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15: The Last Two Years: A Working Senator
- University of New Mexico Press
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153 Chap ter fifteen The Last Two Years A Working Senator The Constitution intentionally made the office of the President one with great powers, and such is the perfect balance and blending of the functions of all the coordinated branches of the Government . . . —Ross, speech to the United States Senate, March 24, 1869| Edmund Ross continued to have difficulty with his fellow senators and fellow Kansans in the fall of 1868, but a strong, albeit smaller, base of Kansans still admired him. The months between May and October seemed to heal some of the wounds brought about by the impeachment and trial. While some, if not most, of his Senate colleagues averted their eyes when passing him in the Capitol, Ross had to feel honored when he received an invitation to be the guest of honor at the groundbreaking for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in Topeka in October. General C. K. Holliday, president of the AT&SF and a longtime friend, had not forgotten Ross’s strong advocacy of a rail system to serve all of Kansas, in particular his vision of a rail line that would mimic the Santa Fe Trail. Although Ross was on the original board of directors of the AT&SF, his tenure on the board and participation in the development of the Santa Fe line was interrupted by his decision to serve with the Kansas Volunteers during the Civil War. But he did not lose his interest in railroad development. In a December 1862 letter to Fannie he was excited to have news of the long-awaited line from Leavenworth to Topeka: “I have learned that the railroad from Leavenworth to Topeka has commenced which gratifies me very much. I think I will take a trip over it to Leavenworth when I get home. The children shall all go too.”1 154 < chapter fifteen The complications of getting the AT&SF on the ground, however, were protracted, involving the securing of adequate financial backing, rights-ofway across Indian land, and federal land grants—all further delayed by the years lost during the Civil War. Ross was not active in any of these stages of development. Still, in large measure it was his inspiration that got the Santa Fe started, and it was appropriate that he should be the dignitary to turn the first shovel of dirt. The ceremony took place on Washington Street in Topeka on October 30, 1868. The Topeka Leader reported (with some inaccuracies regarding Ross’s years in the army and the Senate) that “after an absence of four years in the Army of the Union, and three years in the United States Senate, our friend Ross returns to Topeka in time to take up the shovel and throw the first earth upon the grading of this same railroad that ten years ago he helped organize. . . . [I]n speaking of these years of strife and turmoil, and reverting to his old established company, Col. Huntoon being present, Major Ross felt happy that he had been instrumental in helping to form a company that would in a few years, at most, be of so much consequence to the state.”2 The best news for Ross involved his family. Ross’s youngest and fifth living child, Kay, who turned two in August, was old enough to travel, making it possible for Ross to take his family with him to Washington that fall. Edmund and Fannie shared a three-room suite on the second floor of the Ream house with their daughters Lillian and Eddie and baby son Kay while the two older boys, Arthur and Pitt, lived across the street on the third floor of a rooming house. The two boys, now fifteen and thirteen, were enrolled in a business college and took dancing lessons from a Professor Maim, one would presume with some reluctance.3 Leis described the parlor of the Ream house as being more like a salon where there was “seldom an evening without several callers coming or going.” Vinnie, talented not just as a sculptress, would often sing for guests. “She was bright, vivacious, ready to play an accompaniment for some singer. Or seated on a low chair, the harp beside her, ever ready with some song at request.” With the Ross family living room directly above the Ream parlor, Vinnie’s sweet voice could be heard, a pleasing experience for the Ross family and a strong memory for Leis.4 Probably on more than one occasion during the fall and winter of 1868–1869, the Ross family visited the Capitol Building. It was, after all, the principal attraction in the city. James Dabney McCabe, under the pseudonym Edward Winslow Martin, wrote in 1873 that it was “indescribably [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:55 GMT) The Last Two Years = 155 grand. The pure white marble glitters and shines in the sunlight, and the huge structure towers above one like one of the famed palaces of old romance.”5 A walk through the rotunda with its spectacular frescoed dome, eight vast canvases