Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs/Biographical Sketch
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
GEORGE SEWALL BOUTWELL, LL. D.,
Boston and Groton, the first commissioner of
internal revenue, secretary of the treasury under
President Grant, and for many years one of the leading
international lawyers, is the son of Sewall and Rebecca
(Marshall) Boutwell, and was born in Brookline, Mass.,
in what is now the old part of the Country Club house,
January 28, 1818. He comes from old and respected
Massachusetts stock, being a lineal descendant of James
Boutwell, who was admitted a freeman in Lynn in 1638,
and of John Marshall, who came to Boston in the ship
Hopewell in 1634. The family has always represented
the sterling qualities of typical New Englanders. Tradition
asserts that one of his paternal ancestors received a
grant of land for services in King Philip’s War. His
maternal grandfather, Jacob Marshall, was the inventor of
the cotton press, an invention originally made, however,
for pressing hops. His father, Sewall Boutwell, removed
with his family in 1820 from Brookline to Lunenburg,
Mass., where he held several town offices; he was a member
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1843
and 1844 and of the Constitutional Convention of 1853.
Mr. Boutwell attended in his early years a public school
in Lunenburg, where he became a clerk in a general store
at the age of thirteen, thus gaining a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of affairs. Later he supplemented
this experience by teaching school at Shirley. He also
studied the classics, and in various ways improved every
opportunity for advancement which limited circumstances
afforded. In 1835 he went to Groton, Mass., as clerk in
a store. But to be a lawyer was his dream before he had
ever seen a lawyer. Endowed with unusual intellectual
ability, which has been one of his chief characteristics
from boyhood, he felt himself instinctively drawn to the
legal profession, and as early as possible entered his name
as a student at law.
In 1839 he was chosen a member of the Groton School Committee, and in 1840 he was an active Democrat, advocating the re-election of Martin Van Buren to the Presidency. In the meantime he delivered a number of important lectures and political speeches, his first lecture being given before the Groton Lyceum when he was nineteen, and he was now rapidly gaining a reputation in public affairs, in which he early took a deep interest. In January, 1842, he became a member of the lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature from Groton, and for ten years thereafter his law studies were neglected. He served during the sessions of 1842, 1843, 1844, 1847, 1848, 1849 and 1850, and was also at different times a railroad commissioner, a bank commissioner, and a member of various other commissions of the commonwealth.
As a member of the House he made many important arguments that were legal in name if not in fact. One related to the Act of the Legislature of 1843, by which the salaries of the judges were reduced, and another upon a bill for the amendment of the charter of Harvard College. On the latter question, which was in controversy for three years, his opponents were Judge Benjamin R. Curtis and Hon. Samuel Hoar.
Mr. Boutwell originated the movement for a change in the college government, which was effected by a compromise in 1851. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, a member of the corporation, wrote an answer to his argument. This led to Mr. Boutwell’s appointment in 1851 as a member of the Harvard College Board of Overseers, which position he filled until 1860. In January, 1851, he became Governor of Massachusetts by a fusion of the Democratic and Free-soil members of the Legislature, and in 1852 was re-elected by the same body. He served in that capacity until January, 1853, a period of two years, and discharged the duties of the office with ability, dignity and honor. As a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853, Mr. Boutwell had further and better opportunities to make the acquaintance and to observe the ways of the leading lawyers of the State.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1853, Governor Boutwell entered the law office of Joel Giles, who was engaged in practice under the patent laws, and who as a mechanic and lawyer was a well-equipped practitioner in Boston. As a counselor in patent cases Mr. Giles had few equals. It was then Mr. Boutwell’s purpose to pursue the study and engage in the practice of the patent laws as a specialty, but in October, 1855, without any solicitation and indeed without the slightest knowledge on his part, he was chosen secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, of which he had been a member from 1853. With much uncertainty as to the wisdom of his action in accepting the place, he entered upon his duties and faithfully and efficiently discharged them until January 1, 1861, although he had tendered his resignation in 1859. His annual reports have always been regarded as models of preparation, and that of 1861—the twenty-fourth—contains a notable commentary on the school laws of the commonwealth. He continued as a member of the board until 1863.
After several years Mr. Boutwell severed his relations with Mr. Giles, and upon his admission to the Suffolk bar in January, 1862, on motion of the late Judge Josiah Gardner Abbott, he began active practice in Boston. His first jury case was before the late Judge Charles Allen, of Worcester, yet at that time he had never seen a jury trial from the opening to the close. Mr. Boutwell had scarcely entered upon his professional career when he was called to assume a most important place in national affairs, and one that was destined to keep him in close relations with the Federal Government at Washington for many years afterward.
