Resolved, That the members of the bar sincerely lament the death of the Hon. David Wilmot, late Judge of the Court of Claims, and express the high consideration they entertain of his integrity, dignity, impartiality, love of Justice, and strong common sense, which marked his character as a judge & a man.

Resolved, That they sympathize with his bereaved family in their affliction, who mourn the loss of an affectionate husband & a kind parent.

Resolved, That in manifestation of these sentiments, they will wear the usual badge of mourning during the term.

Resolved, That the Chairman of this meeting present these resolutions to the Court & move that they be entered upon the minutes, and that a copy thereof be forwarded to the family of the deceased.

In the necessary absence of Mr. Carlisle, Chairman of the meeting, Mr. Norton, United States Solicitor of the Court of Claims, at the opening of the Court on the 20th of March, in accordance with the vote of the bar, presented the resolutions, whereupon Chief Justice Casey made the following reply:

Gentlemen of the Bar:

We have listened with deep and melancholy interest to the just & high commendations bestowed upon the life and character of our departed & lamented brother, Judge Wilmot, contained in the resolutions and remarks submitted. Though in age but in the prime of manhood, he had spent nearly a quarter of a century in public service, in places of high trust and responsibility. (Judge Casey here reviewed Wilmot's career from his entry into the House of Representatives, in 1844, to his appointment to the Court of Claims, and continued:)

Judge Wilmot was, both in the structure of his mind and his moral and social characteristics, a marked & extraordinary man. He had clear conceptions, distinct, well-formed opinions, strong convictions, earnest sympathies; his analysis was clear, his logic direct and cogent, and all coupled with an imposing presence and a rich musical voice, endowing him with unusual powers of forensic and popular oratory. Few men of his day could so move and sway either a popular or deliberative assembly. In his demeanor and disposition he was simple, modest, unassuming and earnest.

His intense love of truth, justice and liberty, and his bitter hatred of falsehood, injustice & oppression, distinctly and prominently marked every phase and act of his public & private life.

Following the impulse of these sentiments, he was among the first to attempt, by Congressional restrictions, to arrest the spread and perpetuation of human slavery; so that such legislation came to be known as the "Wilmot Proviso." He lived to see the fruition of his hopes, in the full & complete emancipation of the race whose degraded condition had so deeply and earnestly stirred his generous sympathies.

When appointed to this Court, five years ago, Judge Wilmot was already suffering from that malady that has carried him to an early but honored grave. In the few opinions his rapidly failing health & strength enabled him to prepare, we have the best evidence of what the Court and the country have lost by his death. Written as they were under the depressing influence of physical prostration and suffering, they are, notwithstanding, models of judicial composition, and stamp their author as a man of no ordinary capacity & power.

The opinions in the case of Grant, and of Bonner, and the dissenting opinion in Kendall's case, in the elegance & simplicity of their style and diction, their clear and perspicuous narrative, their concise & distinct statement of premises, the force & power of their logic, and their natural and almost irresistible conclusions, entitle our deceased brother to rank among the most gifted judicial writers the country has produced.

By the kindness of his manner, his generous sympathies, his fervent love of truth and justice, he attracted & attached us all to him with the warmest regard and esteem. We lament his death as an individual and personal loss to each of us.

CHAPTER XL'

VALEDICTORY

TO AN unusual degree, perhaps, David Wilmot's personality is self-explanatory and by its own record forestalls the labors of the interpreter. The story of his life, he said in one of his earliest speeches, would be brief. That story was certainly direct; but it was interwoven with too vast a background to be short. Subjectively, it was simple; objectively, it became vastly complex. The story of David Wilmot, in fact, involves that of the wide and immensely significant reactions which his acts excited in the men of his time and the history of the nation. It needs more than a few pages to write the full measure of one who was "the leader of the free-soil democrats in a crusade against slavery which created the republican party, brought on the war, named the government, destroyed the doctrine of States' rights, and 'nationalized the Union.'"1

