Although his name was never entered on the rolls of the House of Representatives in Congress, the history of Nebraska and a manual published by the legislature in 1885 speak of him as elected to Congress. The contest in which he figured in the first session of the thirty-seventh Congress, was the most remarkable in the past history of the government. He was then under thirty years of age, and already stood so high in the, confidence of his party leaders that such men as Pendleton of Ohio, Voorhees of Indiana, and Richardson of Illinois became his champions. The latter, who had been governor of Nebraska for one year, said of him:

   Mr. Daily had also the aid of true political friends. They had, in a previous Congress, ousted a Democrat and seated him,--the political excitement was intense,--and now that he came a

second time claiming the right to cast another garland upon the altar of the newly enthroned Republican divinity, the admiration was shared between the gift and the donor. They pointed to his superior skill in strategy, admired his bold aggressiveness, and held him not too rigidly to the rules of rhetoric or the amenities of debate.
   On the 9th day of October, 1860, the election for delegates took place. On the 3rd of November, 1860, a certificate of election was issued to J. Sterling Morton, declaring him as having received the largest number of votes, and concluding, "this shall be the certificate of the said election as delegate to Congress, to the thirty-seventh Congress of the United States." The canvass of votes was made by the governor, chief justice, and district attorney, as required by law., Six months thereafter, unknown to the chief justice and attorney, without any re-canvass, or ending of it to the secretary of state for legal record, Governor Black issued a certificate of election to Mr. Daily, the opposing candidate, after Mr. Daily had months before been taking testimony to contest Mr. Morton's right to the seat in Congress. The reason given for this act was, that fraudulent votes had been discovered to the amount of 122, the deduction of which from Morton's vote elected Daily. The governor enjoined secrecy upon Mr. Daily, saying that he owed Morton money, for which he was being hounded, and if made known his departure from the state might be obstructed.
   The second certificate, attempting to revoke the first, was dated April 29, 1861, and as there was an extra session of Congress to commence July 4, 1861, that date would necessarily cause its publication. Mr. Daily stated to the House that, to avoid apparent undue secrecy when on his way east to Congress, he telegraphed an eastern paper of the fact of a new certificate. But Mr. Morton never saw the announcement; and arrived in Washington on the supposition that be was a member of Congress. The former private secretary of Governor Black (March 4, 1862) having made an affidavit of his copying the Daily certificate for the governor, "after he (Black) had been removed from

the governorship of Nebraska and Alvin Saunders had been appointed," made an explanatory affidavit in the interests of Mr. Daily April 30, 1862, in which he said he only intended by the word removed to say that it was after his removal so far as the appointment of Governor Saunders removed him, but he was the governor up to the time he left the Territory. Not to be outdone by this flank movement, Mr. Morton showed, by a letter of the Secretary of the Interior, "that Mr. Pentland was appointed a temporary clerk in the general land office March 15, 1862, on the recommendation of Hon. S. G. Daily of Nebraska Territory," implying thereby that Pentland was under obligations to Mr. Daily. This was parried by the assertion that high government officials of Pennsylvania had recommended Mr. Pentland. When, in connection with the Daily certificate, it was asserted that Mr. Daily had purchased the horse and carriage of Governor Black, as though "one good turn deserved another," he admitted the purchase, but said he got them one hundred dollars under their true cash value. On the subject of the second certificate of election, Mr. Morton said in opening his speech in the House:

   How this revoked certificate got on the house roll was stated by Mr. Daily in answer to Voorhees of Indiana:

   The first vote taken in this case was upon a motion to substitute the name of J. Sterling Morton for that of Samuel G. Daily, which was lost, and Mr. Daily was sworn in an the second day of the extra session, July 5th, 1861. The second vote involved a refusal to recognize Mr. Morton as a sitting member pending the contest, which carried the case over to the next session of Congress.
   As this was the fourth contest in succession from Nebraska, members were reluctant to enter upon its settlement, only that the two certificates for the same election gave it a novel character. It was the true policy of Mr. Morton to be respectful and conciliatory toward the majority, and hence he spoke of the mistake the House made in not allowing him to be sworn into the organization. But it was the policy of Mr. Daily to keep the majority in line, and hence his course of procedure to prejudice the House against his opponent. The war raging, and the very existence of the Union in peril, if the stigma of rebel could be attached to Mr. Morton's name, frauds against such an one would be hailed as blessings in disguise. But when Mr. Daily asserted that he had a letter from a Democrat, a captain in the army, who said Mr. Morton "sympathized with Southern traitors," Mr. Morton exclaimed:

   MR. DAILY: "Will the gentleman please close with prayer?" He would make no charges himself, but would send up the letter. Members declared it personal and not in order.