Among the historical events, originating in the Civil War, was the passage of the act “to provide internal revenue to support the government and to pay interest on the public debt,” approved July 1, 1862. Mr. Boutwell organized the Office of Internal Revenue and was the first internal revenue commissioner, receiving his appointment while at Cairo in the service of the War Department. He arrived in Washington July 16, and entered upon his duties the following day. Within a few days the Secretary of the Treasury assigned him a single clerk, then a second, and afterward a third, and the clerical force was increased from time to time until at his resignation of the office of commissioner on March 3, 1863, it numbered 140 persons. To him is due its organization upon a basis which has more than fulfilled the most cherished hopes and expectations of those who conceived the idea and which has furnished from the first a valuable source of revenue for the government with little hardship or unnecessary friction among the people at large. The stamp tax took effect nominally on the 1st of October, 1862, less than two and one-half months after Mr. Boutwell entered upon his duties as commissioner, yet before he resigned, five months later, he had the office so well established, and its work so thoroughly organized throughout the United States, that its usefulness was assured and it has continued to the present time upon practically the same lines that he laid down. In July, 1863, three months after he retired from the office, he published a volume of 500 pages, entitled “A Manual of the Direct and Excise Tax System of the United States,” which included the act itself, the forms and regulations established by him, his decisions and rulings, extracts from the correspondence of the office, and much other valuable information bearing on the subject. This work has ever been accepted as authority, and still forms the basis of the government of the internal revenue system.
Before Mr. Boutwell was admitted to the bar he was retained by the county commissioners of Middlesex County to appear before a legislative committee of the years 1854 and 1855 against the division of that county and the erection of a new county to be called the county of Webster with Fitchburg for the shire. Emory Washburn appeared for Worcester County and Rufus Choate for Fitchburg and the new county. The application failed in 1855 and again in 1856. Mr. Boutwell’s arguments on this petition, made March 25, 1855, and April 23, 1856, were remarkable for power and eloquence, and largely influenced the final result.
From 1862 to 1869 he was retained in many causes, the most important of which was the controversy over the contract between the commonwealth and Gen. Herman Haupt for the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel. The hearing before a legislative committee occupied about twenty days and ended in the annulment of the contract. For several years Mr. Boutwell was associated in Boston with J. Q. A. Griffin. Afterward he was in partnership with Henry F. French until 1869, when he became Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Grant. He filled this position with great ability for four years, orginating and promulgating, among other measures, the plan of refunding the public debt. During that period he made but one argument, when he appeared in the Supreme Court on the appeal by his client of a patent case, of which he had had charge from the beginning. From 1863 to 1869 he had been a member of the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congresses, serving on the committees on the judiciary and on reconstruction, and being chairman for a time of the latter body. While representing his district in Congress Mr. Boutwell gained considerable experience in the proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and he was selected as one of the managers on the part of the House. In a remarkably brilliant speech before the House on December 5 and 6, 1867, he maintained the doctrine that the president and all other civil officers could be impeached for acts that were not indictable, although the contrary was held by many eminent lawyers, including President Dwight, of Columbia College, who wrote a treatise in support of his theory. But the House preferred articles that did not allege an indictable offence and the Senate sustained them by a vote of thirty-five to eighteen, one less than the number necessary for conviction. On April 22 and 23, 1868, Mr. Boutwell, on behalf of the managers, addressed the Senate, delivering one of the strongest and ablest arguments on record, and thus completing, as a lawyer, the most exhaustive labor he ever attempted. He was a member of the Committee of Fifteen which reported the Fourteenth Amendment, and while serving on the committee on the judiciary he reported and carried through the House the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
In 1873 Mr. Boutwell was chosen United States Senator from Massachusetts to fill the unexpired term of Hon. Henry Wilson, who had been elected Vice-President. He continued in the Senate until 1877, when he was appointed by President Hayes, through Gen. Charles Devens, then Attorney-General, commissioner to revise the statutes of the United States. That great work was completed and the volume was published in the autumn of 1878. Some idea of the labor involved in this undertaking may be gained from the index, which contains over 25,000 references. In 1878 Mr. Boutwell returned to Boston and resumed the practice of law. In 1880 William M. Evarts, then Secretary of State, and President Hayes, asked him to accept the position of counsel and agent for the United States before a Board of International Arbitrators created by a treaty ratified in June, 1880, between the United States and France, for the settlement of claims against each government by citizens of the other government. The claims of French citizens, 726 in number, arose from the operations of the Union armies in the South, principally in and around New Orleans, during the Civil War, and the consideration of them occupied four years. The counsel and the commissioners were called to the discussion of treaties, of international law, of citizenship, of the Legislation of France, of the rights of war, and of the conduct of military officers and military tribunals. The claims amounted to $35,000,000, including interest; the recoveries amounted to about $625,000; the defence cost the Government about $500,000; the record