On the evening of New Year's Day, 1864, I arrived in Albany to begin my duties in the State Senate, and certainly, from a practical point of view, no member of the legislature was more poorly equipped. I had, indeed, received a university education, such as it was, in those days, at home and abroad, and had perhaps read more than most college-bred men of my age, but all my education, study, and reading were remote from the duties now assigned me. To history, literature, and theoretical politics, I had given considerable attention, but as regarded the actual necessities of the State of New York, the relations of the legislature to the boards of supervisors of counties, to the municipal councils of cities, to the boards of education, charity, and the like, indeed, to the whole system throughout the Commonwealth, and to the modes of conducting public and private business, my ignorance was deplorable. Many a time have I envied some plain farmer his term in a board of supervisors, or some country schoolmaster his relations to a board of education, or some alderman his experience in a common council, or some pettifogger his acquaintance with justices' courts.
My knowledge of law and the making of law was wretchedly deficient, and my ignorance of the practical administration of law was disgraceful. I had hardly ever been inside a court-house, and my main experience of legal procedure was when one day I happened to step into court at Syracuse, and some old friends of mine thought it a good joke to put a university professor as a talesman upon a jury in a horse case. Although pressed with business I did not flinch, but accepted the position, discharged its duties, and learned more of legal procedure and of human nature in six hours than I had ever before learned in six months. Ever afterward I advised my students to get themselves drawn upon a petit jury. I had read some Blackstone and some Kent and had heard a few law lectures, but my knowledge was purely theoretical:
in constitutional law it was derived from reading scattered essays in the ``Federalist,'' with extracts here and there from Story. Of the State charitable and penal institutions I knew nothing. Regarding colleges I was fairly well informed, but as to the practical working of our system of public instruction I had only the knowledge gained while a scholar in a public school.
There was also another disadvantage. I knew nothing of the public men of the State. Having lived outside of the Commonwealth, first, as a student at Yale, then during nearly three years abroad, and then nearly six years as a professor in another State, I knew only one of my colleagues, and of him I had only the knowledge that came from an introduction and five minutes' conversation ten years before. It was no better as regarded my acquaintance with the State officers; so far as I now remember, Ihad never seen one of them, except at a distance,--the governor, Mr. Horatio Seymour.
On the evening after our arrival the Republican majority of the Senate met in caucus, partly to become acquainted, partly to discuss appointments to committees, and partly to decide on a policy regarding State aid to the prosecution of the war for the Union. I found myself the youngest member of this body, and, indeed, of the entire Senate, but soon made the acquaintance of my colleagues and gained some friendships which have been among the best things life has brought me.
Foremost in the State Senate, at that period, was Charles James Folger, its president. He had served in the Senate several years, had been a county judge, and was destined to become assistant treasurer of the United States at New York, chief justice of the highest State court, and finally, to die as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, after the most crushing defeat which any candidate for the governorship of New York had ever known. He was an excellent lawyer, an impressive speaker, earnestly devoted to the proper discharge of his duties, and of extraordinarily fine personal appearance.
His watch upon legislation sometimes amused me, but always won my respect. Whenever a bill was read a third time he watched it as a cat watches a mouse. His hatred of doubtful or bad phraseology was a passion. He was greatly beloved and admired, yet, with all his fine and attractive qualities, modest and even diffident to a fault.
Another man whom I then saw for the first time interested me much as soon as his name was called, and he would have interested me far more had I known how closely my after life was to be linked with his. He was then about sixty years of age, tall, spare, and austere, with a kindly eye, saying little, and that little dryly. He did not appear unamiable, but there seemed in him a sort of aloofness: this was Ezra Cornell.
Still another senator was George H. Andrews, from the Otsego district, the old Palatine country. He had been editor of one of the leading papers in New York, and had been ranked among the foremost men in his profession, but he had retired into the country to lead the life of a farmer. He was a man to be respected and even beloved. His work for the public was exceedingly valuable, and his speeches of a high order. Judge Folger, as chairman of the judiciary committee, was most useful to the State at large in protecting it from evil legislation.
Senator Andrews was not less valuable to the cities, and above all to the city of New York, for his intelligent protection of every good measure, and his unflinching opposition to every one of the many doubtful projects constantly brought in by schemers and dreamers.
Still another senator was James M. Cook of Saratoga.
He had been comptroller of the State and, at various times, a member of the legislature. He was the faithful ``watch-dog of the treasury,''--bitter against every scheme for taking public money for any unworthy purpose, and, indeed, against any scheme whatever which could not assign for its existence a reason, clear, cogent, and honest.