depicting pivotal events in American history, and the marble statue of Alexander Hamilton in the center would have been unlike anything ever seen by Ross’s wife and children. Although there was a lot to see and remember, Lillian Leis’s only recorded recollection was visiting Vinnie Ream in her studio in the basement of the Capitol. The clay model of Lincoln was in a corner, and Vinnie would climb “nimbly up the ladder chiseling here and there and keeping a chatter all the while.” Leis told of people coming and going all day, curious to see how the statue was coming, and of Vinnie’s patience with interruptions.6 Ross’s family also had the opportunity to see the Senate in session and perhaps even Edmund Ross himself in action. But they did not see Ross give one of his most important speeches, as it was given late on the night of February 8, 1869, probably near eleven o’clock. The matter under consideration was a House resolution that ultimately established the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution with its two simple declarative sentences: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” and “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” As simply worded as the amendment is, the debate to arrive at its final form, and even its existence, consumed the better part of February in both houses of Congress and in a joint committee. The night of the Ross speech was particularly dramatic, with the somewhat subdued gaslight illuminating the Senate chamber. Ross cited three parts of the Constitution that he believed gave Congress the authority to simply enact a law that former slaves had a right to vote in all states, a law that could not be overruled by any state. However, most senators believed a constitutional amendment was necessary to override the long-held belief that only states decided voting qualifications. A congressional enactment would be the speediest course, in Ross’s view. “But if gentlemen prefer the other . . . remedy—an amendment of the Constitution—let us have that.”7 There was a simple justice to the amendment. It reflected a concept that Ross had so often articulated in his newspaper career and that compelled him to speak, but he did so hesitantly. Ross believed he was not the good debater that many of his legally trained colleagues were—men he admired 156 < chapter fifteen like William Pitt Fessenden, James Grimes, and Lyman Trumbull—so he simply didn’t debate. But being a skilled writer, Ross was a good orator whose speeches were clear and well reasoned. His February 8 speech began almost apologetically: “Mr. President, conscious of my inability to handle instructively a subject of such magnitude as the one under consideration, I had determined to remain a listener, and to cast a silent vote for the proposed amendment.”8 Ross’s compassion for former slaves was evident: For it will not be denied that the negro has the same interests at stake; that he is under the same obligations and responsibilities for the preservation of the public peace, for the conservation of the public good and the advancement of the public weal in all respects as ourselves. He is endowed with the same aspirations for improvement , for a higher and better life, and with the same instincts which are common to us all. He is susceptible to the same motives which move us all, capable of the same degree of cultivation and the same ambition to achieve it. . . . ...Slaveryisnotdead,however,untilallitssupportsareremoved. It will never die until the negro is placed in a position of political equality. . . . Without the ballot he is the slave of public prejudice and public caprice—the foot-ball of public scorn.9 Ross felt strongly about a related issue debated that February: states’ rights versus power centralized within the federal government. Among the senators who opposed passage of the Fifteenth Amendment was fellow recusant Lyman Trumbull, who believed it was the right of states to decide voting qualifications; but when the voting outcome became evident, even Trumbull voted for the amendment.10 Ross’s position was unequivocal from the beginning: I am not a friend of the principle of decentralization, as it is termed—I call it disintegration—which for many years characterized our form of government. One of the inevitable sequences of our great civil war was the demonstration of the necessity for a strong, centralized Government, such as we never had, and such as Washington, and Hamilton, and many of the fathers contended for—a Government able to act promptly and effectively when assailed from within or without; a Government able to protect [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:55 GMT) The Last Two Years = 157 itself against all contingencies, near or remote, liable to threaten its existence or embarrassment. . . . . . . Who is to stand as the champion of the individual and enforce the guarantees of the Constitution in his behalf as against