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nomination for clerk of Marion county on the people's ticket. The canvass required a good deal of time, and I concluded to offer my young friend a partnership. I met him on the street one day, and told him I had some good clients and a fair practice, and that if he would go into the office and take care of them while I was canvassing, we would share profits. I think this was the only partnership agreement we ever had. I was defeated for the office, so we continued the practice of law together until the year 1860 or 1861. It is pleasant to say that through his assistance and ability as a lawyer we retained our clients and got new ones. The truth is, our business was of a quiet kind—some collections, a good deal of probate business, but once in a while a case would come along that tested the mettle of the young partner.

He very soon disclosed his admirable qualities as a lawyer-quick of apprehension, clear, methodical and logical in his analysis and statement of a case. He possessed a natural faculty for getting the exact truth out of a witness, either by a direct or cross-examination. In this respect he has but few equals anywhere in the profession. Always exacting from courts and juries their closest attention and interest in the cause, and when the cause demanded it, illustrating the rarest powers of the genuine orator. He is a hard worker, giving to every case the best of his skill and labor, so that he never went unprepared, trusting to good luck, or the want of skill or negligence of the other side. He was poor. The truth is, it was a struggle for bread and meat with both of us. He had a noble young wife, who cheerfully shared with him the plainest and simplest style of living. He did the work about his home for a long time himself, and thus made his professional income, not large, keep him independent and free from debt.

He was poor.

The new firm of Wallace & Harrison opened office in a front room of Temperance Hall, on Washington street. A glance at their cash-book discloses the character of their business in gen

eral. It was not large, but good for the time. The charges were for notarial work, writing deeds, advice, cases before justices of the peace, services in probate and collections, besides which appearances in the Circuit Court were fairly frequent with them. The junior member was quite regular in attending sessions at Danville. He had retainers also in Hancock county. Referring to the profits of the concern, he says, laughing heartily: "I think I was very often ahead of Will in the cash."

In 1860 Mr. Wallace was elected clerk of Marion county. The firm of Wallace & Harrison was thereupon terminated, and speedily succeeded by that of Fishback & Harrison. This was in its turn concluded by Harrison's entry into the army in 1862.

The years thus covered were to the subject of our narrative years of undivided attention to the law. The politics of the State were in constant ferment. The questions between the North and South growing out of the insistance upon the part of the latter of a right to carry slavery into the Territories were advancing to a point of bitterness theretofore unknown in the country. The debates over the Missouri Compromise in Congress, the war on the Kansas border, the raid of John Brown, had followed each other in rapid succession. Here and there, in political circles, there were whispers of an appeal to arms, and

representative men talked politics in a mood strangely threatening. It cannot be supposed that Mr. Harrison was blind to what was transpiring. His perceptions were bright, his feelings quick; he was capable of weighing the claims of the disputants; yet he went his way quietly, attending to his profession and struggling to add to the receipts it yielded him. On the 3d of April, 1858, a daughter had been born to him.

In a certain sense every citizen who debates political issues and feels concerned in them is a politician. In that sense Mr. Harrison was a politician. His position and party affinities were not in the least doubtful; he was outspoken with respect to his opinions; he could not keep silence in the midst of the war of words waging around him. Yet, thinking that his first duty was to his wife and children, whom he wished above all things to be comfortable and happy, he eschewed politics until, in 1860, he became a candidate before the Republican Convention for the nomination of Reporter of the Supreme Court. Even then he reconciled the candidacy with his obligation to family by the idea that the office he sought was strictly in the line of his profession.

Upon the assemblage of the Convention he was nominated, and, entering the race with characteristic zeal and energy, he was elected by a majority of 9,688.

Not seldom it is the unexpected that happens

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