A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Part 5

WILLARD'S HOTEL, } WAs.h.i.+NGTON CITY, _February 13th, 1861._ }

_Hon._ JOHN TYLER, _President of Conference Convention._

DEAR SIR:--I grieve to communicate to you the fact, that the delegate from Ohio to this Conference Convention, the Hon.

JOHN C. WRIGHT, departed this life this day, the 13th February, at half-past one o'clock.

Judge WRIGHT came to this Convention with a heart filled with fear for the safety of the Union. Though at an advanced age and nearly blind, he was filled with an earnest desire to add his efforts to that of others of the Convention called by the State of Virginia, and seek to agree on some measures honorable to each and all, to effect the object.

Since the arrival of my father in Was.h.i.+ngton, he has been constant in his efforts to effect the end in view, and he has had his heart cheered with the belief that the object would be accomplished. Almost the last words that he uttered were, that he believed the Union would be preserved. He desired me to say, if the Union were preserved, he would die content. He called me to read to him, at 12 o'clock, the sections in the Const.i.tution in regard to counting the votes, and this request, and this reading, terminated his knowledge on earth. In this desire of my father to do what he could, he pressed me to accompany him on account of his blindness. Since the Convention honored me with the appointment of Secretary, he required of me a promise that I would not leave the position. When I read the section of the Const.i.tution to him, he required me then to leave him for the Convention. Whatever my personal feelings may be, I deem the pledge made sacred. I therefore ask that I may have leave of absence, until I carry the remains home to Ohio, and return to my duty.

Respectfully,

CRAFTS J. WRIGHT.

P.S.--J. HENRY PULESTON will act for me in my absence.

The PRESIDENT informed the Convention that the request of the Secretary had been complied with. The PRESIDENT asked what action the Convention proposed to take on the subject for which they had been specially a.s.sembled.

The Hon. SALMON P. CHASE, of Ohio, then said:--Mr. PRESIDENT, since we a.s.sembled yesterday in this Hall, it has pleased G.o.d to remove one of our number from all partic.i.p.ation in the concerns of earth. It is my painful duty to announce to the Convention that JOHN C. WRIGHT, one of the Commissioners from Ohio, is no more. Full of years, honored by the confidence of the people, rich in large experience and ripened wisdom, and devoted in all his affections and all his powers to his country, and his whole country, he has been called from our midst at the very moment when the prudence and patriotism of his counsels seemed most needed. Such are the mysterious ways of Divine Providence. Judge WRIGHT was born in Wethersfield, Connecticut, on the 10th of August, 1784. The death of his parents made him an orphan in infancy; and he had little to depend upon in youth and early manhood, save his own energies and G.o.d's blessing. He was married, while young, to a daughter of Thomas Collier, of Litchfield, and for several years after resided at Troy, New York. When about twenty-six years old he removed to Steubenville, in Ohio, where he commenced the practice of the law, and rapidly rose to distinction in the profession. In 1822 he was elected a representative in Congress, where he became the a.s.sociate and friend of Clay and Webster, and proved himself, on many occasions, worthy of their a.s.sociation and friends.h.i.+p.

After serving several terms in Congress, he was elected a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and, in 1834, removed from Steubenville to the city of Cincinnati. Resigning his seat soon afterwards, he resumed the labors of the bar, and, ever zealous for the improvement and elevation of the profession, established, in a.s.sociation with others, the Cincinnati law school.

In 1840, upon the dying request of CHARLES HAMMOND, the veteran editor of the "Cincinnati Gazette," Judge WRIGHT a.s.sumed the editorial control of that Journal, and retained that position until impaired vision, in 1853, admonished him of the necessity of withdrawing from labors too severe.

Thenceforward engaged in moderate labors, surrounded by affectionate relatives, enjoying the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens, and manifesting always the liveliest concern in whatever related to the welfare and honor of his State and his country, he lived in tranquil retirement, until called by the Governor of Ohio, with the approbation of the Senate, to take part in the deliberations of this Conference Convention.