the socalled sovereignty of the States? Clearly no power but that of the central Government is or can be competent for their adjustment, and it is equally clear that unless the power may be enforced by the central Government, that Government fails of the object of its institution and develops within itself the seeds of its own disintegration ; for when the Government fails to protect the individual in any of his rights, it forfeits to the degree of that failure its claim upon his allegiance and support.11 The February 8 speech was important because it publicly reiterated beliefs that to a large extent had motivated Ross’s life choices and the goal of social equality to which he remained committed. In March and April he would speak about other issues that mattered greatly to him, but achieving freedom and justice for black Americans was the most important of all. When Ross finished speaking near midnight, Senator Thomas Hendricks moved for an adjournment. Except for a dinner break, the Senate had been in session since noon. When Hendricks’s motion was put to a vote, an overwhelming number of senators voted to continue. The debate lasted another twelve hours, adjourning at noon on February 9. The Fifteenth Amendment would be ratified by the states just one year later. Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment by both houses of Congress on February 26, 1869, was a significant accomplishment, but the wording did not assure all the safeguards Ross had hoped for. Although former slaves were protected at the ballot box in regard to race, color, and former condition of servitude, the intent of the amendment could be easily circumvented —and was in the years and decades to come—on such grounds as literacy, property ownership, and other contrived means. Slavery and its related issues had been a part of Ross’s life since he was in his teens, but the impeachment of the president was the issue that dominated his senatorial career. At the core of the impeachment trial was the Tenure of Office Act. Ross had originally voted in favor of the law, but in the course of the trial he came to realize that it enhanced the power of the legislative branch at the expense of the executive. When a bill to abolish the tenure law was introduced in the House of Representatives, Ross 158 < chapter fifteen delivered a speech in favor of repeal. He had nothing personal to gain by pursuing the end of the Tenure Act. Andrew Johnson was out of office by that time, so there was no political favor at stake. Ross understood that the law fundamentally was unconstitutional. Although he apologized for being “unlearned in the law,” his argument on March 24 was clear and sound. “The balance between the coördinate branches is seriously disturbed, if not destroyed. The measure of power which is lost to the executive is absorbed by the legislative department. Power is always aggressive, and its tendency is to accumulate to itself, no matter in whose hands it is placed.”12 Even though there were a fair number of senators and representatives willing to vote for the abolition of the Tenure of Office Act, it would be another eighteen years before that actually happened. When it was convenient, Ross took one or more of his children with him on various errands, even on official business. On one occasion he took his six-year-old daughter Eddie with him to the White House, where Eddie met President Johnson. The president graciously gave Eddie a bouquet of flowers from his desk and asked for a kiss in return. He knelt down for the kiss that Eddie gladly gave.13 It was odd that Ross enjoyed a cordial relationship with Johnson but not with Ulysses Grant, Johnson’s successor. Odd but probably not unexpected. Ross’s perceived disloyalty to his party during the impeachment proceeding was not easily forgotten nor forgiven, even though a “guilty” vote by Ross would have meant that Benjamin Wade, not Grant, became president. Given the accidental way Ross had become a senator and given the remoteness of Kansas, both geographically and politically, nothing could have prepared him for the experience of arriving in the imposing Capitol. Any idealistic notion he may have held of how things should be in Washington were shaken. Soon enough he was exposed to the far less than idealistic way that work was accomplished. The control that party leaders insisted on enforcing, with serious sanctions for not conforming, was disturbing to him. As the pseudonymous Edward Winslow Martin noted in 1873, “Men who are not fit, either by reason of intellectual gifts, or the admiration and confidence of the people, to represent the great States of the Union, have found their way into the Senate, and the high standard of fitness for the position once set up by that body has been effectually, and most unfortunately lowered.”14 Although Ross did not have the legal training that Fessenden, Trumbull, Thomas Ewing Jr., and many others had, his