The territory of Nebraska was organized by act of congress May 30, 1854.
   January 11, 1860, Nebraska passed an act to submit the question of calling a state constitutional convention which was defeated at an election March 5, 1860.
   April 19, 1864, congress passed an act to enable Nebraska to submit a constitution to a vote of the people, with reference to admission. as a state of the Union, and the legislature framed and submitted such an instrument, which was adopted at an election June 2, 1866. Thereupon a bill for her admission passed congress July 27, 1866, which was held by President Johnson and neither signed nor returned during the session. January 16, 1867, another bill passed and was vetoed by the president and passed over his veto on the 9th day of February, 1867.
   The state constitution thus placed before congress provided for the exercise of suffrage by white male citizens only, but since emancipation had taken place and the 15th amendment was in process of adoption, an injunction was placed upon us, requiring that before admission the state legislature should agree, in behalf of the people, "that there shall be no denial of the elective franchise to any person, by reason of race or color," in the State of Nebraska. To secure this pledge, Governor Saunders convened the territorial legislature on the 20th day of February, 1867, when the fundamental condition was adopted, and President Johnson issued a proclamation March 1, 1867, declaring Nebraska a state in the Union.
   There being but four days of the second session of the thirty

ninth congress remaining, the Hon. T. M. Marquett, having been elected as member of the expiring congress, took the oath of office as the first member of congress for the new state. Three days thereafter, on March 4, 1867, began the session of the fortieth congress, with Gen. J. M. Thayer and T. W. Tipton as senators, and the Hon. John Taffe member of the house of representatives.
   The following extract from the senate journal explains itself:

   Now that I am a member of the senate, and propose some of my reminiscences for the amusement of the old, and instruction for the young, I shall adopt the pronoun "I," for directness and precision.
   And I here pause upon the threshold and contemplate our surroundings.
   I find Massachusetts represented by Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson. The former well read in the law, polished in letters, enjoying a world-famed acquaintance, and distinguished as the champion of slave emancipation, The latter, the John the Baptist of the toiling masses and adorning the shoemaker's bench with the senator's commission. While men could admire Sumner for his persistency and acquirements, they could love Wilson for his success and nobility of soul.
   As chairman of the committee on foreign relations Sumner could not be equaled, and the great success of the military committee during the war of the rebellion was a feather in the cap of Henry Wilson. To the roll-call of Ohio responded Sherman and Wade, the former to direct the finance legislation, with an experience dating back to years in the house before his accession to the senate. "Old Ben Wade" seemed retiring from business, since there were no bombs to be cast into the slave-holders' camps, nor demands to be made for "rifles for two." With Trumbull, of Illinois, to preside over the judiciary committee, having as his associates Edmunds, Conkling, Hendricks, and Reverdy Johnson, the legal department approximated perfection.
   To the standard of Kentucky rallied James Guthrie and Garret Davis; the first-named seventy-five years of age, a flat-boat trader to New Orleans, a college student, a lawyer, fifteen years a Kentucky legislator and railroad president, and secretary of the treasury for President Pierce. Mr. Davis was in his sixty-sixth year; a Kentucky gentleman of the old school, pure in life, the soul of honor, a worshiper of Henry Clay and the peculiar institution for the African's good and the safety of the Anglo-Saxon. If a stranger in the gallery asked an Indianian to point out the greatest man in the senate, the reply would be, if from a democrat, "Toni Hendricks, of course"; while the republican