It was but a just tribute, sir, to his honored age, ill.u.s.trated by abilities, by virtues, and by services, that he was unanimously selected as its temporary President. His interest in the great purpose of our a.s.sembling was profound and earnest. His labors to promote an auspicious result of its deliberations were active and constant. And when fatal disease a.s.sailed his life, and his enfeebled powers yielded to its virulence, his last utterances were of the Const.i.tution and the Union.

Mr. PRESIDENT, Judge WRIGHT was my friend. His approval cheered and encouraged my own humble labors in the service of the State. Pardon me if I mingle private with public grief. He has gone from his last great labor. He was not permitted to witness upon earth the result of the mission upon which he and his a.s.sociates, who here mourn his loss, were sent. G.o.d grant that the clouds which now darken over us may speedily disperse, and that through generous counsels and patriotic labors, guided by that good Providence which directed our fathers in its original formation, the Union of our States may be more than ever firmly cemented and established.

Mr. PRESIDENT, I offer the following resolutions:

_Resolved_, That in the death of our late venerable colleague, the Hon. JOHN C. WRIGHT, we mourn the loss to the State of Ohio, and to the nation at large, of one of our most sagacious statesmen and distinguished patriots; and to the cause of Union and conciliation, one of its most ill.u.s.trious supporters.

_Resolved_, That while we deplore with saddened hearts the affliction with which an All-wise Providence has visited us, we know that no transition from life to immortality could have been more grateful to him who has fallen than this, in which his life has been offered a willing sacrifice in an effort to restore harmony to his distracted country.

_Resolved_, That the members of this Convention tender their heartfelt sympathies to the family of the deceased in this their great affliction.

_Resolved_, That these resolutions be spread upon the records of this body, and a copy of the same be transmitted to the family of the deceased.

Mr. CHARLES A. WICKLIFFE, of Kentucky, moved the adoption of the resolutions, and said:

Mr. PRESIDENT, I rise to tender my most cordial sanction and second to the resolutions which have just been read.

Mr. WRIGHT and myself entered the councils of this nation thirty-seven years ago. We served together during a period when party excitement ran high upon questions more of a personal than a const.i.tutional character. I can bear witness not only to his ability, but to his personal integrity, and his purity of political action through our term of service in the House of Representatives. I have seldom met him since we separated at the termination of his service and mine in that body, which occurred at pretty near the same period; but whenever I have met him, I have found him the same stern advocate of the Union and of const.i.tutional liberty. I rejoiced, therefore, when I found him in this hall on the day we first a.s.sembled here. I knew his conservative disposition and principles, and I promised myself that with his aid I could be more useful to my country and to my State than without him. In conversing with him upon the difficulties which now divide and distract our common country, I found him ready and willing, conscientiously and patriotically, to do that which I thought that portion of the country which I represent has a right to demand and expect of those who represent a different portion of our Union. And if my friend from Ohio (Mr. CHASE) and his colleagues will permit me to mingle my sorrow at the public loss, I will say nothing of the private bereavement of the family of our deceased colleague. I leave him to his country, and to you, with this testimony which I leave to his memory, his honesty of purpose and his patriotic love of country.

The Hon. A.W. LOOMIS, of Pennsylvania, said:

Mr. PRESIDENT, I desire to mingle my sincere regrets with those of the members of this a.s.semblage at the sad and unexpected occurrence which deprived us of an able, experienced, and patriotic a.s.sociate. My relations with the deceased were, for many years, probably more intimate than those which existed between him and any other member of this Convention. Forty years have elapsed since I first made his acquaintance. He was then in full, active, and extensive practice; a learned lawyer, an accomplished, skilful, and successful advocate.

During the succeeding year I came to the bar, and resided and practiced in the same judicial circuit with our departed friend. For many years the most kind and intimate relations existed between us--sometimes colleagues, but usually opponents. So kind and genial was his nature, so fair and liberal his practice, that during our entire intercourse not an unkind word was uttered, and, so far as I know or believe, not an unpleasant feeling existed in the bosom of either.

Though not gifted with the highest order of eloquence, he was clear, distinct, and persuasive. His style of speaking resembled not the babbling brook or the das.h.i.+ng cataract, but usually the limpid stream, gliding gracefully amid fields and fruits and flowers, though sometimes a.s.suming the power and proportions of the majestic river, cutting its sure and certain way to the mighty ocean.