knowledge of the foundation of the American system of government was excellent [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:55 GMT) The Last Two Years = 159 and in some ways not different from Andrew Johnson’s background and understanding. Each man had an almost reverential respect for the United States Constitution. To that extent it is not surprising that Johnson and Ross were at least cordial and perhaps even experienced a degree of friendship in spite of political differences. Ross respected Johnson far more than he respected Benjamin Butler and Samuel Pomeroy and others who were supposed to be his allies but who, instead, despised him for not following their dictates. Although Ross did his loyal Republican best to campaign for Grant, it was Senator Pomeroy and Congressman Sydney Clarke who had the new president’s ear. Within his first month in office Grant was already supporting sweeping patronage changes in Kansas and most other states. Ross could, and perhaps should, have expected Grant to favor the other two members of the Kansas delegation, but he nonetheless made an appointment to confront Grant directly. Ross was hurt not only because he had been a supporter of General Grant but because Grant seemed not to recognize him as a fellow Civil War veteran, one of the very few serving in the Senate. Accounts differ about the meeting between Ross and Grant, but certainly it did not include smiles and handshakes. Leis gave us her account of the confrontation. “Finally he called on the President—and I think he was not received very graciously, but he stated his case—The President said— ‘Mr. Ross, I do not propose to be criticized.’ Father replied—‘Mr. President, I propose to criticize you.’ And asked—‘Am I to understand then, that this will continue to be your course’? ‘You may,’ was the answer. Father withdrew , went to the Senate, and began his opposition to Mr. Grant.”15 In reaction to a story in the New York Herald published on April 13, 1869, reporting on the confrontation between Ross and Grant, Ross asked for the floor of the Senate to condemn the account which, the paper stated, had Ross “boiling over with rage.” Ross quoted the story as claiming that President Grant had said sharply, “I have no intention to be dictated to, sir,” and that, “muttering between his teeth,” he had said, “I must decline to be annoyed any further on the subject,” adding his “desire the interview should terminate.” Ross reportedly replied, “You and your desires can go to hell.”16 Ross claimed that even more outrageous versions of the meeting were dispatched throughout the country, and especially to Kansas, by “parties interested in manufacturing public opinion against myself, who were witnesses to that interview, and knew that those statements were false.”17 Ross also felt compelled to give his version as a courtesy to the president. “I feel it 160 < chapter fifteen my duty to say that on the occasion referred to, no words inconsistent with the strictest rules of propriety and decorum, found utterance from either of the parties to that interview.”18 One of the few individuals to witness the exchange, according to the New York Herald, was Senator Zachariah Chandler, a Radical Republican from Michigan.19 Senatorial propriety would not have allowed Ross to specify who else was in the room at the time, but having the news article read into the record with Chandler’s name attached allowed Ross to politely identify Chandler as the one who falsely reported on the Grant-Ross exchange. Chandler had a history of denouncing non-Radicals. In a speech before the Senate on July 20, 1867, Chandler attacked Republican conservatives, in particular William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, calling them “perverts” and declaiming, “Sir, the path of conservative republicanism is as clearly marked by tombstones as the great highway to California by the carcasses and bones of dead mules. No man can mistake its path, because the tombstones are scattered thick all along the route. Here lies the body of a recusant: a man who could not be trusted by the people .”20 Chandler would have savored the chance to witness the Ross-Grant exchange and to make the most of it and could possibly have been in the room with Ross and Grant by design. For Ross to have told the president to “go to hell” is not consistent with his long record as a levelheaded, rational person who detested any form of cursing, but it nevertheless may have been true. The meeting between Ross and Grant was a turning point for Ross. If he had entertained any hope of retaining his seat in the Senate, it surely was clear after their meeting that the hope was minimal at best. The truth of what happened at the confrontation is probably somewhere between the unreliable newspaper account and Lillian Leis’s biased story. The sense of Ross’s April 20 speech is one of frustration, perhaps even frustration that took him beyond the