retorted, "When you muster your war governors we enter Oliver P. Morton." Rhode Island was represented by William Sprague and Henry B. Anthony; the former a governor at 30 years of age, a senator at 32, and subsequently known as the husband of Miss Kate Chase.
   The newer states were represented by comparatively new men, including reconstructed Tennessee. Among them Nye of Nevada was the general champion, the amusing orator, the bishop in Biblical quotations, and amidst the clinking of glasses, the festive inspirer. But as my intention is not to furnish a biography of the senate, I must pass over many of the fifty-four senators, equally worthy of mention, for during the war the states were admonished to place only on guard "the tried and the true."
   Never was a body of men better acquainted with a system of legislation, for under their scrutiny and moulding influences the legal superstructure had arisen.
   The war just ended had demanded a new currency and a system of revenue, and "war legislation" and constitutional modifications, and centralization of power and the fostering of the dominant political party by congressional enactments. Of the fifty-four senators seven had been elected as democrats and forty-seven as republicans; but of the latter many had been before the war democrats on the subjects of tariffs, and the construction of the constitution, and others had been whigs, agreeing with them as to the true doctrines of state rights. It was evident, therefore, that as soon as the government should be prepared to return to a peace basis again, unless the return was unanimously conceded, some republican methods would be repudiated and old cherished doctrines revived and made prominent. This defection had already commenced, and Dixon of Connecticut, Norton of Minnesota, and Doolittle of Wisconsin, were frequently joined with the opposition.
   But the most conspicuous opponent of radical republicanism, during the fortieth congress and subsequently, was Andrew Johnson, president of the United States. Mr. Johnson had been a lifelong democrat, a devoted union man, of a very combative

nature, and of most uncompromising individuality. In his youth he had never gone to school, and yet he acquired a fair English education. At seventeen years of age we find him a tailor by occupation; at twenty the Mayor of Greenville, Tenn.; at twenty-seven in the legislature of the State, and at thirty-three in the State senate. He was in congress ten years, beginning in 1843, and twice elected governor prior to 1857 in which year he was elected to the United States senate.
   Amidst the fury of the rebellion he left the senate to become military governor of his state, and received the nomination for vice-president in 1864. Mr. Lincoln had been assassinated April 14, 1865, and Mr. Johnson sworn into office on the 15th of the same mouth, only six days from the date of General Lee's surrender to General Grant.
   On the 26th of May, 1865, the last army of the confederacy having surrendered, and congress not being in session, Mr. Johnson began the work of reconstructing the rebel states, according to what was known as (his) "My Policy"; and which gave ex-rebels an opportunity of controlling completely the legal white element and freemen. Congress claimed the power over the whole territory subdued by war, and stood ready to comply with the 4th article of the constitution which declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government."
   When, therefore that body assembled in the next session, the struggle began in earnest between the president and congress. On the second of March, 1867, an act was passed for the "reorganization of civil government in the ten rebel states," and another to "govern the tenure of civil office," both of which were promptly vetoed by the president, and as promptly passed over the veto. Thus stood the question on the day of our admission to the senate.
   As General Thayer had made an honorable record in the army and had experience in Indian affairs, it was very proper that he should be assigned to duty on the military and Indian affairs committees, while he also secured an assignment to that of patents.

   Thomas W. Tipton was born upon a farm, near Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio, August 5th, 1817. His father, Rev. William Tipton, was, during fifty years, minister of the M. E. Church. His parents were pioneers to Ohio, from Huntington County, Pennsylvania. He attended common school during winter seasons, more or less interrupted by farm work until seventeen years of age. Subsequent to his eighteenth year he spent one year in a select school in Waynesburgh, Pa., two years in Allegheny College at Meadsville, and two years in Madison College at Uniontown, Fayette County, Pa., and graduated in September, 1840, delivering the valedictory.
   Before graduation, as a representative of a college society, he utterly refused to appear in a joint debate, unless the faculty would allow him to argue against the "utility and policy" of the established devotion to the "dead languages," in the usual course of study. In this he displayed that trait of character, "the courage of his convictions," which stamped his personality during life and led him to change church relations and political associations in accordance with increased experience and investigation.
   Leaving college and returning to Ohio for a time, he engaged in teaching and reading law, being admitted to the bar in 1844.

