CHAPTER V. MEMBERS OF U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. HON. T. M. MARQUETT. 39th Congress. March 2nd and 3rd, 1867. Hon. T. M. Marquett was born near Springfield, Clarke County, Ohio, in 1831, and graduated from the Ohio University at Athens in 1855 when 24 years of age. Having visited Kansas and Iowa, he made choice of Nebraska as a future home in 1856, in which year he was admitted to the bar. After one year's residence in Cass County, he was elected three years in succession to the Territorial House of Representatives; and so well were the voters satisfied with the ability, courage and capacity of the young statesman, that he was called upon to serve them four years in the Council (answering to the State Senate) subsequent to 1860. FIRST STATE ELECTION. To prevent confusion of facts relative to the first election to Congress, in Nebraska, under the State Constitution in 1866, it should be remembered that it took place during the 39th Congress while Mr. Hitchcock was territorial Delegate. Mr. Marquett held toward it a dual position, being elected both as member and delegate. In case admission of the State should occur during that Congress, Mr. Marquett was elected member of the unexpired term. Or, if it remained a Territory during the 40th Congress, he was to serve as a delegate. But if it was found a state in the 40th Congress, Mr. Taffe was elected to meet that emergency. Accordingly when it became a state in the expiring days of the 39th Congress, that retired Mr. Hitchcock, and made Marquett member for two days closing the 39th Congress. Becoming a state also superseded Marquett's election to the 40th Congress, and advanced Mr. Taffe to the membership. Mr. Marquett has remained at the bar, in absolute devotion to his profession, from the date of his admission, and has been resident attorney, at Lincoln, for the immense and complicated business of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Company since its establishment in Nebraska. Many friends pressed him for United States Senator when Mr. Tipton was re-elected in 1869. Without a stain upon his professional honor, his name stands high upon the roll of the State's most cherished and honored lawyers. Of his spoken eloquence, upon the stump and at the bar, but little has been recorded, for an utter neglect of his intellectual progeny has been the characteristic of a modest and fearlessly independent personality. PERORATION OF AN IMPEACHMENT ARGUMENT. In the most noted trial of the State in which Mr. Marquett was an attorney, in defense of Gov. Butler, he closed a most elaborate and powerful speech with the following appeal: Senators-The blow, unarrested, falls not alone on him. Would to God it did! Would to God that no wife, no child were to feel its crushing weight! Senators-You this day stand upon the banks of a Rubicon, beyond whose flood lies the dreary waste of political strife and dark contention. Humanity bids you pause. But yesterday the people placed upon the brow of David Butler a wreath intertwined with the laurel; to-day it is proposed to write there a brand of infamy; a burning brand; a brand which time cannot erase, and which not even the good angels above can wipe out, or hide from human view. Senators-As I close this case, let me remind you that those appeals of the counsel to the effect that the people demand the conviction of the accused,-that you need not show crime, or even a corrupt motive,-is only asking you to trace backward from the sunlight of today to those dark ages when a court, spurning evidence, yielded to outside clamor and sent a sainted Baxter to the block, and bade Algernon Sidney tread the narrow steps of the scaffold. Posterity will review our acts, and cannot do otherwise than condemn you if, by your verdict, you pronounce him guilty when the people have declared him innocent. Around you in this crowded hall, in the galleries and corridors, are those who anxiously await your verdict. God's own justice bids you at once break this dreadful suspense, NEBRASKA IN CONGRESS. On the 2nd day of March, 1867, the Globe report of the House proceedings, in Congress, has the following entry: Mr. T. M. Marquett, of Nebraska, appeared, and having taken the oath to support the constitution, and the oath prescribed by the act of June 2nd, 1862, took his seat. The next business before the House was the presentation of certain resolutions, affirming the refusal of ten states lately in rebellion, to adopt the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; and that as long as they continued to refuse. its adoption they would not be entitled to representation in the House; and refusal long persisted in would merit more stringent conditions. The object of the amendment in question was to define citizenship, and it declared all persons born or naturalized in the United States to be such and equally entitled to the protection of the laws. This, of course, included all the emancipated slaves. It also provided a national penalty for a State's denying any one the right to vote, "on account of race or color or previous condition of servitude." It also excluded certain participants in the rebellion from seats in Congress and from other positions, and declared the sanctity of the national debt. Next came the very elaborate veto message of President Johnson, of a bill "To provide for the more efficient government of the rebel states." The question was, "Shall the House pass the bill, the President's objections to the contrary notwithstanding?" Up to this time, the voice of the State of Nebraska had never been uttered upon a recorded vote; but upon sustaining a ruling of the presiding officer, Mr. Marquett broke the silence by voting "Aye," and did the same on Mr. Blaine's motion to suspend the rules, that the bill might be carried over the veto. And then, of course, on the final vote he was found with the constitutional majority of 135 against 48; and the law was passed and Ne braska placed squarely upon the platform of the Republican Congressional reconstruction, “amid thunders of applause on the floor and in the galleries." Again, during the same day, came another veto message, of "A bill to regulate certain civil offices," which was so conspicuous, finally, in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson; and once more Mr. Marquett voted in the affirmative on its passage. Another affirmative vote of much value was upon the joint resolution to enable the United States to participate in the Universal Paris Exposition of 1867. But the last time he responded to the roll call was to suspend the rules and instruct a committee to report a bill to reduce members' salaries, and before the result could be announced, the hour of adjournment having come, the Speaker, Mr. Colfax, delivered his valedictory address, proclaiming the inexorable fact -"As these parting words are said, another Congress wait for our seats." The seat occupied by Mr. Marquett for two days was at once labeled for John Taffe, of Dakota County, who was elected to the 40th Congress; and in the selfsame hour Senators John M. Thayer and T. W. Tipton put on the robes of office in the chamber at the other end of the Capitol. Had Mr. Marquett been elected to the 40th Congress as a member he would have made an efficient and popular representative. Of his ability his constituents had ample evidence in his career in the territorial legislature, and at the bar and upon the hustings during the years of slavery aggression, Civil War, and the earlier period of reconstruction. One can easily learn the value of first things and events by turning to the pages of the Illustrated History of Nebraska, where mingle in prodigal profusion records of first arrivals, marriages, births, deaths, erection of temples, and society organizations and especially the manners of those who landed from her "Mayflower" and first pressed her "Plymouth Rock." Accordingly, when the subject of this sketch shall have passed his "three score years and ten," bedecked with legal laurels, fellow citizens, proud of the splendid progress of a reconstructed government, will cherish the consecrated first State HON. JOHN TAFFE. March 4th, 1867-March 4th, 1873. Hon. John Taffe landed in Nebraska and settled in Dakota County in 1856, in the 29th year of his age, having been born in Indianapolis in 1827. His early instruction was received in the common school and academy and became the foundation of a legal education. Two years after his arrival he was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives and in 1860 we find him presiding over the Council, answering to the State Senate. In 1862 he was commissioned Major of the Second Nebraska Cavalry, and during a 15 months' service, was with General Sully's expedition against the Indians, in which the Second Nebraska under Col. Furnas received the hearty commendation of the general commanding. Several times having received votes in congressional conventions he was finally nominated and elected a member of the 40th, 41st and 42nd Congress, in the years 1866, 1868 and 1870. After leaving Congress he was Receiver of Public Moneys in the U. S. Land Office at North Platte, Lincoln County. On the occasion of his death in 1884, in an obituary notice of him in the Historical Transactions of the State Society, we have the following: In his congressional course Mr. Taffe was a faithful worker in the interest of the state of his adoption, energy and zeal being the predominating features of his work in the halls of congress as well as at home. His work was successful without ostentation, and thorough with all the elements of a practical nature. In the Forty-second congress he served as chairman of the house committee on territories, while at the same time holding important positions on two other committees. After leaving congress he became editor of The Republican and filled the chair with considerable ability and success. He was a plain, practical, and earnest writer, and, on political issues, throughout the State, in those days was considered almost infallible. An excellent proof of this is |