bounds of propriety with the president. Ross’s frustration was not only with Grant but with a political system that favored the likes of Pomeroy and Clarke. Ross found it offensive that capable men were replaced with others who were less than qualified, for strictly political reasons. He was offended in particular that Civil War veterans were replaced by “skulkers” and “men notoriously unfit for any public trust.” He cited several examples: “In one instance a gallant soldier, eminently qualified for the position he held, and who will go a cripple to his grave, is displaced by a man who not only enjoyed the security of his fireside during the war, but is known to have been a proslavery sympathizer during the border ruffian disturbances of the then [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:55 GMT) The Last Two Years = 161 Territory.” He also emphasized that nearly all new appointments were men who defamed him and who were personally hostile to him. “A combination of my colleagues from Kansas in Congress has been formed to drive me from political life because I have dared to defy the dictation of party when I believed that other objects than the country’s good were sought to be subserved thereby, and I fear the President has been deceived into giving that combination his powerful aid. Hence the sweeping and unjust removals of officeholders, chiefly Republicans and soldiers, . . . and as an important part of that party machinery which is being used for my destruction.”21 Ross had not been hesitant to use patronage to his own advantage; he really had no choice but to go with the system. He claimed he did not favor the removal of anyone from office unless for “good and sufficient cause,” as Lincoln had once suggested.22 If Ross can be believed, there was more than a fine line between his “ethical” patronage and Grant’s “reckless appointments ,” but it was patronage in both cases. It was about the time of Ross’s April speech that his family returned to Kansas. The end of the special session of the Forty-first Congress came just two days after the Ross speech, but Ross, like many of his fellow senators, remained in Washington for some weeks to clear up unfinished business. In a June 2 letter to Fannie, Ross said he still wasn’t able to fix the time for returning home, but he hoped it would be very soon. He was following up on matters involving both railroad and Indian legislation. “The Secretary of War talks very kindly, and I feel sure is ready to do what I ask, but is taking time to deliberate a little too long, I think. I want to wait here until both these matters are finally settled, as if I go away before that, I fear they will be greatly delayed.”23 This was a sad and lonely time for Ross. His family was gone, his prospects for remaining in office extraordinarily thin, his friendships limited. One can easily imagine him preferring the pressures of the impeachment trial; at least then he was not ignored. The Ross family was probably reunited by mid-June in Lawrence. Little is known about Ross’s activities that summer except that Lillian Leis remembers it as a pleasant time, with Edmund and Fannie having a lot of time together. Leis records that the two traveled often but doesn’t say where they went. There is some indication that Ross gave a patriotic speech at a Fourth of July gathering in Lawrence. He remained away from Washington until the beginning of the second session of the Forty-first Congress. That probably means Ross was back in Washington before the end of November of 1869, with the actual start date for the session the first Monday in 162 < chapter fifteen December. This time Fannie and the children remained in Lawrence. Leis records that life for Fannie and the children was more comfortable at home, and she says there were financial reasons. She indicates that there was gossip , as “a great many people concerned themselves over our arrangements, commenting and criticizing, as many will do.”24 That there were financial reasons for the family to remain in Lawrence is clear from the letters Ross wrote to Fannie. There was another reason unmentioned by Leis: Fannie was pregnant again and probably unwilling to travel. What is also clear in the letters is Ross’s loneliness without his family , the continued frustrations with his job and dealing with colleagues and members of the press. Detecting Ross’s feelings in his June 2 letter is just that, detection, a reading between the lines, but in his letter home of December 15, the loneliness and frustration of his circumstances are plainly stated. “I have not heard from you since I left home. What is the matter? Surely some of the children can get time to write. . . . I am strongly tempted sometimes to give up and try to get into some business which will permit me to be at home. I begin to feel that even a morning paper is preferable to this kind of life.”25 On December 29 Ross wrote to Fannie and included