He began with a single-minded burning devotion to the democratic party, founded on the belief that that party stood for great ideals; but the devotion to principle and the maintenance of the courage of his convictions (which Colonel McClure emphasizes as Wilmot's strongest trait), and his consequent repudiation of platforms of expediency, carried him across and beyond party lines-it seemed for a time into the loneliness of a political desert; and there, with the rallying power of a prophet, he gathered to his preaching a new party, which grew until it swept the older organization out of control, and in large part out of existence. He was to the North what Calhoun was to the South-the embodiment of a vision that saw the true issue, inescapable and uncompromisable; the

1 "F. A. B." in the Philadelphia Press, Sept. 23, 1881. 2 Recollections of Half a Century, pp. 237, 238.

embodiment of a dynamic force that energized the masses of his section and fused them into a unit for the decisive struggle. And, as already pointed out, he was fighting on the side of Fate, while Calhoun was fighting against it.

And yet, while he believed firmly in the party system and in the molding of public policies, through the ballot box and the mechanism of representative government, he occupied a peculiar place among the public men of his day. It was well defined by his intimate colleague and best qualified critic, E. O. Goodrich :

It may seem paradoxical to say that Mr. Wilmot was not a politician in the ordinary and vulgar acceptation of the term. We know that such is not the general reputation he bore, but those who knew him intimately will bear us witness when we say that of all the ordinary intrigues of party leaders and the movements of party machinery, he had a great contempt and was profoundly ignorant. In the principles underlying political organizations, he was greatly interested, but the details even of his own campaigns his friends were accustomed to manage and control. He despised the tricks of crafty political schemers, and instead of forming combinations, he relied on the honesty and intelligence of the people. This was really the secret of his great power with the people. Honest and sincere himself, he believed the masses were equally so, and when attacked, he went boldly and confidently to the people, in schoolhouses and churches, and plead his own cause and the cause of equal rights. His trust in the voters was repaid by the confidence and regard they had for him, as evidenced by many a hard-fought battle. No man was ever so firmly intrenched in the hearts of the people as David Wilmot."

This confidence in the people, and the complementary ability to win and hold them to the support of his doctrines, was the wellspring of his power and the most striking feature of his character and his career. When the National Congress at Washington and the State legislature at Harrisburg turned from his pleading or against his candidacy, he took his case

Bradford Reporter, March 26, 1868.

not only to Tremont Temple, Faneuil Hall, Cooper Institute or the Tabernacle, but to "Asylum and Terrytown, Herrickville and Horseheads and the Forks of Loyalsock"; and there he roused the sentiment that seated in the place of power, not always himself, but his principles.

If he brought purpose and stimulus to the people of his district, he received by reflex and by subconscious suggestion new energy and stimulation himself. One is tempted to employ the well-worn figure of Antæus drawing strength from contact with the earth. It is quite possible, too, that the antithesis would have been true, and that if lifted into high and remote positions he might have lost, or have been unable to use, his characteristic force. It is quite possible his declination of Lincoln's offer of a Cabinet post-his reluctance to undertake large administrative duties-was based upon a sound estimate of his own strength and weakness. It is doubtful if he would have been successful in an exacting executive office. A different and larger genius was needed to carry the work through.

Wilmot's was perhaps the rarer talent. It was much easier to find men who could head the republican columns in 1860, when victory was clearly foreseen, or even men able to help in administering the victory when it was won, than it was to find a man who, in the spirit of self-sacrifice that the party might live, would take the brunt of certain defeat in 1857. Some factor missing from his make-up, however, coupled with his aversion to the practical strategy of the game and his scorn of self-seeking, made it easy for the hostile partisan factions and politicians of his day to hamper his political career and to push his personality into the background. But nothing dimmed his vison nor daunted his mission to go forth and preach his gospel, even though it were as one crying in the wilderness; and his plea for "free soil for free men," for "no more slave States, no more slave territories," and for "no surrender and no compromise," turned and fixed forever the course and destiny of the Union.