Carlisle, and I have a little property in New Jersey yet, but not much. You see I am not rich. I tell you my circumstances and my indisposition to study, because I think it would be wrong to conceal it from you. I don't know that I shall ever be more able to support a wife than I am now. Although my frame is light and my constitution. weak, my health is as good as it ever was, and I can wear out most men at desk-work."

He had figured prominently for one so young in the State conventions of the winter. Called on for a speech at one of them, he made a spurt" which was heartily applauded, "but of which I cannot recollect a word that I said." Three fourths of all the Whig voters of the county attended the county convention in March, 1844. "I was Secretary, and am also Corresponding Secretary of the Clay Club. Clay will carry the State gloriously." He attended the great Tippecanoe convention of May 29th, "to help shout for Henry Clay," and had the honor of being called on to address a very large assemblage at Lafayette the evening before. September 1st he started East, calling at "Clark Hall," en route, and arriving in New York about the middle of the month. The Presidential canvass was at its height, and he was waited on by a committee, and asked to speak. He declined, because, he says, he was "thinking more of the ides of October [he was to be married October 10th] than of the ides of November." But he addressed the Pompton Plains Clay Club, September 23d, "in the very home of my ancestors, with an aged uncle as president of the club. A large meeting had convened, anxious to hear the Hoosier offshoot of the Colfax family. I spoke an hour, and I guess they were satisfied. Last evening, 26th, the Whigs had a monster meeting in front of National Hall [New York City], twenty thousand people present, and ten stands for speaking-all going full blast. I followed Greeley at one, and as soon as I got through was sent to another, where I tried to get off with fifteen minutes, but was compelled to go on for an hour, although hoarse and tired out." That at his age he should be called on to speak at political meetings wherever

he chanced to be, whether in the capital of his own State, in the city of New York, or elsewhere, shows an admirable facility for political speaking on his part.

The last of his bachelor fun was the organization, in connection with five or six of his old boy friends in New York, of "The Potato Club," for the encouragement of matrimony. "Potato" was the secret sign and watchword; a potato adorned the head of the table at their meetings; and they addressed one another as "Brother Potato Brown" or "Wilson." When one of the Potatoes married, he was to notify the brother Potatoes, who were to meet and dine together, and drink the health of their Benedict Potato, and send him official notice of the proceedings and toasts. The Potato who should be last married was to convene the Potatoes, with their wives and little Potatoes, and at his own expense dine and wine them all. They got a good deal of fun out of it, but whether the constitution was observed to the last particular, the historian cannot say.

On the 10th of October (1844) he and Miss Clark were married, and immediately set out for the West, arriving at Saratoga the same evening. Here he was waited on by the inevitable committee, and invited to address a Clay club. He desired to be excused, since it was his wedding day; but they insisted, and he finally consented. The bride had long been loved by Mrs. Matthews as a daughter, and it was a happy marriage. They first lived in the house jointly owned by Mr. Colfax and Mr. Matthews, at No. 138 Michigan Street, South Bend, now No. 416, North. Within a year or two, however, he built a house at No. 211 West Water Street. The entire place cost the young couple less than six hundred dollars, and their (cash) housekeeping expenses the first year were one hundred and twenty-five dollars.

CHAPTER II.

EDITOR.

1844-1855.

FOUNDS THE ST. JOSEPH VALLEY REgister.-SecrETARY OF THE CHICAGO HARBOR AND RIVER CONVENTION.-DELEGATE TO THE WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION OF 1848.-THE SLAVERY QUESTION FROM THE TIME OF THE CONFEDERATION.-YOUNGEST GRAND REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ODD FELLOWS.-MAKES HIS MARK IN THE STATE CONSTITutional Convention of 1850.—Joint CanvasS WITH DR. FITCH For Congress.-CARRIES THE REBEKAH DEGREE IN THE GRAND LODGE OF THE UNITED STates.-Delegate-AT-LARGE TO THE WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION OF 1852. APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE FROM THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.-ACTIVE IN FORMING the RepublICAN PARTY.-ELECTED TO CONGRESS OVER DR. EDDY.-Delegate TO THE NATIONAL KNOW-NOTHING COUNCIL OF 1855. BUT NEVER A KNOW-NOTHING.