a check for forty dollars. Most of Ross’s letters included money for Fannie to manage the household. Usually his checks were in the range of twenty to one hundred dollars. He also told her about a loan he was arranging that he expected to be firmed up quite soon. He was apparently going to use that money to pay a note owed to a man named Read. Without the loan money he was only able to make a partial payment, but he was confident he would clear matters up within a week or two. Ross’s monthly income as a senator was slightly more than $400, out of which he had to pay for room and board in Washington, make a mortgage payment, and supply Fannie with household money, in addition to miscellaneous expenses. The bulk of the December 29 letter dealt with a news article in which a correspondent had interviewed a man named Cornelius Wendell who, it was claimed, had knowledge of Ross, Fowler, Henderson, and Van Winkle having received money from friends of Johnson for their acquittal votes. Ross reported to Fannie that he had talked to Wendell that day and that Wendell denied ever saying any such thing to the correspondent and intended to seek a retraction. What Wendell did tell Ross, and probably the reporter, was that he knew of one of Ross’s intimate friends having been approached to intercede with Ross to take a money bribe, but that Ross’s friend had told the briber it would be useless to try it. The “intimate [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:55 GMT) The Last Two Years = 163 friend” is not identified in the letter. Ross told Fannie, “I am satisfied that it is all a concerted plan to keep me down and prevent my reelection.” Ross at this point still hoped that he could somehow be returned to office.26 It is interesting to note that at about the time Fannie received Edmund’s letter, the Kansas State Record ran a lengthy article that reported on the Wendell interview with the correspondent. The reporter turned out to be from the New York Sun, and nowhere in the interview does Wendell talk about Ross, Fowler, Henderson, or Van Winkle. Wendell admits to having firsthand knowledge of attempted bribery on the part of friends of the president, but he states that Johnson had no knowledge of what was happening and would not have approved if he had.27 Another letter dated March 6, 1870, reveals more about the financial problems Ross was dealing with. He tells Fannie that he received her letter of February 27 and that he had also received a letter from Lillian, who was away at school.28 Ross explains to Fannie that he had a draft for thirty dollars ready to send home, but he decided to send it to Lillian, who needed to make arrangements to travel back to Lawrence. To Fannie he writes, “I enclose $5 in this which is all I have in my pocket now and send it, thinking it may be of some use to you and will send some more within a day or two.” Ross then goes on to say that he has “made arrangements for a loan of a few thousand dollars. And this time I feel sure of getting it, and in the course of a couple of weeks at farthest you can then get a sewing machine.”29 The loan he expected in December apparently did not materialize. Ross’s thoughts during this period are centered on the idea of having a nicer home in Lawrence, suggesting that he was comfortable with the idea of not serving a second term: “I think it would be a good plan to buy the house on Tennessee Street, which you speak of, if you can sell the one where we live. Judge Hendry has the sale of it and the owner is now here [Washington]. I will see him about it the first time I meet him and see how it can be bought.” An even longer-range plan for Edmund and Fannie was to build a home on two lots they owned in Lawrence. Having a nice home is a recurring theme with Ross. He finishes the letter by saying that he had another picture made of himself, which he thinks Fannie will like a lot.30 The very next day, Ross wrote to Fannie to tell her he had seen Colonel Bowler, who owned the house she spoke of. The house was under a court order to be sold. An attorney named Riggs (probably Ross’s good friend) in Lawrence was handling the sale for Bowler, and Ross advised Fannie to see him immediately.31 On March 28 Ross wrote again about the house and 164 < chapter fifteen wanted to know if Fannie had made any headway. He clearly was very eager to own the house and wanted Fannie to do her best to buy it. This time he also enclosed a draft for one hundred dollars.32 On April 4 Ross sent Fannie another draft for one hundred dollars and a rambling kind of letter covering a number of diverse subjects. He reported that he was well but life was “very lonely and dull.” Ross was also disappointed that Fannie did not like his latest photograph. “I thought it was very good and I had it put in the gallery of photographs of the Senate which [Mathew] Brady has been putting up. I am getting so fleshy that I thought I looked better without