meeting, that he had promised to be with us on that occasion,
to pay a tribute to his venerable friend, Judge Metcalf. He
had gone, however, a fortnight before, soon after his arrival
from Europe, to pass Thanksgiving Day at his old home in
New Bedford ; and, while there, he was struck with sudden and
serious illness. Under the care of skilful physicians, and of a
devoted family, his alarming symptoms were alleviated ; and
there was the best reason for hoping that he would soon be able
to resume his winter residence in Boston, and to enter anew
upon his chosen pursuits. But New Year s Day was destined
to be the last day of his earthly life ; and, before another morn
ing dawned, the mysterious call had come, and his spirit re
turned, without a struggle, to God who gave it.
In company with several of our associates, I attended his
funeral at New Bedford on Thursday last, where the presence
of a great throng of his friends and fellow-citizens attested the
respect and affection in which he was held by all who knew
him.
It is more than forty years since we entered the Legislature
of Massachusetts, as young men, together, and took an early
[342]
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD. 343
fancy for each other, which ripened into a life-long friendship.
During that protracted period, there have been but few months,
I might almost say but few weeks, in which we have not
held more or less of communication, either personally or by cor
respondence. I can recall no friend with whom I have ever
been on the same footing of intimacy for so long a time, except
the late excellent John Pendleton Kennedy of Baltimore. We
were long associated in the friendship and confidence of Edward
Everett. We were more recently associated in the friendship
and confidence of George Peabody ; and in the administration
of one of his most interesting and important trusts. In view
of these intimate relations, I have willingly acceded to the re
quest of the Council, that I would take it upon myself to pre
pare hereafter a brief Memoir of him, according to usage, for the
next volume of our Proceedings. I forbear, therefore, at present,
from any attempt to delineate his character or career.
There are those with us here, this morning, who have known
him in youth and in manhood ; at his own University in Provi
dence, and in his associations with our University at Cambridge ;
at the Bar, in the Legislative Halls, as Attornej^-General, and as
Governor of Massachusetts, as well as in his relations to the
other public institutions with which he was connected. I leave
it to them to bear their testimony to his abilities, his usefulness,
and his virtues. It is enough for me to say on this occasion, as
I sincerely can say,
" Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,
Nulli flebilior quam mihi."
MEMOIR.
IN the beautiful town of New Bedford, long since incorporated
as a city, there might have been found, some thirty or forty years
ago, as charming a group of choice spirits as could be gathered
anywhere within the limits of Massachusetts. Among them was
Ephraim Peabody, the pastor of the Unitarian parish of the
town, afterwards the rector of King s Chapel in Boston ; wise,
344 EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD.
accomplished, amiable, eloquent, beloved by all who knew him.
Among them was Charles Henry Warren, widely known after
wards as Judge Warren, whose sparkling wit, and racy anec
dote, and keen irony were the delight of every circle in which
he moved. Among them was William W. Swain, whose juris
diction over " Naushon " had won for him the familiar sobriquet
of " Governor," and whose great heart and genial hospitality
had made willing subjects for him far beyond the narrow domain
of the Elizabeth Islands. These and others of that little group
have passed away. At least one of them, however, is still liv
ing, the venerable Joseph Grinnell, born before any of
them, and now surviving them all; who, after many years of
valuable public service in the Congress of the United States, is
to-day, in his eighty-ninth year, conducting successfully and
vigorously a great manufacturing establishment, and who, by
his firmness and discretion, has just succeeded in putting down
a formidable strike of its workmen.
But of this little circle of choice spirits in New Bedford, into
which I was so often admitted as a guest on occasional visits
from Boston or Washington, the subject of this Memoir was the
central figure. Younger than any of his associates ; with less
accomplishment, perhaps, than one ; with less wit, perhaps,
than another ; with not more of heart or head than a third or
fourth of them, he had yet a combination of qualities, intel
lectual, moral, and social, which gave him an easy lead, and se
cured for him a ready following. No one, I think, could have
spent a day in New Bedford, at that period, without feeling that
the active, moving spirit of its social and intellectual life was
JOHN HENRY CLIFFORD.