is contained in ninety printed volumes of about one thousand pages each and the pleas and arguments of counsel for the two governments fill eight large volumes. Mr. Boutwell’s own arguments cover more than 1,100 pages. Many of these cases rank as causes celebre, notably those of Archbishop Joseph Napoleon Perche, No. 3; Henri Dubos, No. 26; Joseph Bauillotte, No. 130; Bleze Motte, No. 131; Theodore Valade, No. 214; Pierre S. Wiltz, No. 313 ; Remy Jardel, No. 333; Etienne Derbee, No. 339; Arthur Vallon, No. 394; David Kuhnagel, No. 438; Dr. Denis Meng, No. 567; Azoline Gautherin, No. 590; Oscar Chopin, No. 592; S. Aruns Sorrel, No. 594, in which he probably made the best argument of his career; Jules Le More, No. 595; Athenais C. Le More, No. 598; Mary Ann Texier, No. 659; and Charles Heidsieck, No. 691. That of Theodore Valade, No. 214, was a full account of the battle of Donaldsonville, and those of Archbishop Perche, David Kuhnagel, and many others involved intricate and interesting questions of citizenship as well as damages for the destruction of property. On May 10, 1884, Mr. Boutwell made an exhaustive and final report on all these claims to the Secretary of State, Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. Boutwell was one of the counsel for the government of Hayti in the celebrated case of Antonio Pelletier against that republic in 1885, and made a most interesting oral argument. This case was a romance of the sea as well as of international importance, involving a claim of $2,500,000 and questions of piracy and slave trading. In 1893-94 Mr. Boutwell was retained as counsel on the part of Chili to defend that government before an international commission created under a treaty with the United States signed August 7, 1892. About forty cases were presented, involving $26,300,000, and the final report was submitted April 30, 1894. Among the more important were those of Gilbert B. Borden, No. 9, and Frederick H. Lovett et al., No. 43, against the Republic of Chili. These as well as nearly all the others were argued by him with a brilliancy and eloquence that has marked his entire career at the bar. Of the five courts martial that were held in Washington between 1880 and 1892 for the trial of officers of the army and navy Mr. Boutwell was retained for the defence in four cases, in three of which the accused were convicted and in the other honorably acquitted. In 1886 he was retained by the Mormon Church to appear before the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives against the Edmunds bill, which was modified in particulars pointed out in the discussion. The same year he appeared before the House committee on foreign affairs for the government of Hawaii in opposition to the project for abrogating the treaty of 1875.
Mr. Boutwell’s pleas and arguments have with few exceptions been published in book or pamphlet form, or both, and form of themselves a most valuable and interesting addition to legal literature. They bear evidence of a profound knowledge of the law, of vast research and of great literary ability. Among others may be mentioned those upon a petition to the Massachusetts Legislature for the removal of Joseph M. Day as judge of probate and insolvency for Barnstable County in March, 1881; in the matter of the Pacific National Bank of Boston before the banking and currency committee of the United States House of Representatives, March 22, 1884; and for the claimant in the case of the Berdan Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company of New York vs. the United States. He is the author of “Educational Topics and Institutions,” 1859; “Speeches Relating to the Rebellion and the Overthrow of Slavery,” collected and published in 1867; “Why I am a Republican,” a history of the Republican Party to 1884, republished in 1888; “The Lawyer, Statesman and Soldier,” 1887; and the “Constitution of the United States,” embracing the substance of the leading decisions of the Supreme Court in which the several articles, sections and clauses have been examined, explained, and interpreted, 1896. In 1888 he wrote a pamphlet on “Protection as a Public Policy,” for the American Protective Tariff League; on April 2, 1889, he read a paper on “The Progress of American Independence,” before the New York Historical Society; and in February, 1896, he published a pamphlet on “The Venezuelan Question and the Monroe Doctrine.”
Mr. Boutwell has probably argued more cases involving international law than any other living man, and in this department ranks among the ablest and strongest that this country has ever produced. For more than forty years he was a prominent figure before the bar of the United States Courts at Washington, where he achieved eminence as an advocate of the highest ability. He was uniformly successful, and won a reputation which was not confined to this country. He is an authority on international and constitutional law. His published writings stamp him as a profound student of public questions and as a man of rare literary culture and genius. He was a strong Abolitionist, and as lawyer, statesman and citizen has rounded out a brilliant career. In every capacity he has faithfully and efficiently performed his duties and won the confidence and respect of both friends and opponents. In politics he has been a leader of the Republican Party since its organization. He was a delegate to the Chicago Conventions of 1860 and 1880, and was chosen a delegate to the Baltimore Convention of 1864, but declined. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857 and of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College in June, 1861, at which time he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa oration. In 1851 Harvard conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D., and in 1861 he was a member of the Peace Congress at Washington.
Mr. Boutwell was married July 8, 1841, to Sarah Adelia, daughter of Nathan Thayer of Hollis, N. H. Their children are Georgianna A., born May 18, 1843, and Francis M., born February 26, 1847. Mr. Boutwell resides in Groton, Mass.
The eighth day of July, 1891, Mr. Boutwell’s family and friends celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage with Sarah Adelia Thayer, daughter of Nathan and Hannah Jewett Thayer, of Hollis, N. H.; and on the eighth day of July, 1901, the family observed the sixtieth anniversary, but without ceremony, as Mrs. Boutwell was much impaired in health.
* Copyright, 1900, by the Mason Publishing and Printing Co.