   Though a Whig, he was not able to vote for Gen. Harrison in 1840, having lost his residence in Ohio, while a student in Pennsylvania. ln 1844 he delivered fifty speeches for Henry Clay; in 1848 seventy-five for Gen. Taylor; in 1852, resigned a clerkship in the General Land Office in Washington, D. C., and gave four months to the campaign for Gen. Scott; in 1856 ad-

vocated Gen. Fremont as the first Republican candidate; in 1860, being in the Territory of Nebraska, could not vote for Mr. Lincoln, nor yet in 1864; in 1868 voted for General Grant; in 1872 for Horace Greeley, and canvassed extensively in the states of Nebraska and North Carolina; in 1876 canvassed in New York and Indiana for Mr. Tilden, and in 1880 in Illinois for Gen. Hancock, and in the same year was candidate for Governor of Nebraska and in 1884 worked and voted for Grover Cleveland.
   In 1845 Mr. Tipton, then 28 years of age, was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. In 1860 was a member of the territorial council of Nebraska, which answered to the state Senate. In 1866 was elected to the United States Senate by the legislature of Nebraska and re-elected in 1869. In 1885 was commissioned Receiver of the United States Land Office at Bloomington, Nebraska.
   From the above it appears that he cast his presidential votes for three Whig, two Republican, and four Democratic candidates, Mr. Greeley being an independent Republican endorsed by the Democratic party.
   During his connection with the General Land Office in 1850, an opportunity for self-assertion and vindication drew from the young subordinate an emphatic refusal to answer questions relative to the conduct of a fellow-clerk who had fallen under the displeasure of the Honorable Secretary of Interior.

T. W. TIPTON.

   At a time when slavery was making its last desperate stand against freedom in the territories, and blood was freely flowing in Kansas, he made an effort to lay aside his political armor and enter the M. E. pulpit. Being then in his 38th year, a public speaker of much experience, allowing no man to think or act in his stead, he soon found what an utter failure he must become

in attempting to submit to the surveillance of presiding elders, or in approving the manipulating strategy of the episcopacy in ministerial assignments.
   Soon, therefore, when called on to explain the mode of administration over his charge, and requested to be silent on the current topic of the times, his answer to the former question was: "My official members do as they please and I sustain them, and I do as I please and they sustain me." And to the latter: "I could not promise that to my father in his shroud." To a congregation he said: "While I occupy this desk you will have a free preacher, and all my words shall be free speech, and when you can no longer endure it, you may install a slave in my stead, and substitute for the Bible the Books of Mormon or Koran of Mohammed."
   While between him and his people there was the most perfect accord, he deemed it prudent to decline orders, and requested the Conference to make up the record, "Discontinued at his own request," and at once adopted the democracy of the Congregational church government.
   Coming to Nebraska in 1858, and elected president of Brownville College, an institution on paper, he organized a Congregational society of sixteen members, out of new and old school Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and Congregationalists, which was dissolved by mutual consent when the war of 1861-4 unsettled residences on the border. Eligible to a chaplaincy, he entered the 1st Nebraska Infantry in 1861 and was mustered out of Veteran Cavalry in 1865, and on the same day was appointed United States Assessor of Internal Revenue by President Johnson.
   During the war he was often in charge of subsistence and transportation for loyal refugees within the Union lines, and of applications for military emancipation of slaves.
   On the 13th of February, 1864, at Batesville, Arkansas, Mr. Tipton addressed the Free State Convention ordered by Mr. Lincoln.
   Chaplain Tipton was mustered out of service in July, 1865,

and on the same day commissioned by President Johnson as Assessor of Internal Revenue for Nebraska. He championed the cause of immediate state organization in the political campaigns that followed, and when the state constitution was adopted and the legislature met in special session on July 4, 1866, he and Gen. John M. Thayer were made the nominees of the republican party for the two United States senatorships. The journal of the joint session held on July 11, 1866, shows that a motion to proceed to election of U. S. senator for South Platte having carried, the first ballot resulted: T. W. Tipton, 29 votes; J. Sterling Morton, 21 votes. A motion prevailing to proceed to election of U. S. senator for North Platte, the first ballot resulted: John M. Thayer, 29 votes; Andrew J. Poppleton, 21 votes. So Nebraska came into the Union with two republican United States senators.