Thus early for he was then hardly more than thirty years
of age did he exhibit that practical tact, that genial disposi
tion, that magnetic temper, which always gave him one of the
foremost places among those with whom he was associated,
whether in public or in private life. Of great executive ability,
and with a peculiar faculty of organization, he was at least the
prompter and the manager of scenes in which he may not have
assumed or aspired to play the first part. He would, indeed,
have counted himself at that time the humblest of that little
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD. 345
group ; but not the less did his earnest nature impart animation
and inspiration to them all.
Governor Clifford, however, for by that title he will be
most readily remembered, was hot a native of New Bedford,
nor of Massachusetts. He was born in Providence, Rhode
Island, on the 16th of January, 1809, and continued to reside
there with his parents until he had completed his school and
college education. It was only after he had gone through his
four years course and taken his degree, as Bachelor of Arts,
in 1827, at Brown University, that he left his parental home
and native State. He then entered on the study of law with
Timothy G. Coffin, Esq., of New Bedford, and subsequently
studied with the late Judge Theron Metcalf at Dedham, Massa
chusetts. In 1830 he was admitted to the Bar of the county of
Bristol, having in the same year received his degree of Master
of Arts at Brown, when he delivered an oration on " the Perils
of Professional Life." Thenceforth he was to confront those
perils himself, in the daily practice of his chosen profession.
He established himself as a lawyer in New Bedford, and two
years afterwards gave " a hostage to fortune," and left no further
doubt where his permanent home was to be fixed. On the 16th
of January, 1832, his twenty-third birthday, he married Sarah
Parker Allen, daughter of William Howland Allen, Esq., and
granddaughter of the Hon. John Avery Parker, of New Bedford ;
and from that day to his death he resided nowhere else.
Three years afterward, in 1835, he took his seat in the Legis
lature of Massachusetts, as a representative from New Bedford.
There I met him for the first time ; and from that association
resulted a friendship and an intimacy which ended only with
his life. It was the year of the Revision of the Statutes of the
Commonwealth, and he did good and faithful service on the
large committee which had that subject in charge. In 1836 he
became one of the aides-de-camp of Governor Everett, and re
tained that position until, by a single vote out of a hundred
thousand votes, Mr. Everett s chief magistracy was brought to
a close in 1840.
Before Mr. Everett went out of office, however, in 1839, he
had conferred upon Colonel Clifford, in whom he had the highest
346 EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD.
confidence, the appointment of District Attorney for the Southern
District of Massachusetts ; an office in which he served the Com
monwealth assiduously and successfully for nearly ten years.
Meantime, in 1845, the county of Bristol had elected him a
member of the Senate of Massachusetts, where he gave renewed
evidence of his ability and accomplishments as a debater and a
legislator. But his taste for legal practice predominated over
all others, and in 1849 he entered upon the duties of an office
which was to be the field of his longest and most distinguished
public service. In that year he received from Governor Briggs
the appointment of Attorney-General of the State.
Early in the following year it fell to his lot to conduct a
memorable trial, with which his name will be always most
prominently and honorably associated. No trial in the history
of our country for many generations, if ever, has excited a
deeper interest, or challenged a more anxious and critical atten
tion, than that of Professor John W. Webster for the murder
of Dr. George Parkman. Even to this day, the circumstances
of the crime and the proceedings to which it gave occasion, as
contained in the detailed report prepared and published by our
associate member, Mr. George Bemis, the junior counsel for the
Commonwealth, have the attraction and fascination of some
tragic drama. The responsibility and the labor which it threw
upon the Attorney-General were of the most arduous character ;
and it is enough to say of the manner in which they were met,
that when the verdict was obtained, and the full details of evi
dence and argument were published to the world, he had earned
a reputation for ability and force, as well as for discretion and
fairness, as a prosecuting officer, which was recognized far
beyond the limits of New England.
