MEMOIR OF EDWARD L. PIERCE. BY JAMES FORD RHODES. EDWARD LILLIE PIERCE was born at Stoughton, Massachusetts, on March 29, 1829, and died in Paris on September 6, 1897. His ancestry was the sturdy Puritanical stock of the rural districts of New England. His father, Jesse Pierce, was a farmer, a schoolmaster, colonel of militia, and also served a number of terms in the lower branch of the Massachusetts Legislature. He was a good teacher and sympathetic father, and repaid his son Edward for the hard work he did during the day on the farm by systematic instruction in the evening. Edward had robust health and took kindly to this blending of physical and mental training. It was a wholesome bringing-up. In due time he was sent to the State Normal School at Bridgewater, where he was prepared for college, entering Brown University at the age of seventeen. He had the cacoëthes scribendi, and during his college course wrote a number of magazine articles, three of which were printed in the "Democratic Review." After graduating from Brown he went to the Harvard Law School, and in 1852 took his degree of LL.B. While still in college, his political life began by the formation of a life-long friendship with Charles Sumner and by his ardent espousal of the anti-slavery cause. As a boy of sixteen he had heard with admiration Sumner's Fourth of July address on the True Grandeur of Nations, and later had attended two lectures which were delivered in Providence. Eager to make the acquaintance of the speaker he so revered, he sent to him with a letter one of his magazine articles, which brought from Sumner an invitation to call upon him, and this Pierce availed. himself of many times during his frequent visits to Boston; he MEMOIR OF EDWARD L. PIERCE. BY JAMES FORD RHODES. EDWARD LILLIE PIERCE was born at Stoughton, Massachusetts, on March 29, 1829, and died in Paris on September 6, 1897. His ancestry was the sturdy Puritanical stock of the rural districts of New England. His father, Jesse Pierce, was a farmer, a schoolmaster, colonel of militia, and also served a number of terms in the lower branch of the Massachusetts Legislature. He was a good teacher and sympathetic father, and repaid his son Edward for the hard work he did during the day on the farm by systematic instruction in the evening. Edward had robust health and took kindly to this blending of physical and mental training. It was a wholesome bringing-up. In due time he was sent to the State Normal School at Bridgewater, where he was prepared for college, entering Brown University at the age of seventeen. He had the cacoëthes scribendi, and during his college course wrote a number of magazine articles, three of which were printed in the "Democratic Review." After graduating from Brown he went to the Harvard Law School, and in 1852 took his degree of LL.B. While still in college, his political life began by the formation of a life-long friendship with Charles Sumner and by his ardent espousal of the anti-slavery cause. As a boy of sixteen he had heard with admiration Sumner's Fourth of July address on the True Grandeur of Nations, and later had attended two lectures which were delivered in Providence. Eager to make the acquaintance of the speaker he so revered, he sent to him with a letter one of his magazine articles, which brought from Sumner an invitation to call upon him, and this Pierce availed himself of many times during his frequent visits to Boston; he also wrote to Sumner on other occasions for advice, which was freely given. On a certain day in 1850 Edward Pierce made this entry in his journal: "I have read the Fugitive Slave bill to-day, and it is outrageous. I stand ready to defy it and to give succor to the fugitive." His warm friendship with Sumner and his desire for the freedom of the slaves were the most important influences on his career. He also fell under the sway of Salmon P. Chase. Introduced to him by Sumner, he was for a while in his law office in Cincinnati, and afterwards became the private secretary of the Senator in Washington; but in 1855 he returned to Boston. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Edward Pierce went to the front as a three months' volunteer with the Massachusetts Third, and at Fort Monroe was placed by General Butler in charge of the "contraband" negroes who were working on the entrenchments. He wrote an interesting account of his experience for the "Atlantic Monthly" (November, 1861), and when his term of enlistment expired, he was sent by Secretary Chase to Port Royal, South Carolina, to superintend the raising of cotton by the freedmen. His interest in this matter was great, and he was fond in after life of referring to his experience during the first two years of the war. His sympathy with the negro never ceased. "Did you know," he wrote to me, February 8, 1895, "a negro college gave me LL.D. last summer? You would not value that, but I value it more than the one given me by Brown University. It was from Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina, where Keitt lived." In 1863 he was appointed by President Lincoln Collector of Internal Revenue in Boston. From 1866 to 1870 he was District Attorney of Norfolk and Plymouth counties; from 1870 to 1874, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities. In 1875 and 1876 he was a member of the House of Representatives of his Commonwealth, and he also represented the town of Milton in that body at the time of his death. In common with many Republicans he was defeated for Congress in 1890. Edward Pierce loved political life, and it was a pity for the community that he was not more frequently called into the service of his State or nation. He published a law book in 1857, another in 1874, and still another in 1881. He was made a member of this Society in March, 1893, and served on the Council from 1895 to 1897. In 1895 he edited the Diary of John Rowe. He read with great effect, at our March meeting in 1896, a very interesting paper on Recollections as a Source of History. This and some other articles he published in a book of addresses and essays in 1896. 66 His most memorable literary work was the Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, the last two volumes of which were published in 1893. This work is his title to fame. When one says that the biography is written by an ardent friend and hero worshipper, one has uttered the only criticism that is likely to be made of it. It is almost always accurate, it is in the main impartial. A positive man, as was Edward Pierce, would certainly express his opinions, but he covers up nothing, and whenever he is an advocate or partisan he is an honest one. In parts of his book he shows a fine reserve. Even a conservative acquaintance thought him too moderate in treating the Brooks assault. But, said Pierce, in a private letter, he is mistaken. The true way was to set forth all the facts clearly which had not been done before and to leave them there without epithet or display of temper." Pierce, like Sumner, never exhibited any vindictiveness to Brooks, although he had, as an impressible young man, a vivid sense of the injury done to his hero. In September, 1856, he dined and took tea in company with Sumner at the house of a common friend in Philadelphia, writing thus in his diary: "Sumner looks as well as ever, and his appetite and digestion are good. But his step is still very measured, and he has had wakeful nights. He says he shall recover. I fear he may have a spinal affection." On one of his many journeys Pierce, if I remember correctly, visited the grave of Preston Brooks in South Carolina. His attitude towards Sumner is well exhibited in an exclamation in a private letter: "What slippery fellows public men are! Sumner is the only one on whom you could put your finger and always find him there never double or misleading." I do not remember that Pierce points out in his book how much easier it is for a public man who has devoted himself almost exclusively to a moral cause to be consistent than it is for a party leader or a constructive statesman. But such an omission in the book cannot be accounted a defect. Pierce's idea of the work of an historian or a biographer is well stated in another private letter. To read "newspapers, |