish
to our monthly meetings, which was then to be lost to the
chair, and which is now lost to us for ever. Eighteen years
have since passed away, during the first half of which he con
tinued to be one of our most punctual and assiduous members,
ever entering our rooms with that eager, animated, joyous look,
which betokened that he felt as much pleasure as he imparted.
Since then, for us, all has been silence.
Was I not right, gentlemen, in suggesting that, while his name
remained at the head of our roll, even though it were only a
JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D. 241
name, or even but the shadow of a name, we seemed to have a
living tie to the old traditions, the old worthies, and the old
workers and organizers of our Society, which is now finally
sundered? Certainly, his death at this moment, just as we
are about entering on the occupation of our reconstructed Halls,
seems to conspire most impressively with that event, in mark
ing still a new departure for our Society, still another era in its
history, when the responsibilities for its future usefulness and
honor are to be unshared with even one of those who had been
witnesses, or partakers in any way, of its earlier experiences and
its narrower fortunes. Certainly, it seems to call upon us, as
we enter on that era, with nothing left of the Founders and their
immediate associates and followers except their inspiring memory
and example, for a warmer interest in the welfare of the Insti
tution which they so loved and honored, and for a deeper devo
tion to the work for which they established it.
The most interesting and valuable contributions which were
made by Mr. Savage to our own published volumes, were un
doubtedly his " Gleanings for New England History," prepared
by him immediately on his return from a summer visit to Eng
land in 1842, and which were followed by " More," and " More
Gleanings," not long afterwards.
But the great historical labors of his life, his two Editions
and Annotations of " Winthrop s History of New England from
1630 to 1649," and his wonderful Genealogical Dictionary of
New England, were hardly less in our service than if they had
formed a part of our own Collections. If a new edition of the
Winthrop, certainly, should ever be demanded, it might well be
placed side by side with the Bradford, and under the care of
the same hand, among the publications of this Society ; and
it would be a fit monument to the memory of our departed
friend.
I am aware, however, gentlemen, that we are all thinking at
this moment much more of the man we have lost, than of his
services to our Society, or of his work in the cause of New
England history, which can never be lost. He comes back to
many of us, to-night, as he was twenty years ago, in the old
Pilgrim Chair, before the old Provincial Desk, in the old dusty
16
242 JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D.
rooms of our Society, before the name of Thomas Dowse had
been breathed among us ; or, certainly, before his benefactions,
by the marvellous alchemy of good George Livermore, had
transmuted all that belonged to us into something more precious
than gold.
He was at that day, and with those surroundings, the
perfect impersonation of an Antiquary, in form and feature, in
speech and in spirit. He had few or none of the smoothnesses
and roundnesses of conventional life ; and though he did not
affect or cultivate singularity, he by no means scorned that part
of his nature which rendered him singular. He would be
called, in common parlance, and he has often been called,
a man of strong and even intense prejudices. Yet I think he
never prejudged any thing or anybody. It was only when he
had known any person in society, or had studied any person
or any passage in history, that he conceived opinions which
nothing could change, and which clung to him, and he to them,
ever afterwards. His impulsive and even explosive utterances
of such opinions were never to be forgotten by those who wit
nessed them. Still less could any one ever forget his exuberant
exultation, when his searches and researches were rewarded,
by verifying some disputed date, or discovering some historical
fact, or by lighting upon some lost historical manuscript. He
rejoiced, as the Psalmist describes it, " as one that findeth great
spoil." His "Eureka" had all the elation and ecstasy of that
of the old philosopher of Syracuse.
He was eminently a character, even for a tale or a drama.
His marked peculiarities would have given a vivid interest to
any story, and his racy utterances would have enlivened any
dialogue. If he had chanced to be one of the neighbors of
Sir Walter Scott, he could never have escaped the fate, let
me rather say the felicity, which befell so many of those neigh
bors, of figuring in one of the Waverley Novels.
I remember that Thackeray once passed an evening with him
at my own house, at a meeting of the old Wednesday Night
Club of 1777, of which he was so long a member. When I met
Thackeray afterwards, his immediate remark was, " I want to
see that quaint, charming, old Mr. Savage again."
JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D. 243
In a conversation with Walter Savage Landor, then eighty
years old, at his own villa in Florence, in 1860, he greeted me
by saying, " I know all about your family and the old Founder
of New England ; " and then he forthwith went on to speak of
the Savage family, whose name he bore, including the old Earl
of Rivers and our James Savage, of Boston, whose edition of
Winthrop he had evidently seen. There were occasional scin
tillations and coruscations exhibited in common by Landor him
self and by our departed friend, which might have indicated an
affinity or consanguinity, even after the genealogists had failed
to trace them.
If there was anybody whom the late Lord Braybrooke, the
editor of Pepys ; or Dr. Bliss, the editor of Wood s Athense
Oxonienses ; or Joseph Romilly, the late Registrar of Old Cam
bridge ; or Joseph Hunter, the Antiquary par excellence of Her
Majesty s Record Office, remembered and valued in America,
it was Mr. Savage. He had corresponded with them all, and had
known them all personally, while he was visiting England.
To come nearer home, I may not forget that I rarely if ever
met, after a longer or a shorter absence, my late lamented friend,
John P. Kennedy, of Baltimore, who had as keen a relish and
as quick an appreciation of wit and of wisdom as Thackeray or
even Sydney Smith, that it was not his second exclamation, if
not his first, " How is our old friend Savage ? Is he as earnest,
and humorous, and funny as ever? "
I may be pardoned for remembering, too, that it was from a
member of this Society, elected eight years after him, but who
died, in early manhood, forty years before him, who sympathized
with him in all his pursuits, and aided him in many of his
researches and labors, and was unto him for many years almost
as a brother, as he was to myself an own brother, the late
James Bowdoin, 1 that I first learned to appreciate the sterling
qualities of our friend s mind and character ; his minute exact
ness ; his untiring perseverance ; his inexhaustible patience of
1 The second son of the late Lieutenant-Governor Winthrop, who died in his
thirty-ninth year, on the 6th of March, 1833, and of whom a brief Memoir is con
tained in Vol. IX., 3d Series, of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical
Society.
244 JAMES SAVAGE, LL.D.
research ; his mingled impetuosity and tenderness ; his sym
pathy with the sufferings of others, and his brave endurance of
his own sufferings.
But I must not forget how many there are around me who have
known him longer and better than myself, and who will more
than supply any deficiencies of my own tribute. I omit, there
fore, all notice of the public trusts in the City and in the State,
and as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820,
which he discharged so well ; all notice of the grand work he
did for the community in organizing and presiding over that
Provident Institution for Savings, where, for a few years, I was
monthly at his side ; all notice, too, of the Christian resignation
and bravery with which he bore domestic trials, which might
have crushed a feebler spirit. Let me but say, in conclusion,
that the death of his only son in the late Civil War, a son
of the same name with himself, and who had given every
promise of transmitting it with increased distinction to future
generations, has doubled the obligation which rests upon us,
to guard that name from being lost to the records either of pa
tient and successful historic research, or of patriotic and heroic
self-sacrifice. 1
1 Lieutenant-Colonel James Savage, Jr., died at Charlottesville, Virginia, Oct.
22, 1862, of wounds received at the battle of Cedar Mountain. He was born April
21, 1832, and graduated at Harvard University with the class of 1854. An interest
ing Memoir of him may be found in the first volume of " Harvard Memorial
Biographies."
CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY.
REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 13, 1873.
I HOLD in my hand a long and very interesting letter from the
late Chief- Justice Taney, addressed, in 1857, to the late Rev.
Samuel Nott, then a clergyman in Wareham, Massachusetts.
Mr. Nott was a nephew of the late Dr. Eliphalet Nott, so long
the honored President of Union College, Schenectady, New
York. He had himself been graduated at that college in 1808 ;
and, entering at once upon the missionary cause, he lived to be
the last survivor of the first band of missionaries sent out to
India by the American Board in 1812. He published several
volumes of sermons, and was always a laborious Christian scholar
and writer. In his later years, he was the author of a pamphlet
which went through five editions, and received many supple
ments, until it almost reached the dimensions of a volume,
entitled " Slavery, and the Remedy; or, Principles and Sugges
tions for a Remedial Code." The last edition, published in
1857, contained " A Review of the Decision of the Supreme
Court in the Case of Dred Scott."
It was a very able and carefully considered production, and
attracted a good deal of notice at the South, as well as at the
North, while Slavery was a living question. Mr. Nott had sent
a copy of it to the late Chief- Justice, and this letter was written
in acknowledgment. It happened that Mr. Nott called upon
me not long after its receipt, and read it to me confidentially.
While reading lately the Memoir of Chief-Justice Taney, by a
[245]
246 LETTER OF CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY.
distinguished lawyer of Maryland, Samuel Tyler, Esq., LL.D., 1
a work of great interest, though containing some passages in
which many of us might not concur, I was reminded of this
letter, and, with the obliging aid of our associate, Mr. Ellis
Ames, took measures for procuring it. It has now been kindly
sent to me by the son of the late Rev. Mr. Nott, to be placed
in the archives of this Society. It will be seen that it contains
some items of autobiography, and also a request that it may not
be published. But both parties to the correspondence being
now dead, the Chief- Justice having died in 1864, and the
Rev. Mr. Nott in 1869, I have found, on consultation with
Mr. Tyler, to whom all the private papers of the Chief-Justice
were intrusted by himself and his family, that there is no objec
tion to its being printed ; and it will probably be included here
after in an Appendix to the Memoir. It is, certainly, a most
interesting and characteristic letter from a most distinguished
man, whose long service on the Supreme Bench of the United
States, as the successor of Chief-Justice Marshall, was marked
by the highest ability, and to whose memory the warmest trib
utes were paid by not a few of those who had not concurred in
some of his decisions.
LETTER OF CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY.
FAUQUIER, WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, VIRGINIA,
August 19, 1857.
SIR, I received some time ago your letter, and pamphlet on " Slavery,
and the Remedy," which you have been kind enough to send me. They
were received when I was much out of health, and about to leave home
for the summer. And it was not in my power to give the pamphlet an
attentive perusal until within a few days past. I have read it with great
pleasure. The just, impartial, and fraternal spirit in which it is written
entitles it to a respectful consideration, in the South as well as the North.
And if any thing can allay the unhappy excitement which is daily pro-
1 The death of this gentleman is announced while this volume is in the press.
LETTER OF CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY. 247
ducing so much evil to the African as well as the white race, it is the
discussion of the subject in the temper in which you have treated it.
For you have looked into it and considered it in all its bearings, in the
spirit of a statesman as well as a philanthropist. I am glad to find that
it has been so well received as to reach the fifth edition.
Every intelligent person whose life has been passed in a slaveholding
State, and who has carefully observed the character and capacity of the
African race, will see that a general and sudden emancipation would be
absolute ruin to the negroes, as well as to the white population. In
Maryland and Virginia every facility has been given to emancipation
where the freed person was of an age and condition of health that would
enable him to provide for himself by his own labor. And before the
present excitement was gotten up, the freed negro was permitted to re
main in the State, and to follow any occupation of honest labor and
industry that he might himself prefer. And in this state of the law
manumissions were frequent and numerous. They sprang from the
kindness and sympathy of the master for the negro, or from scruples of
conscience ; and were often made without sufficiently considering his
capacity and fitness for freedom. And in the greater number of cases
that have come under my observation, freedom has been a serious mis
fortune to the manumitted slave ; and he has most commonly brought
upon himself privations and sufferings which he would not have been
called on to endure in a state of slavery. In many cases, however, it has
undoubtedly promoted his happiness. But all experience proves that the
relative position of the two races, when placed in contact with each
other, must necessarily become such as you describe. Nor is it felt as a
painful degradation by the black race. On the contrary, upon referring
to the last census, you will find that more free negroes remain in Mary