IN September, 1845, Schuyler Colfax and A. W. West bought the South Bend Free Press of W. and J. Millikan, and commenced its publication as the St. Joseph Valley Register, Schuyler Colfax editor. He announced that in politics the Register would be inflexibly Whig. As to the State debt, it would advocate honesty. It would take moderate ground with respect to slavery, alike opposed to Calhounism and Birneyism. A reasonable amount of space would be devoted to agriculture and education, and the latest news furnished. Many years afterward, in apology for the publication of news of a broad nature from Utah, which it seemed necessary to publish, the editor said: "We try to exclude from the Register, so far as we can, the recital of bloody murders, of shameless crimes, of horrid executions, and all else that panders to a vitiated mind." The paper was uniformly courteous and moderate in tone. It excluded religious discussion, while supporting

every good cause. Its editor was regarded as a strong writer and partisan, and was welcomed as an important accession to the editorial fraternity. South Bend had, perhaps, fifteen hundred inhabitants, St. Joseph County ten thousand. The paper quadrupled its subscription list in a few years, and doubled its annual profits. These, however, did not average quite one hundred dollars per month for the first twelve years. The young man computed his possessions when he bought into the paper at sixteen hundred dollars; but about half of it was invested in an oil-mill with Mr. Matthews, and by reason of the change made in the tariff in 1846, became a total loss. In December the establishment took up its quarters in the second story of Liston's new brick block on Michigan Street, and early in 1846 Colfax bought out his partner. He continued to serve as Deputy-Auditor, and was appointed on the Whig State committee for the county. We hear no more about his studying law.' He was never admitted to the Bar. His triumphs were to be won in another field. He had "pettifogged," as he termed it, a few cases while in his teens; but, as he wrote, "they were mere frolics, undertaken to accommodate a friend or scorch an opponent." In spite of all precautions, he was now launched for a political voyage of forty years.

A religious revival occurred in the town and county in the early months of 1846. All the denominations held "protracted meetings." Under the Rev. John T. Avery's ministration numbers joined the Presbyterian Church. Coming home one evening, Colfax said to his mother: "Where is Evelyn? Off to that revival meeting again, I suppose." The question and what it implied brought tears into his mother's eyes. He besought her forgiveness, began to attend the meetings himself, and soon afterward, with his wife, united with the church. At a later period he, and Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, and others withdrew from the Presbyterian Church, and founded the First Reformed Church of South Bend.

1. He was elected an honorary member of the St. Joseph Bar Association in 1877, with Morton, Haymond, Pratt, Calkins, McDonald, Noyes, and others.

The editor of the Register was a delegate from his county to the Chicago Harbor and River Convention of July, 1847, a gathering of leading Whigs and liberal Democrats, particularly of the West, for the purpose of considering the constitutional power of Congress to appropriate money in aid of internal improvements, and of developing and strengthening popular sentiment in favor of such appropriations. So far as numbers and enthusiasm were concerned, it was an entire success. Nothing like it had then or has since been known in the West. Abraham Lincoln, Edward Bates, Thomas Corwin, Horace Greeley, Robert C. Schenck, David Dudley Field, Erastus Corning, Thomas Butler King, and many other men then or afterward famous, attended, and letters were read from such leaders as Henry Clay, Silas Wright, Washington Hunt, Martin Van Buren, and Lewis Cass, the latter two, however, being decidedly non-committal.

The convention met in the open air, and when permanently organized Edward Bates was Chairman. He attracted no special notice until, in adjourning the session, his closing remarks grew into a magnificent speech, admittedly the best of the entire proceedings. It was so unexpected, and it so enchanted the press reporters, that they neglected to catch the eloquent sentences as they fell from his lips. Colfax wrote his wife :

"I have been unexpectedly elected to the responsible and honorable office of principal Secretary of the convention. I cannot properly leave now till we are about through, as all the responsibility of keeping the proceedings devolves upon me. The town is swarming with people, delegates and strangers, estimated at twelve thousand." (The population of Chicago did not much exceed this; it was placed at from twelve thousand to sixteen thousand.) "I sleep on the floor at the boarding-house, and the boards are certainly oak, instead of poplar, as they should be, when used for bedsteads.”

The discussion was brilliant and exhaustive. The resolutions, unanimously adopted, affirmed the constitutionality of Congressional aid to internal improvements,