Few things, if any thing, could have gratified him more than
the following passage from an article in " Blackwood s Maga
zine " for June of that year, on " Modern State Trials," being
one of a series of articles from the pen of the eminent barrister,
Samuel Warren, 1 the author of the " Diary of a Physician,"
and of " Ten Thousand a Year" : -
1 The death of Samuel Warren, Q. C., on the 29th of July, 1877, was announced
from England, while these pages were first going through the press.
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD. 347
" It was our intention to have included in this paper a sketch of a
great American trial for murder, that of the late Professor Webster
for the murder of Dr. Parkman ; a fearful occurrence ; a black and dis
mal tragedy from beginning to end ; exhibiting most remarkable indica
tions, as it appears to us, of the overruling Providence, which sometimes
sees fit to allow its agency in human affairs to become visible to us. We
have, however, now concluded the present series ; but it is not impossible
that we may take an early opportunity of giving some account of this ex
traordinary case, of which, even while we are writing, a report has been
courteously transmitted to us from America. All we shall at present say
on the subject is, that the reply of Mr. Clifford for the prosecution can
not be excelled in close and conclusive reasoning, conveyed in language
equally elegant and forcible. Its effect, as a demonstration of the guilt
of the accused, is fearful."
The following letter, dated the day after the sentence had
been pronounced, affords a striking view of his own impressions
at the result :
" NEW BEDFORD, April 2, 1850.
"Mr DEAR WINTHROP, The long agony is over, and I am once
more by my own hearthstone, trying to restore the equilibrium which
two weeks straining of my entire being had deranged and disturbed.
I have never been before, and can never be again, kept up to such an
extreme tension ; but in looking back, and sternly scrutinizing my whole
course from the commencement of my connection with the case to its
close, I cannot find any cause of self-reproach. God knows I have com
passionated the poor criminal ; and my heart has bled for his family
almost as if they were my own.
" Personally, I cannot help feeling this trial to have been a great crisis
in my life. A failure in it would have been fatal ; a moderate degree of
success would have been scarcely less unfortunate : and I fervently thank
the Good Being who has guided and strengthened and sustained me, for
the eminent success which the assurances that I have received from all
quarters leave me not at liberty to doubt my having achieved. ... I am
going to New York this week with my wife, and it is not impossible that
I may run on and pass a day with you in Washington.
" Yours ever,
" J. H. CLIFFORD."
In the autumn of 1852, the convention of the Whig Party
of Massachusetts nominated Attorney- General Clifford for
348 EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD.
Governor of the State. He accepted the nomination with re
luctance; and, though he received nearly twenty-five thousand
more votes than either of the opposing candidates, he was not
elected by the people. The plurality system had not yet been
adopted, and the Constitution of the State at that time required
for an election an absolute majority of all the votes cast by
the people. On the meeting of the Legislature, however, he
was chosen by the votes of the two branches ; and was inaugu
rated as Governor of Massachusetts on the 14th of January,
1853.
In his Inaugural Address he dwelt strongly on " the ten
dency to an excess of legislation," and gave evidence of his
adherence to the principles of the old Whig Party, of which he
had been the candidate, by saying : " It seems to me, therefore,
that the wise moderation which avoids both the extremes, of
a blind conservatism which clings to every thing that is estab
lished, because it is old, and the reckless and impatient radical
ism which is ready to adopt every new project or theory, merely
because it is new, a moderation which consults that vital ele
ment in every well-governed community, the adaptation of an
established system of laws to the usages and habits of the
people, is one of the safest guides in practical and beneficent
legislation." " In all matters of civil government," he added,
44 the Law is our only sovereign. The lo} r alty, which in other
countries is rendered to the mere accident of birth, is here due
to that invisible but omnipresent power which we have volun
tarily enthroned and established, for our protection and guid
ance, under the majestic name of Law."
Governor Clifford discharged the duties of the chief magis
tracy with great fidelity and dignity, and it was only for him
to say whether he should remain in the office for a second year.
But his interest in his profession determined him to decline a
renomination , and on the election of Governor Emory Wash-
burn, as his successor, he was at once called on by him to
resume his place as Attorney-General of the Commonwealth.