His professional position, his kindness of heart, and genial humor, made him an object of high respect and warm regard among his professional brethren. And now, sir, as memory pa.s.ses in review the pleasant incidents which marked our social and professional intercourse, the smitten heart shrinks in sadness and sorrow from the contemplation of our bereavement. He adorned, sir, the bar, the bench, and the halls of Legislation. He discharged, in all the relations of life, his obligations with fidelity. Of him it might be truly said:

His life hath flowed a sacred stream, in whose calm depths The beautiful and pure alone are mirrored; Which, though shapes of ill may hover o'er the surface, Glides in light, and takes no shadows from them.

But, sir, the great crowning virtue and glory of his life was his acceptance of the mission which brought him here. Though whitened by the frosts of nearly eighty winters, neither lofty mountains nor intervening s.p.a.ce could restrain his patriotic heart from a prompt response to the call of his country to mingle his influence in a sincere and sacred effort to save the Const.i.tution and perpetuate the Union. He accepted the great trust; he mingled in our deliberations, and has fallen in the discharge of his duty. He has justly earned a t.i.tle to the grat.i.tude and respect of his country. May we not, sir, fondly hope that he, who was called from the discharge of such duties to the presence of his G.o.d, has pa.s.sed from the sorrows of earth to the happiness of Heaven, and to the full fruition of joys pure, perfect, and eternal?

The Hon. THOMAS EWING, of Ohio, said:--I rise to bear my tribute of respect to the memory of the deceased. I have known him long. On my first entrance into active life, at the bar, I found him an able and distinguished member. Since that time down to the present day, he has been largely a.s.sociated, in mind and person, with all the acts and progress, professional and political, of my life. I feel his loss intensely; and I feel it with more regret, because I know that on this occasion his voice would have been potential in our counsels, and would have been united with all of us who labor most earnestly for the preservation of the Union.

I tender my sympathies to the family of the deceased. I unite with them in their regrets and in their hopes of the happy future to which he may have attained.

The Hon. WILLIAM C. RIVES, of Virginia, said:--Though wholly unprepared to say any thing worthy of the solemnity of this occasion, I feel that I should be wanting, sir, in that sentiment of respect which is due to the character of a distinguished citizen, if I were not to add to what has been so eloquently spoken by others, a few words of personal recollection in regard to our deceased friend Judge WRIGHT. It so happened that we entered the public councils of the country at the same moment, and continued in them for the same period of time. It is now just thirty-seven years since I had the pleasure of meeting Judge WRIGHT, for the first time, in the House of Representatives of the United States. I may be permitted to say, that there were giants in those days. My honorable friend from Kentucky (Governor WICKLIFFE), who has already so feelingly addressed the Convention, will recollect that on the roll of the House of Representatives at that time stood the names of WEBSTER and EVERETT, of OAKLEY and STORRS, of SARGEANT and of HEMPHILL, of LEWIS McLANE, of the immortal CLAY, and BARBOUR and RANDALL, and other gentlemen known to fame from the State which I have the honor to represent in this body, and LIVINGSTON of Louisiana, McDUFFIE and HAMILTON of South Carolina, and other gentlemen who, on the spur of the occasion, I am not now able to recall, but whose names will forever s.h.i.+ne upon the rolls of their country's glory. And yet in that body Judge WRIGHT, then in the maturity of his powers, though not previously known to the nation, vindicated an equal rank in debate with those gentlemen whose names I have mentioned. Sir, I shall never forget with what earnestness, with what manliness, with what integrity, with what ability, he ever uttered his convictions of public duty, whatever they were, in that consecrated hall.