   On the second day of the senate session, the following March, before the organization of the senate was completed, Mr. Sumner presented resolution No. 1, "Tendering the thanks of congress to George Peabody, with a gold medal, for having donated large sums of money to states and corporations for educational purposes." During the day he called it up and asked its immediate passage, which was objected to because it had not been to a committee, and there was no evidence before the senate on which the case was founded.
   On the fourth day of the session Mr. Sumner delivered a speech, highly eulogistic of the donor, who had been in Massachusetts, lived in Baltimore and made most of his immense fortune by banking in London. In this he was followed by Johnson of Maryland, one of the ablest democrats of the nation.
   Mr. Tipton was well aware that an opinion obtained, that a new senator should "sit at the feet of Gamaliel" during a probation and not dare to dissent from the great leaders on the ordinary questions; but in the case before the body he saw plainly a tendency to discriminate between private citizens, and to be-

stow honors and medals where wealth was able to purchase, and he further believed that no jurisdiction should be taken by congress over any subject that was not national; and that the money from the treasury should never be taken and bestowed as gifts upon favorites. Up to this time he had not yet voted, and much as he desired to observe a modest silence, and acquire a knowledge of rules and precedents before appearing before his superiors in parliamentary knowledge and legislative experience, yet he could not consent to cast a silent vote and submit to an unfair criticism. Besides, Nebraska had not yet spoken in that august presence, and it was of the first moment that her representative should not place her in a false position.

   His impromptu speech was as follows:

   If this were a national gift, if it stood on the basis of the Smithsonian grant, I would, as a matter of course, be willing to vote the thanks of congress of the United States; but it stands on no national position whatever and therefore that can not be claimed for it. In making this grant the donor, I understand, declared that he did it as a duty. If it is done as a Christian charity, as a Christian duty, he has his reward hereafter, and the consciousness of it here, and I am not disposed to doubt the ability of the Almighty to reward him to the utmost, and I do not suppose it is necessary for me to help the Deity out by granting a gold medal here. I prefer to leave him to his golden reward hereafter. I think he also says he regards it as a privilege to make this gift. Sir, it is a privilege, a privilege that few men will ever have; and the benefits of the privilege are great--distinction among men here, honor after death, for having granted so much for so great a charity.
   With this view of the question, impelled to it from a sense of duty, I cannot and will not make any distinction between the giver of a dollar and the giver of a thousand, and the giver of a million, when each in his sphere and in his capacity has done all that it was possible for him to do in behalf of education, science and general literature.

   On the final passage of the resolution the only votes in the negative were those of Grimes of Iowa and Tipton of Nebraska.

   Eight days from this date Mr. Tipton showed his willingness to stand by a democratic utterance and as promptly to retort a republican sarcasm, while he forecast radical sentiments intensi-

fied by four years with the army. The question before the senate was, whether more than a majority of the registered votes should be required to readmit a rebel state.

   The conclusion of his remarks was as follows:

   The senate convened on the 3rd of July, 1867, having adjourned from March 30, in order to supervise the actions of the

president on the question of reconstruction of the states lately in rebellion. At that time an Indian war was desolating western Kansas and Nebraska, and a portion of the senators had as much denunciation for our frontier settlers as for the murderous savages. But others than senators from the West admitted the importance of the crisis. Still there was an indisposition to act in our behalf, and a resolution was passed in caucus and offered in open senate to exclude action on all subjects at that session, excepting reconstruction. The omnipotence of the caucus was asserted by one senator as follows: "No senator can be superior to the decrees of caucus," and it was charged that men of honor must abide its decisions. To this replied Mr. Tipton:

   His colleague, Gen. Thayer, being on the Indian committee, was amply able to present the question of relief with zeal and intelligence, and favored a removal of the predatory savages beyond the limits of Union Pacific Railroads; and the organization of frontier settlers into a military force for local protection. Exasperated with the sentiments of the East and insulted with the assumptions of the caucus, Mr. Tipton was in no humor to mince matters, and hence found the outside limit of parliamentary etiquette in the subjoined remarks:

   Immediately the chairman of the military committee entered his protest against the sentiments of the senator from Nebraska, as in his opinion equally as far from Christian civilization as savage warfare. To which Mr. Tipton replied:

   Such was the condition of affairs in the West in June, 1867, that General Sherman said, writing from Fort McPherson, Neb., to the secretary of war: "Fifty hostile Indians will checkmate three thousand soldiers." He said in an order: "We must act
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with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination." The result in congress was a commission ordered to attempt a treaty.
   In the foregoing and a few other casual utterances counter to popular prejudice, and discarding mere conciliatory policy, appeared the senator from Nebraska, upon the skirmish line of parliamentary discussion, at the end of the first session of the 40th Congress.
   This session was the most peculiar of any that had ever preceded it, inasmuch as it kept in perpetual session, by an adjournment from time to time. Meeting on March 4th, 1867, and on the 30th of the same month adjourning until the 3rd of July and on the 20th of July adjourning to the 21st of November and continuing to December 2nd, being the first day of the second session. The object being that no harm should come to the republic during a recess, from aggressive acts of President Johnson.

   The basis on which he attempted to reorganize the rebel states provided that the persons taking part therein should have taken an oath of allegiance to the United States, according to his amnesty proclamation, and were qualified as voters according to the laws of the state before secession. And the convention or legislature should have power to "prescribe qualifications of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold office."
   This left it possible for the rebels then in power to perpetuate themselves in office, through the formality of a convention and a new election, unless they were ruled out by the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Once in power again, the Freedmen were at their mercy, as to the elective franchise. As a result of this mode of reconstruction, senators and representatives for Congress were mostly taken from a class of men who had held office under the Confederacy; from those also who had abandoned seats in the Congress of the United States to levy war against the government, while legislative and state officers

were mostly taken from the ranks of the army of the Confederacy.
   Persons of that class could not take the test oath, and hence could not have been admitted at Washington, even if the reconstructed states were approved. Having appointed governors at his pleasure, and settled the amounts of their salaries, and having declared peace and recognized states, he went so far as to assign Agricultural College scrip to North Carolina, assuming functions belonging to Congress. And yet the President had held very different views on rebels coming to the front in reconstruction. At Nashville, Tennessee, June 9, 1864, he said:

   So marked had been his radicalism, fears were entertained, on his accession to power, that he would be impracticably severe, and being from the South, the men lately in arms had much to fear; but when he began to champion a course so much more to their taste than the plan of Congress, their spirits revived.

   On this question Senator Tipton used the following language in a speech delivered in Congress in February, 1868:

   The congressional plan provided for military supervision during the process of reconstruction, and for a constitutional con-

vention of delegates, elected by the "male citizens 21 years old and upward of whatever race, color or previous condition"; and the constitution to affirm the same of the future voters, and the legislature to adopt the 14th amendment to the United States constitution. This plan discarded alike the state organizations that were overthrown, as well as those established under the Confederacy, allowing the military power to use them for provisional purposes only. The oath of office required the voter to swear that he had not been disfranchised for participation in my rebellion or civil war against the United States.
   Mr. Tipton's fidelity to the congressional mode had been amply tested before his appearance as a senator, since he had been a federal office-holder, and learning that he would not be recommended to the senate for confirmation unless he adopted the policy of the president, he declined to do so, preferring to go out of office rather than give up his political convictions.

   A few days before the House of Representatives appeared before the bar of the Senate with articles of impeachment against the President, Mr. Tipton occupied the Senate with a long and carefully prepared speech, covering the whole ground of debate, concluding as follows:

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