He continued to hold that office, by executive appointment
for one year, by legislative election for another, and again, for a
third, by the choice of the people of the State, until 1858.
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD. 349
He had thus served the Commonwealth as its highest law-officer
for a full term of seven years in all ; and in that capacity had
certainly rendered his best public service, and acquired his
greatest public distinction.
In retiring finally from this position he did not abandon his
professional labors, but was frequently to be found in the highest
courts of the Commonwealth and of the Nation, in the argument
of important cases. During the terrible Civil War, which soon
afterwards afflicted the country, he omitted no efforts in his
power to sustain the cause of the Union according to the convic
tions of his own conscience. More than once he was summoned
to Washington to hold council with Cabinet officers, in regard
to measures in contemplation. At home, too, he spared neither
time nor money in encouraging the soldiers who went out from
his own city or county. In 1862 he accepted an election to
the State Senate, and was at once chosen President of that body,
in that capacity rendering conspicuous service to the Com
monwealth at the most critical period of the War. In 1868 he
was one of the electors at large, and united in giving the vote
of Massachusetts to President Grant.
In the previous year, however, 1867, he had entered
upon a line of life which was finally to separate him from fur
ther professional or political service, and to confine him to the
routine of practical business. Assuming the charge of the Bos
ton and Providence Railroad Corporation, as its President, he
devoted himself to its affairs with all his accustomed earnest
ness and energy. Under his auspices the new and spacious
Station of that Railroad was erected in Boston, which will always
be a monument of his administration ; and in which, within a
few months of his death, he gave, as we shall presently see, so
memorable a manifestation of the spirit in which that adminis
tration had been conducted.
Meantime he had not allowed the engrossments of practical
business to cut him off wholly from other interests and asso
ciations. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences. He was a member of our own Society, and occa
sionally took part in our proceedings. His tribute to his old
commander-m-ehief, Edward Everett, was among the most felici-
350 EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD.
tons utterances of our Special Meeting on the occasion of his
death. But he rendered larger services to Harvard University
at Cambridge, of which he was for many years one of the Over
seers, and repeatedly the President of that Board. He had been
called on, while Governor, to perform a prominent part at the
inauguration of the late Rev. Dr. Walker, as President of the
University, on the 24th of May, 1853 ; and a sufficient testi
mony to the impressive character of his Address on that occasion
may be found in the following sentence of President Walker s
reply : " I have listened we all have listened to what your
Excellency has said, with such just and fervid eloquence, of the
dignity and responsibilities of the teacher ; of the need there is
that education should be improved and extended in order to
meet the advancing wants of the age ; and, above all, that the
whole should be touched by Christian influences : but this only
makes me feel my incompetency the more."
Governor Clifford was called on again, as the head of the
Board of Overseers, to officiate at the induction of President
Eliot, on the 19th of October, 1869 ; and from his Address on
that occasion the following passages will furnish a good illus
tration of the earnest spirit in which he spoke :
"When its venerated founders, the Fathers of New England, in
scribed the simple motto Veritas upon the college seal, and when their
immediate successors enlarged its legend by the adoption of that which
it now bears, * Christo et Ecclesiae, as the watchword and token of its
allegiance to the highest truth, they surely never dreamed may the
day never dawn when their descendants shall declare that there is an
* irrepressible conflict between the truths of ethical and of physical sci
ence. Truth is one : vital in every part, it cannot, but by annihila
tion, die ; and he is but poorly armed in its panoply of proof, who fears
that any speculation, study, or research can establish a want of harmony
between the revelations of God through the spirit he has breathed into
his noblest creation, and those he has imparted through his imprints upon
the insensate rocks.
