472 



HILL, BENJAMIN H. 



HILL, ROWLAND. 



eminent citizen, Alexander H. Stephens, who 

 was a member of this Convention. On the 

 third day of the sessions of the Convention, 

 Mr. Stephens made a speech endorsing his cele- 

 brated speech of November and deprecating 

 the dissolution of the Federal Union. Mr. 

 Hill also spoke with characteristic zeal and ear- 

 nestness in favor of the Union ; but, when he 

 found that the passage of the ordinance of se- 

 cession was inevitable, he finally voted for it, 

 believing with many of his friends that it was 

 his duty to follow the fortunes of his State. 

 He was a member of the provisional Confed- 

 erate Congress which assembled at Montgom- 

 ery, Alabama, February 4, 1861. The State 

 Legislature in the fall of that year elected him 

 a member of the Confederate Senate, in which 

 body he served during the continuance of the 

 war. After its close, in May, 1865, he was 

 arrested and confined in Fort Lafayette, New 

 York Harbor. In July he was released on pa- 

 role, and returned to his home at La Grange. 



During the next ten years Mr. Hill held no 

 official position, but was active in the political 

 affairs of his native State, speaking and writing 

 against the reconstruction acts of Congress. 

 He was a zealous supporter of the Greeley 

 movement in 1872. Elected a representative 

 to the Forty-fourth Congress, he took his seat 

 December 6, 1875, and was appointed a mem- 

 ber of the Committee of Ways and Means. 

 The debate on the "Amnesty bill" brought 

 him into prominence at the beginning of his 

 Congressional career. In his speech on Janu- 

 ary 11, 1876, he said: "Is the bosom of the 

 country always to be torn with this miserable 

 sectional debate, whenever a Presidential elec- 

 tion is pending? The victory of the North 

 was absolute, and God knows the submission 

 of the South was complete ! But, sir, we have 

 recovered from the humiliation of defeat, and 

 we come here among you and ask you to give 

 us the greetings accorded to brothers by broth- 

 ers. We propose to join you in every patri- 

 otic endeavor and to unite with you in every 

 patriotic aspiration that looks to the benefit, 

 the advancement, and the honor of every part 

 of our common country. Let us, gentlemen 

 of all parties, in this centennial year, indeed 

 have a jubilee of freedom. We divide with 

 you the glories of the Eevolution and of the 

 succeeding years of our national life, before 

 that unhappy division that four years' night 

 of gloom and despair ; and so shall we divide 

 with you the glories of all the future. We are 

 here ; we are in the house of our fathers, our 

 brothers are our companions, and we are at 

 home to stay, thank God ! We come charging 

 upon the Union no wrongs to us. The Union 

 never wronged us. The Union has been an 

 unmixed blessing to every section, to every 

 State, and to every man of every color in 

 America. We charge all our wrongs upon 

 that 'higher-law' fanaticism that never kept 

 a pledge nor obeyed a law. Brave Union men 

 of the North you who fought for the Union 



for the sake of the Union, you who ceased to 

 fight. when the battle ended and the sword 

 was sheathed we have no quarrel with you, 

 whether Eepublicans or Democrats. We felt 

 your heavy arm in the carnage of battle ; but 

 above the roar of the cannon we heard your 

 voice of kindness, calling, ' Brothers, come 

 back! ' and we bear witness to you this day 

 that that voice of kindness did more to thin 

 the Confederate ranks and weaken the Con- 

 federate arm than did all the artillery em- 

 ployed in the struggle." 



He made a speech January 17, 1877, in. fa- 

 vor of the Electoral Commission, character- 

 izing it as a measure wholly constitutional, 

 wise in every provision, and patriotic in every 

 purpose. 



He was reflected to the Forty-fifth Con- 

 gress, but resigned to enter the United States 

 Senate, March 5, 1877, where he served on the 

 Committees on Privileges and Elections, Revo- 

 lutionary Claims, and Mines and Mining. In 

 addition to these, in the extra session in March, 

 when the Democrats came into power, he was 

 made a member of the Committee on Foreign 

 Eelations and chairman of the Committee on 

 the Contingent Expenses of the Senate. His 

 most important speeches in the Senate have 

 been on the silver bill, delivered February 8, 

 1878, in which he favored the recoinage and 

 remonetizing of silver, but opposed the unlim- 

 ited free coinage of the silver dollar; on the 

 Thurman Pacific Eailroad Funding bill, May 

 20, 1878 ; on " The Union and its Enemies," 

 May 10, 1879; and in defense of his Union 

 record during the war of secession, in reply to 

 Senator Blaine, June 10, 1879. 



HILL, Sir EOWLAND, K. C. B., D. C. L., F. 

 E. S., born at Kidderminster, December 3, 1795, 

 died in London, September 2, 1879. He was 

 brother to Matthew Davenport Hill, Q. C., who 

 fifty years ago had reached distinction as a 

 Eeform member of Parliament. These broth- 

 ers were sons of Mr. Thomas W. Hill, school- 

 master in Birmingham. Eowland Hill was 

 educated in his father's school, and for seven- 

 teen years lived the uneventful life of a teacher 

 in that institution. In 1835 he entered the 

 public service as Secretary to the Commis- 

 sioners for the Colonization of South Australia. 

 His mind was turned to the subject of post- 

 office reform, which became his life-work, by 

 the following incident: Coleridge, on a tour 

 through the Lake district, arrived at a wayside 

 inn as a postman delivered a letter to the wait- 

 ing-maid. She examined it carefully and re- 

 turned it to the postman, saying she could not 

 afford the shilling. Finding that the letter 

 was from her brother, the poet insisted on 

 paying the postage. Afterward, in explana- 

 tion of her reluctance to accept his kind offices, 

 the girl showed him that the letter was blank. 

 On the outside were certain marks which con- 

 veyed to her the knowledge that her brother 

 was well. Thus by a prearranged system they 

 managed to correspond with each other and 