   MR. JOHNSON: "I think the House has been sufficiently disgraced with this scene already, and I object to it."
   Each of the gentlemen was an adept at evasion and retort. In a running debate with Voorhees of Indiana, Mr. Daily exclaimed:

and when Mr. Lovejoy said, "I feel bound to interpose in behalf of the scriptures," Mr. Daily, unabashed, continued:

   MR. MORTON:

   Mr. Daily, knowing what a center thrust this was in the knowledge of all Nebraskans, and that the House was ignorant of its terrible point, indignantly answered, "That shows, Mr. Speaker, the character of men. I do not reply to it."
   Mr. Daily, having passed a pleasant eulogy upon a witness, whose character when attacked had been sustained by twenty of his neighbors, received the following from Mr. Morton:

   Inasmuch as this contest was never decided on its merits, it matters but little that the analytic arguments of distinguished members should be omitted, and only a mere synopsis of those of the contestant and sitting member be given. The speech of Mr. Morton was first in order, and announced the consequence of the committee being bound by the prima facie action of the House:

   Taking up the case of L'Eau-qui-Court county, where one hundred twenty-two votes were thrown out of his count, on the testimony of four witnesses, Mr. Morton referred to evidence in which Mr. Westerman said that in consideration of the testimony which they were to give in behalf of Samuel G. Daily, "I agreed to pay W. W. Walford one hundred dollars and Heck fifty dollars." He further showed that, in a case in Dakota Territory, subsequently, this same Westerman gave as a reason why the witness Walford should not be believed upon oath, that he was a hired witness in Nebraska; and of the fourth one, Cox, he said, "He tendered his services to me as an itinerant witness, but I declined to negotiate, and within a week he turned up as a witness for Mr. Daily."
   When it was charged that the vote of the county for him was greater than the whole population, he showed that since the election a part of the county had been set off to the Territory of Dakota, and a new census taken. Of twenty votes denied him

in Monroe precinct, Platte County, because some were of citizens upon a reservation, he claimed they were, nevertheless, citizens of Nebraska, and such residents had been entitled to vote in the nearest adjacent precinct, by a recent legislative enactment. Of thirty-nine votes from Buffalo County, he claimed that the sworn records of the county showed organization and hence the vote valid. In Rulo precinct, Richardson County, where ninety votes were cast for Morton and the committee deducted twenty for want of residence in the precinct, he claimed that custom allowed them to vote in any precinct where they might be on the day of election, and further said:

   MR. NOBLE of Ohio:

   Mr. Morton presented in evidence an act of the Nebraska legislature, since the commencement of the contest, legalizing the first organization of Pawnee County, and claimed that he lost thirty-nine votes in Buffalo County on a charge of nonorganization, while in a county of the same condition, his opponent gets one hundred of a majority. He claimed that the law was not observed in Clay and Gage counties and in the

J. STERLING MORTON, 1896,

precincts of Otoe and Wyoming in Otoe County, and that the clerks of Dodge, Cass, Nemaha, Lancaster, Johnson and Washington made no abstract of votes, as the law required, and the minority report claimed they should be thrown out. He argued in conclusion, that to enforce the law as it had been construed against himself, would reduce Mr. Daily's vote two hundred and ninety-four. Mr. Morton concluded: "Thanking the House for its courteous attention, I submit the case for its determination."
   As L'Eau-qui-Court county was the objective point of attack, Mr. Daily approached it promptly:

   MR. MORTON:

   MR. DAILY:

   Mr. Daily stated that the witnesses, who received $150 on coming to Omaha to testify, traveled two hundred fifty miles. and were over sixty days making the trip. He claimed that Morton had votes counted for him in Platte County, from the Indian Reservation, by men who took the oath on the condition that the Reservation was found to be in Monroe precinct. As the chairman of the committee was to close the debate in behalf of Mr. Daily, it allowed the sitting delegate to disport himself at will among the multitudinous questions raised during the discussion.

   MR. VOORHEES:

   MR. DAILY:

   Following the closing speech of Mr. Daus, on motion of Mr. Washburn, a friend of Mr. Daily, the whole subject was laid upon the table by a vote of sixty-nine to forty-eight. So the contest was never decided, but Mr. Daily held the seat under the second certificate. The privileges of Mr. Morton ceased May 7, 1862.

   Into the political campaign of 1864, as republican candidate for delegate in Congress, Mr. Hitchcock entered unconditionally and hopefully. No man went beyond him in an endorsement of Mr. Lincoln's sublime prophecy that, "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our natures." Having been a delegate to the convention and voted for Mr. Lincoln's first nomination, and having heartily approved his official acts, and under his appointment acted as United States marshal for four years, it became more than a mere pleasure, a positive duty, to advocate his re-election.
   The Democratic candidate was General George B. McClellan, a splendid officer and pure patriot, who had been deemed too slow by the radical Republicans and too conspicuous for the scheming politicians. After the asperity of the war was subsiding Ben: Perley Poor, a Republican author, said of him: "General McClellan, who was then eulogized as a second Napoleon, soon found himself 'embarrassed' by men who feared that he might become president if he conquered peace." He was also impressed with this presidential idea by pretended friends who had fastened themselves upon him, and "between two stools he fell to the ground."
   All state or territorial politics were overshadowed in the canvass and national issues predominated. Mr. Hitchcock was elected delegate to Congress by a majority of one thousand, while Lincoln's majority in the United States, of the popular vote, was 407,342, and of the electoral college over McClellan was 191. Ten states were in revolt and not represented.

