The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-26 00:00:00

THE HON. BEN. WADE.

On the 4th instant several leaders in American poli-
tics vacated seats they had long occupied at Washing-
ton, some perhaps neveragain to enter on the stage of
public life. Prominent among these is honest Ben.
Wade, who now retires, verging on his three score
and ten years. He was well advanced in middle
life when he entered the Senate, where he has sat
since 1851. He was born at Feeding frills, Spring-
field, Massachusetts, in 1800, and on the Ist Dec.,
1851, took the oath of office for the Thirty-second
Congress as Senator from Ohio, in which State he
had long been settled. Mr. Wade was always
Radical in his sentiments, but he was called a Whig
when he commenced his Congressional career. It
is interesting to note those with whom he was asso-
ciated. Mr. Fish, now Secretary of State, was one
of the five who entered with him, having lately
been Governor of New York;—Mr. Sumner, then
a young and aspiring lawyer, at the same time com-
menced Senatorial life, a Free-soiler, being one of the
three on the list, Chief Justice Chase and John P.
Hale being the other two. By Mr. 'Wade's retirement
Mr. Sumncr has become the father of the House,
as he earns this distinction, not as being earliest
elected, for Cameron of Pennsylvania entered iu
1845, but because sitting continuously he has spent
most time in the Chamber. Indeed Mr. Sumner will
have completed a quarter of a century if he serves
out the term to which he has just been elected. Mr.
-Wade, from his seat' as President, looked upon a
Chamber radically changed. We use the italics ads is-
edly, for the South was then paramount, and to be a
Free-soiler was to be a marked man. Henry Clay
represented Kentucky, Douglas sat for Illinois, and
Cass and Seward were among the Senators. Among
the Representatives were Stephens, Breckinridge,
and Toombs, and side by side sat Andrew Johnson
and Thad. Stevens. States Rights and Free-soil were
the great questions agitated--questions destined to
explode like a thunderbolt on the Union, to split asun-
der the men there legislating, arming them against
each other for mortal conflict. For forty years Mr.
Wade has been a leader in Ohio politics, and if he
has a touch of the Western roughness of his day he
is a genuine New Englander, the rough edges of his
Puritanism being rubbed off by his border life.
When the country cast a half-frightened glance at
honest Ben. Wade during the days of the impeach-
ment trial as Johnson's successor, he asked " What
intemperate measures have I taken ? I reported
the first provision prohibiting slavery in all the
United States territory, to be thereafter acquired;
I got the bill for Negro Suffrage in the district of
Columbia ; I got the Homestead Bill through the
Senate ; I got Nevada into the Union, and through
me Virginia was divided and the new State of West
Virginia formed ;" and now he says he will use his
best efforts to prevail on Ohio to ratify the pro-
posed Suffrage Amendment. On the motion of Mr.
Davis, the Dereocra.tic Senator from Kentucky, the
Senate unanimously adopted the following resolu-
tion :—" That the thanks of the Senate are due,
and they are hereby tendered, to the Hon. Benja-
min F, Wade, for the ability, impartiality, and jus-
liee with which he has discharged the duties of pre-
siding officer of the Senate during the time he has
occupied the Chair."

District-Attorney Courtney, if report be true,
has narrowly escaped assassination. It was probably the
design of some "sing" to reward his prying curiosity into
their affairs. Philadelphia Jack " was to do the business
with a club and a razor, for £lOO, but "Jack," hearing
that the plot was known, took a rapid departuro from the
city.