LIFE OF HON. THOS. A. HENDRICKS. THO CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. HOMAS A. HENDRICKS-now for the second time the nominee of the Democratic party for the Vice-Presidency of the United States, was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, on the 7th of September, 1819; he is therefore on the sunny side of his sixty-fifth birthday, and in what poets would call "the vigorous youth of his old age." The threescore years of his life have been passed amidst thrilling events. There is no period of history, ancient or modern, that can vie in importance with the early years of the present century. This eventful century was not twenty years old when Thomas A. Hendricks was born, and his years have run parallel with the nation's proud and stately march in the path of progress and civilization. When Hendricks was a boy, the Old World was listening to the death-knell of serfdom and vassalage; and it soon gave evidence more or less impressive, of a growing faith in the doctrine, that man as man-apart from all questions of birth or privilege—is the only foundation on which it is possible to build up a great and enduring nation. Old institutions that had long been venerated for their age rather than their usefulness, were gradually passing away. The mere accident of birth, or the possession of wealth, or even the possession of great genius were not henceforth to be the exclusive gateways to influence, and respect, and power. The aristocracies of birth, and wealth, and genius, were destined to see another aristocracy arise, the aristocracy of man! A new nobility-wearing the patent of a common humanity. How far the Old World was indebted to the New, for this strange upheaval in its modes of thought it is difficult to tell; one thing is certain, that before the nineteenth century had passed its first quarter, the doctrine of the equality of man was taking root in a land whose affrighted lords could only cry aloud in despair, 66 'Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, But neither wealth nor commerce, nor laws, nor learning, were destined to die; they were summoned to a more glorious career by that eternal law that claimed a crown, of human royalty at least, for the brow of every son of man. The throes of the French revolution, the angry agitations for Reform in England, the unrest that prevailed throughout the whole continent of Europe, marked a new era in the history of the world. Crowns, and thrones, and sceptres, were never anything more than signs; but the things they symbolized were showing unmistakable indications of decay. Seven years before Mr. Hendricks saw the light, a man was born in England, destined to carry the broad principle of human equality to national recognition against terrific odds. For England always abhorred slavery if it was only black, but when you asked her to regard an agricultural laborer as the equal of a noble earl, then you asked too much. When the hour for recognition came, Mr. Gladstone asked the privileged classes why they should be afraid of their less fortunate brethren. "Are they not," he said, "your own flesh and blood?" He was sneered at as "the author of the flesh and blood theory." But he was not ashamed to bear the title. While these agitations were going on in the old world, America was solving the problem of a thrifty and industrious nation governing itself. America was a good land to live in even then, but sixty years have made a wonderful difference. If Mr. Hendricks were to give in detail his personal remembrances of the America of his youth as compared with the America of 1884, it would be a very valuable contribution to modern history, and would be sure to inspire every right-minded young American with gratitude and courage. The march of science during the last half century has been something bordering on the miraculous. This century will be known to future ages as the Century of Science. The genius of invention, following the path of the discoverer, has laid its hand on almost every known force in the world, and has harnessed these forces to the chariot of utility. The wild lightning is tamed, and made to bear our messages; land is linked to land, and continent to continent by mystic bands that thrill with stories of joy or grief, or are charged with facts of first importance; modes of transit and means of communication are such, that this age would be almost justified in saying: "All power is given me in the heavens and on the earth for the universal good." If science has marched with giant strides along these later years, so have art and literature. Ten thousand canvasses glow with forms of grace and scenes of beauty; the press is pouring forth, night and day, in a ceaseless flow, the mighty thoughts of mighty men, and by its all but miraculous power is making these great thoughts the property of all men for all the coming ages. But the grandest crop America has yet grown is her crop of men. The true wealth of a nation does not lie in her widespreading lands, in the gold and silver in her mines, or the prodigious harvests that wave in her million fields, as much as in her men! America has brought in her brief and struggling history a large contribution of noble manhood to the garners of the earth and of the age. There |