Page:General James Shields, Soldier, Orator, Statesman.djvu/16

 Wilkinson being chosen as his successor. Thus, for a second time, the shifting fortunes of his party, and not a lack of merit or popularity, prevented his return to the Senate.

The value of Senator Shieds [sic] to this State cannot be measured by the length of his term. His previous high status in the body to which he now returned, made him a worthy colleague of the astute pioneer, Mr. Rice; they worked together in fine harmony and with rare effectiveness in securing liberal favors for the struggling young commonwealth. They antedated this militant generation, when the hand that rocks the cradle stones the premier, and the spear that smites the octopus knows no brother. But they helped found a State that has royally justified their intelligent solicitude.

That the services of General Shields to Minnesota were appreciated is testified to by the naming of a military company in St. Paul, "The Shields Guards," in his honor. The manuscript files of the Minnesota Historical Society contain many letters from Shields to H. H. Sibley, during the period of his residence in this state, which throw instructive side-lights on political and social affairs of that period.

On June 25, 1856, during the last year of Franklin Pierce's administration, Shields wrote to Sibley, both being Democrats: "This administration has been the most insignificant that ever disgraced this great country." On November 21 of the same year, Buchanan having just been elected President to succeed Pierce, and Shields having gone to Washington to act as "best man" at the (second) marriage of his former colleague from Illinois, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, he said to Sibley of Buchanan's proposed cabinet: "My fears outrun my hopes. Buchanan will be forced to take warring elements in,—disunionists from the South, presidential aspirants from the North. The South elected him, and will make him a Southern President. If he yields to this, he is lost." Impartial history has long since verified these sagacious, independent statements and prophecies.

Anent the Douglas wedding, Shields dropped a remark in this letter which the future also fully justified: "The bride, Miss Cutts, is a splendid person, and will be a great benefit to Judge Douglas. She has good sense, exquisite taste, and a