a beard.” Ross also tells of a report being circulated that “I am drinking very hard. Have you heard anything of it?” He also mentions that a man named Bob Wilson was supposed to plant trees on their property. He had arranged for it the previous summer and forgot, until this letter, to tell Fannie. He closed by asking if she knew any more about the house on Tennessee.33 A letter on April 19 was short and again included a draft for one hundred dollars. There is no mention of the house on Tennessee Street. It appears that the sale did not take place. He says that he is doing well, but “I am beginning to feel as though I did not care if I came back here or not. . . . I shall never come back here to stay unless I can bring my family with me.”34 Although Ross’s letters home do not say much about his senatorial life, and although in later life he would write, “The record of my five years of membership of the Senate was practically devoid of public interest except in the matter of the impeachment and trial of President Andrew Johnson,”35 the truth was that he did accomplish a fair amount. In looking at just the Forty-first Congress, Ross sponsored at least forty bills or resolutions, some of which are notable, some routine, but all important to his state and in some cases beyond Kansas. For example, he sponsored a bill instructing the secretary of the interior to look into the possibility that money and provisions were due the Shawnee Indian tribe (March 30, 1870). Ross also sponsored a resolution to ensure that children of deceased Indian men who had served in the army and who were entitled to pensions, back pay, and other benefits would receive any uncollected money or compensation due their fathers (March 18, 1869). He sponsored several bills to encourage the forestation of Kansas, including a bill that would allow homesteaders to have an additional one-quarter section (160 acres) of land as long as the settler planted twenty of those acres in trees and proved that the trees’ health and density conformed, in ensuing years, to standards specified in the bill (January 13, 1870). A year later he sponsored a bill to donate the land of [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:55 GMT) The Last Two Years = 165 Fort Harker to the state of Kansas for use in developing an experimental tree farm and school for the study of related subjects (January 14, 1871). During that Forty-first Congress, Ross sponsored a number of bills to aid in the construction of rail lines through Kansas, including bills that would help with acquisition of property needed for the construction of the Union Pacific, the St. Louis, Lawrence and Denver line, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. He also submitted a bill to incorporate the AT&SF for interstate expansion (May 24, 1870). He sponsored a bill to aid Civil War veterans who had been deprived of war benefits by unscrupulous attorneys, a bill that applied to all veterans regardless of the state in which they lived (June 20, 1870). Note the date of the last bill, June 20, 1870. That was just one week after the birth of the Rosses’ newest child, a girl born on June 13 and named Fannie after her mother at the insistence of Edmund even though his wife preferred another name. Given the travel time back to Washington, Ross would have had to leave no later than five days after his new daughter’s birth. Assuming he stayed until the end of the session, Ross would not have returned home until July 16 at the earliest. There appears to have been considerable ambivalence in Ross’s mind during the two years following the impeachment trial. He had both a desire to make the United States Senate his career and a conflicting desire for a simpler life with his family in a nice home in Lawrence. As it turned out, he had no choice but to make the latter his dream for the future, a dream that would always be elusive. Ross put considerable energy into his last two years in the Senate, perhaps with hopes that people back home would somehow take note of his diligence. Even in the modern world of mass communication , e-mail postings, and regular airline travel, it is not easy for constituents in a home district to know what their representatives in Congress are doing on a daily basis. In 1870 that would have been nearly impossible. News then often came only belatedly and only in the form of newspaper accounts, which could be unreliable at best. Moreover, much of the Radical Republican Kansas press now chose to ignore Edmund Ross. Theoretically, reelection based on merit would have been easier for members of the Senate who were not popularly elected but chosen by the state legislature. In practice , however, that process, as Ross had seen, was fraught with the potential for corruption, and was one in which Ross would never again participate. When Congress adjourned in the summer of 1870, Edmund Ross’s senatorial career was practically at an end. ...