" Idle, too, is the boast, or the dread, that, if such a conflict is to
come, its predestined and ignoble issue will be, that the highest and most
precious truth man can comprehend, and which ennobles human life and
all its acquisitions and accomplishments with their chief dignity and value,
shall surrender to the hasty generalizations and unwarranted and un-
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD. 351
chastened speculations of the presumptuous sciolist, whose mind has
been subdued to what it works in, like the dyer s hand. Were such to
be the result of what is called the progress of science, as taught within
these walls, that He is to be ignored to whose glory they were reared,
of what significance are these idle ceremonials, from which we might as
well turn away, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise, con
tenting ourselves only with the reflection, that, like the beasts that perish,
we can eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ?
" In the progress of what is complacently called the advanced thought
of New England, and it may be at no distant day, there doubtless will
be waged a conflict of opinion of the highest import to the cause of truth
and the welfare of the race. Whenever it comes, Harvard College can
hold no subordinate place among the institutions of the country, in whose
armories must be forged the weapons with which it will be fought. Her
friends can have no misgivings as to the position she will occupy on such
a field. Her great influence can never be arrayed on the side of those
whose arrogant self-conceit can find no higher object of worship than the
pretentious intellect of man, to-day, asserting its own omnipotence ; to
morrow, babbling of green fields, as its possessor sinks beneath the turf
that covers them, to mingle with his kiudred clod ; of those whose
misty speculations shut out the life-giving rays of the Star of Bethle
hem, and who, with puny but presumptuous hand, would
hang a curtain on the East,
The daylight from the world to keep. "
Governor Clifford was, also, one of the original Board of
Trustees of the great Education Fund, established by the mu
nificence of George Peabody, for the impoverished and desolated
States of the South ; and I can bear witness to the zeal and
assiduity with which he attended their meetings, and entered
into all their discussions. No one was more faithful to that
noble Trust, and no one will be more affectionately and grate
fully remembered by all who were associated with him in its
labors and responsibilities.
But the health of our lamented friend had more than once
during these latter years given warning that he needed relaxa
tion. Indeed, there is the best authority for saying, that noth
ing but the earnest admonitions of his physician, and his own
consciousness of waning strength, had originally induced him to
renounce the professional career in which he had won so distin-
352 EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD.
guished a reputation, and to which he was so ardently attached.
The efforts and excitements of the court-room had more than
once been followed by serious prostration, and he had reluc
tantly yielded to the necessity of exchanging them for the
quieter, though hardly less arduous and responsible, duties of
presiding over a great business corporation. But in the spring
of 1873 he was compelled to abandon all occupation, and fly to
the salubrious airs of Florida. In the spring of 1875, a visit to
Europe was recommended to him, and he sailed for Liverpool
on the 24th of April of that year. It was his first visit to the
Old World ; and, though he prudently denied himself to the at
tentions and hospitalities which were abundantly offered to him
in London, he went through the laborious round of sight-seeing,
there and everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of his nature.
I was in Europe myself at that time, and saw him more than
once, and had frequent letters for him along his route. Eng
land and Scotland, France, Switzerland, and Northern Italy
were traversed in the half-year s absence from home which he
allowed himself. His family were with him, and he enjoyed
every moment. As he approached the limit which he had
assigned to his absence, he was compelled to abandon all
thought of Rome and Naples. A letter from him, dated Flor
ence, Sept. 1, 1875, speaks of the struggle it has cost him to
give up seeing the Eternal City ; but adds that " he looks
towards home with infinitely more desire than towards Rome,
Pompeii, or even the Holy Land."
" You were quite right," he proceeds, " in your judgment
of Switzerland as the true Paradise of the American traveller.
There is nothing to be compared with it ; and, if I were to be
restricted to one view in Europe, it would be that magnifi
cent combination of the grandeur of the Creator s works with
the marvellous skill arid genius of man, which is exhibited in
the audacious conception and wonderful execution of the road
built by Napoleon over the Pass of the Simplon. Waldo
Emerson once told me if he were to have but one day in Europe,
it should be spent in the Square of St. Marc, in Venice. To
me, interesting as Venice is, making one feel all the while as if
he were in a dream, the great realities of the Alps are a thou-
EX-GOVERNOR CLIFFORD. 353
sand-fold more impressive ; and indeed the whole effect of my