After remaining here, I think, for six years, he retired to his own State for the purpose of a.s.suming the duties of a highly-important and dignified office, which was soon followed by his retirement into the bosom of private life, where he met a rich and ample solace for the storms of his public career. He was followed there by the respect of his fellow-citizens throughout the country, and the confidence of his own State, as we have recently seen, by his being called from that honorable retirement to take part in the grave and solemn duties of this a.s.sembly. Sir, he came among us in obedience to the solemn call of patriotic duty, at a most exigent and distressing period in our national annals. He came here on an errand of peace, in the spirit of peace and conciliation. Such was the feeling entertained toward him by the whole of this a.s.sembly, that without the slightest preconcert, so far as I know, he was invited by general consent to preside during the preliminary stages of the organization of this Convention. I had an opportunity, from time to time, of private conversation with the aged statesman. I found no member of the a.s.sembly I met here, and, indeed, I have found nowhere any citizen of this wide Republic of ours, whose heart was more deeply imbued with the spirit of conciliation and of peace--of that spirit which was so solemnly and impressively uttered in his last prayer, "May the Union be preserved." Sir, it is not given to mortal man to choose the manner of his death; but if such were the privilege accorded to any human being, what more glorious end could he, appreciating a true fame, covet, than that which has been the lot of our departed friend? Sir, I speak what I feel, and I dare say I express a sentiment which has impressed itself upon many other bosoms in this a.s.sembly, when I say that his sudden death in the midst of our deliberations, seems to me to exalt--in some degree to canonize--our labors. This manifestation of the visible hand of G.o.d among us, brings us in the immediate presence of those solemn responsibilities which attach themselves to the discharge of our duties here. I doubt not that every member of this a.s.sembly is already deeply impressed with the solemnity of those duties, and I feel convinced that there are few, if any, in this a.s.sembly, who would not lay down their fleeting and feverish existence, and follow our deceased brother to his final account, if by doing so they could restore peace and harmony to this glorious Republic of ours.

It does not become me to make any professions of devotion to my country--to my whole country--but this I will say, in the spirit of the last prayer of my friend, that I should regard my poor life, such as it is, a cheap purchase--the cheapest imaginable purchase--for that great boon to our country, the restoration of its peace, of its harmony, of its unity, of its ancient confederated strength and glory.

The question was taken, and the resolutions were unanimously adopted.

The body of Judge WRIGHT was then brought into the hall, preceded by Rev. Dr. HALL, who read the impressive service of the Episcopal Church. A number of the members of the family, and of the friends of the deceased, were present during the services.

The funeral cortege proceeded from the hall to the depot of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

The following gentlemen were designated to act as pall-bearers on the occasion:

Mr. Ewing, Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k, Mr. Chase, Mr. Loomis, Mr. Backus, Mr. Wolcott, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Vinton, Mr. Groesbeck, Mr. Stanton, Mr. Harlan, Mr. Gurley.

The proceedings upon the death of Judge WRIGHT were, by the Conference, ordered to be published, and the special session closed.

NINTH DAY.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, FRIDAY, _February 15th, 1861._

The Convention was called to order by President TYLER, and prayer was offered by Rev. Mr. RENNER. The Journals of the 13th and 14th were read and approved.

The PRESIDENT:--I have this morning received several communications from different persons, which will be laid before the Convention. One is an invitation from HORATIO STONE, inviting the members of the Convention to visit his studio; also, a resolution of the House of Representatives, authorizing the admission of members of this Convention to the floor of the House. Also, a letter from J.E. SANDS, offering to the Convention certain flags which possess historical interest, from the fact that they were used in the convention which adopted the present Const.i.tution of the United States. Also, a communication from HORATIO G. WARNER.

The communications were severally read and laid upon the table.

Mr. SUMMERS:--I am instructed by the Committee on Credentials to inform the Convention that the committee has received satisfactory evidence of the appointment by the Executive of Ohio of C.P. WOLCOTT, as a delegate to this Convention, in the place of JOHN C. WRIGHT, deceased.

Mr. ORTH:--I desire to offer the following resolutions, which I ask to have read for the information of the Convention. I have no purpose to admit spectators to seats on this floor, but in my judgment it is the right of the country to know what we are doing here. My const.i.tuents will not be satisfied with my course, unless I take means to give the public knowledge of all our transactions. I am aware that this is an invasion of the rule already adopted, requiring secrecy, but in my opinion no possible harm can come from the daily publication of our debates. It is far better that true reports of these debates should be made, than that the distorted and perverted accounts which we see daily in the New York papers should be continued.

The resolutions were read, and are as follows: