Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 | Page 4

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,
originating 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 amount 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;