Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[921] by the United States to be redeemed in legal tender notes. It was claimed that the only authority for issuing such notes was the war power under the Constitution, and that all that were issued during times of peace were simply valueless and would be so held by the Supreme Court. The contest about the currency lasted during my whole congressional life.

Immediately there came a division in my congressional district upon these questions. I proclaimed myself there and everywhere a greenbacker, and that term was applied to me everywhere as the last term of ignominy. The banking interests organized a split in the Republican party. The Democrats had quite a following there, and it was thought better to have a Democrat elected by withdrawing the Republican votes from myself than to have so pestilent a greenbacker represent that solid old Republican district in Congress.

Therefore, Mr. Richard H. Dana, Jr., a gentleman of very respectable talents indeed and of considerable learning, and one who prided himself on his ancestry, was procured to run against me. He was supplied with money for the purposes of an electioneering campaign, and used it with great liberality. We canvassed the district, but not together, but we answered each other's speeches on alternate nights to different audiences. The people gathered around me; the bondholders gathered around him. It was evident that if he could not get the people away from me his votes would be scarce. He himself claimed to be of the aristocratic class in Massachusetts, and he attempted in his speeches to put himself on a level with the common people for the purpose of getting their votes, and his efforts afforded me infinite amusement as I replied to him.

He went among the workingmen of Lynn, who are almost all shoemakers, and showed how well he knew the manner in which people liked to be approached by those who seek their votes. He undertook to answer a charge made against him of being an aristocrat and wearing white gloves and holding himself apart and above the people. He laid himself out in the speech in which he did this, and it was the most amusing one I ever read. He said in substance:--

Fellow-citizens, I am accused of being an aristocrat. It is said that I wear white gloves. Well, I shall have to plead guilty to that last charge. I do wear white gloves for the purposes of society. You are told that I go about dressed in a very expensive, cleanly manner. I assure you, fellow-citizens,