   The circumstances attending the advent of Mr. Hitchcock in public life, as a delegate in Congress, were monumental as to eras, marking the returning shadows of slavery, and the dawning glories of universal freedom. The hour in which he responded to the roll-call of "Nebraska," the newly elected Speaker of the House emphasized the living contrast:

   In the membership of the House was an infusion of the best young blood of the nation. The "Plumed Knight" of Maine, James G. Blaine; Roscoe Conklin, the gorgeous, of New York; the suave and well-poised Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania; the scholarly James A. Garfield, of Ohio; the chivalrous N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts; with a long list of compeers, challenging their pre-eminence, and holding the scales of decision in equal balance. Under the wig and upon the crutch came Thaddeus Stephens, the invincible old commoner of Pennsylvania, wielding the war club of leadership in the style of a Cromwell; while bearing the motto, "The pen is mightier than the sword," came Brooks of New York, editor, orator, and statesman. It matters not that a delegate in Congress may be of finished education, devoted to principles, profound in the science of government and used to intellectual sparring in stormy debate, yet he is barred from national themes and confined to narrow and material lines of territorial wants. But if of studious habits and sound morals, and making each opportunity a steppingstone to future elevation, the confined position of delegate will not prevent the acquisition of valuable material for use in the Senate or House of Representatives.
   The legislature of 1865-6 charged Mr. Hitchcock with the

presentation of memorials asking for bounty lands for Nebraska volunteers, and the same aid for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad as that accorded to the Union Pacific, and land grants for railroads west from Nebraska City and Brownville. Also for reimbursement of expenses incurred in suppressing Indian hostilities; and for numerous mail routes.
   In the first session of the thirty-ninth Congress, of his own motion, he presented bills for the creation and construction of a penitentiary, and for the finishing of the capitol building; asked that internal revenue from Nebraska might be appropriated. To faciliate emigrant travel and secure a western outlet for Nebraska productions, he presented a bill for a wagon road from Columbus to Virginia City, Montana. To save the people from frauds of irresponsible corporations and heartless cormorants he presented and advocated before the appropriate committee a petition for "just and equal laws" respecting interstate insurances. When terror-stricken emigrants fled before the murderous and thieving forays of Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux, their claims for remuneration and protection were met by an anticipating effort.
   With a firm faith in the future of the great west and its commercial demands, the Missouri river ready for heavy transportation, and an indomitable enterprise promising to make the beautiful central prairie state the railroad checkerboard of the nation, he early advocated Omaha and Nebraska City for posts of delivery. Bills for a geological survey and for government buildings at Nebraska City were deemed advisable, in order that concealed treasures might be disclosed, and for the accommodation of United States courts, revenue office and postal department.
   In summing up the results of the first session of the thirty-ninth Congress, the United States statutes disclose the following state of facts: Bills passed establishing sixteen post routes; for surveying public lands, $25,000 appropriated; for territorial expenses, $26,500; and as much of $45,000 as the secretary of war shall deem necessary to reimburse the territory for ex-

penses incurred in the suppression of Indian hostilities in 1864; and for the removal of the surveyor general's office of Wisconsin and Iowa to Plattsmouth, Nebraska. There was also found due and appropriated for Indian tribes in Nebraska, under treaties, over $100,000. Inasmuch as the closing session of the thirty-ninth Congress, closing Mr. Hitchcock's term, was to be one of three months only, and as the senator and delegate from Nebraska were awaiting admission, but little business was pressed upon the delegate; and he returned from the position three days before the end of his term, while the proclamation of the president, extinguishing the taper of the Territory, unveiled the star of the State.
   During that second session, however, the record shows the passage of an act allowing an annual appropriation of internal revenue, for three years, aggregating $40,000 for penitentiary buildings, $15,000 for land surveys, and an allowance for a geological survey, with $31,500 for legislative expenses. In his argument before the various house committees on lands, Indian affairs, pensions, claims, post offices, appropriations, commerce, agriculture and territories, as well as in his intercourse with fellow members, he manifested good capacity, liberal acquirements, commendable devotion to duties, with gentility of deportment. From the remembrance of their college days, it was no matter of astonishment when Garfield met him in the house, and subsequently, Ingalls in the senate.

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