James B. Beck came into the House of Representatives when
I did, in 1869. He served there for six years, was out of
public life for two years, and in 1877 came to the Senate
when I did.
I do not think any two men ever disliked each other more
than we did for the first few years of our service. He hated
with all the energy of his Scotch soul,--the _perfervidum
ingenium Scotorum,_--everything I believed. He thought the
New England Abolitionists had neither love of liberty nor
care for the personal or political rights of the negro. Indeed
he maintained that the forefathers of the New England abolitionists
were guilty of bringing slavery into this continent. He hated
the modern New England theological heresies with all the zeal
of his Scotch Presbyterian forbears. He hated the Reconstruction
policy, which he thought was inspired by a desire to put the
white man in the place where the negro had been. He hated
with all the energy of a free-trader the protection policy,
which he deemed the most unscrupulous robbery on a huge scale.
He considered the gold standard a sort of power press with
which the monopolists of the East were trying to squeeze
the last drop of blood out of the farmers and workingmen
of the South.
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