and replete with excellent doctrine-no mere patriotic harangues on the past, but sober and eloquent admonitions for the future. The social, moral and political duty of the nation were his principal themes." He followed up his canal proposals by seeking to secure a representative from northern Pennsylvania on the board, and also a "scientific and practical engineer."

In September, he was elected a conferee from his county to nominate a State senator, but was unable to serve; the Dolan case, referred to in following pages, was absorbing his time. He went, however, as delegate to the Harrisburg Convention, of March 4, 1844, and was one of the vice presidents of that assembly, addressing the members during the deliberations of the committees and helping on the floor to establish the "powerful and controlling influence" of his county in deciding Pennsylvania's indorsement of Martin Van Buren for the presidency. Wilmot's work for the statesman he idealized attracted general notice. A letter to Van Buren from H. D. Gilpin," written from Philadelphia, March 25, 1844, refers to it particularly:

I ought to mention to you that we had the most efficient aid at Harrisburg from a young man from Towanda, Bradford Co., David Wilmot-it is strange that this should come from the focus of McKean's old opposition.

The Democratic National Convention of 1844, it will be remembered, defeated Van Buren by a bit of sharp practice in the adoption of the two-thirds rule, and nominated a “dark horse"; a horse so very dark, indeed, that when the choice was announced it was received with the bewildered inquiry, "Who the devil is James K. Polk?" Wilmot was too good a democrat to reject his party's candidate. He continued throughout the summer active in the routine work of the campaign, taking part in organizing a democratic association, and acting as chairman of its committee on correspondence;

11 Van Buren papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress.

appearing, in June, on the committee engaged in procuring and circulating literature; in July, speaking at an enthusiastic meeting at Athens; in August, taking the stump in the State canvas in favor of Francis K. Shunk as governor, to succeed Henry Muhlenberg, deceased. But he does not seem to have been much interested in the Bradford County Polk Club, nor in the proceedings of the democratic association adopting effusive resolutions of indorsement. In September, he spoke at a great mass meeting of which Buchanan was the chief orator, but Wilmot's remarks, as reported, were brief and largely in reproof of some outbursts of disorder. There is no suggestion of enthusiasm on his part so far as the national ticket was concerned, though his fervor for democratic principles was unabated.

And there are a number of indications of widening horizons and of keen interest in questions outside of his district and even his State. He is recorded as addressing "eloquently" a democratic reform meeting, February 16, 1844, and as serving on a committee of seven to prepare a memorial for general signature and submission to the legislature, condemning waste and extravagance in public affairs. Later in the same year (July 31) he was foremost in supporting, from the platform, resolutions passed by the democratic association, sympathizing deeply with the friends of equal rights in Rhode Island,12 emphasizing especially his sympathy for Gov. Thomas Wilson Dorr "in his present confinement, endured by him for his support of those liberal principles which seek the elevation of the masses and assert the political equality of the poor and humble with the rich and arrogant, and claim for all citizens, without regard to property, the right of suffrage." About the middle of the following month he took occasion to speak again at a general mass meeting on resolutions relative to Governor Dorr, "on which topic he was pathetic and affecting."

On account of his later concentration of purpose on the

12 Referring to the so-called Dorr Rebellion against property qualification and unequal suffrage.

arrest of slavery extension, Wilmot is sometimes thought or spoken of as a man of one idea. That one idea did, indeed, come to possess him as paramount in its importance to the existence of the Union; but he still had room for more than ordinary interest in such other fundamental matters as the Constitution, suffrage, the currency, the tariff, taxation, and the proper sphere and functions of Federal and State government. the period now under review, before his election to Congress and residence in Washington had given him a vision of slavery as an actual institution, he was impressed chiefly with the constitutional doctrine of noninterference with the internal affairs of any State. On that ground he was even an energetic anti-abolitionist. Shortly before his election to the House, he led an opposition which prevented a handful of abolitionists from holding a meeting in the courthouse at Towanda. "An old gray-headed man who was of the party refused admission that night said to me soon after I had looked upon Mr. Wilmot's burial place: 'I never shall forget the eloquence of the man. I stood spellbound under his words, and I never shall forget his appeal to his democratic friends not to permit us to assemble in the courthouse. I lived to know him years afterwards and worked side by side in the establishment of the republican party.'

999 13

Meantime, his law practice had been passing through several changes of association. November 3, 1841, a card in the local papers announced that "David Wilmot and Wilson Scott, having formed a copartnership for the practice of the law, respectfully tender their services to the public. Their office may be found on the north side of the public square, two doors east of Mix & Keeler's store, where one or both of them may always be found to attend promptly to any professional business which may be entrusted to their care.' August 21, 1844, it was

" 14

13 Article signed F. A. B., in the Philadelphia Press, September 23, 1881. 14 Scott was the only one of Wilmot's law students, apparently, who was taken into partnership. The association lasted until June, 1843, when Scott died suddenly of apoplexy. A card, published January 6, 1845, announced the formation of a copartnership with Stephen Pierce, but this seems to

announced through the same medium that "D. Wilmot, attorney at law, has removed his law office to the new brick block on Main Street, No. 2, upstairs." Evidently he had been forging ahead at the bar as he had in politics, for he was chosen to assist the district attorney in the prosecution of some of the most important cases on the docket-notably the trial of James and Margaret Dolan for the murder of Rufus Gere, which came up in September, 1843, and was the sensation of the decade, at least, in the criminal annals of the county."

Some ripples of the stir he was making in the "Northern Tier" must have reached even the metropolis, for, in a "Traveler's Diary," published in the New York Globe, in 1843, he was thought worthy of an individual portrait, in this fashion:

Mr. Wilmot is a man about thirty-four (he was actually but twenty-nine), inclined to be corpulent, with a full red face, as fair and smooth as a woman's. The personal appearance of Mr. W. does not strike very favorably at first; he looks too much like a Great Boy, but as soon as we hear him speak, that impression vanishes. His voice is rich, full, melodious. He is called the most. eloquent man in Bradford County and application would make him one of the first lawyers in the State. This he is not; he is inclined to be careless and leave things both in his private affairs and profession, rather loosely arranged. He is a man of much native talent, but acts on the spur of the moment-only great occasions arouse him, when, it is said, he is powerful. Mr. W. has the dignified bearing of a gentleman-converses charmingly, and it is a luxury to hear him laugh, but he is an inveterate chewer of

have lasted only a few months. Wilmot seems to have practiced alone after that until 1848, when Galusha A. Grow became associated with him. Among the young men who read in Wilmot's office between 1834 and 1842 were John C. Adams, Shepard G. Patrick, Henry C. Kelly, Elhanan Smith, and O. H. P. Kinney.

15 A full account and discussion of this case was published in the Philadelphia North American, in August, 1911, under the title, "When the Law Went Blind." This story was one of a series by U. G. Baker, editor of the Susquehanna Evening Transcript, on "Pennsylvania's Greatest Crime Mysteries." James Dolan's execution was the first ever carried out in Bradford County. Margaret was reprieved and later released.

tobacco-his hair hangs loosely about his eyes-he is almost slovenly in his dress and not over pious in his language. He is ambitious-is evidently more ambitious to shine as a politician than as a jurist, and may figure yet somewhere.

He was, indeed, on the verge of "figuring somewhere." A closer foreshadowing of the things to come was made in a paragraph which appeared in the Eagle, of Wellsboro, Pa., September 4, 1844:

Mass Meeting.-We would remind the public that a mass meeting will be held at Mainsburg, in Sullivan Township, this County, on Saturday, the 14th instant. David Wilmot, Esq., will be present and address the meeting. It is worth half a day's journey any time to hear Mr. Wilmot, who will probably be our next member in Congress.

Turn out, Democrats!

The nomination anticipated by the editor of the Eagle followed within the week; and it opened the prologue to a shift in the drama of David Wilmot's life-a shift which was to lift him from local to national prominence, and establish him as a permanent figure in the history of the United States.