The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-01-15
The New senators.
THE HON. ROSCOE CoSkLINe, OF NEW
YORK,

The New Senators.
THE HON. ROSCOE coSKLINe, OF NEW
YORK.
The new United States Senator from
New York belongs to well-known
political family, and has been for many
years in the public service as repre-
sentative. The father of Mr.. Conkling,
the Hon. A. Conkling, was minister 10
Mexico in 1852, under Fillmore's ad-
ministration, and a representative from
New York in the Seventeenth Congress.
His brother, Frederick a. Conkling,
represented the State efficiently in the
Thirty-seventh Congress.
The Hon. Roscoe Coukling will grad
uate from his seat in the present House
of Representatives to a place in the
Senate, having served his State ably
and faithfully for three terms in the
former body. He was born in Albany
S9th year. Having adopted the pro-
fession of the law, in which his father,
Judge Conking, was distinguished as
the author of learned treatise on Ad-
miralty, he pursued it with energy,
until in 1S49 he was appointed District
Attorney for Oneida county. In 1855
he became Mayor of the city of Utica,
and at the close of his period of office,
having governed the city to the great
satisfaction of all classes of his fellow
citizens, he was elected a Representative
to the Thirty-sixth Congress by ma
jority large enough to signify his great
local popularity and personal worth.
In this Congress he served with credit
as a member of the Committee on the
District of Columbia; but after his re-
election to the succeeding Congress, he
became prominently known to the
country as the chairman of the Com
mittee on the District. He was re-elect-
ed to the Thirty-nint Congress, wherein
he has acted with conspicuous vigor on
most of the leading questions of the
day. His share in the unusual work
of the Committee on Ways and Means
has been considerable, and his part in
measures affecting reconstruction and
the public economy is well known. At
the present time Mr.. Conkling is still
member of the Committee on Ways
and Means, and at the last general
election was chosen to sit in the For
tieth Congress. The favor of the pub
lie, as manifested in his case has been
incessant and unmistakable; but
through years Of diligent effort in the
public behalf, Mr.. .Conkling has contin-
ued to merit the approval of his con-
stituentS and his State.
THE HON. c. D. DRAKE, OF MISSOURI.
The Hon. Charles D. Drake, the new
" nominated United States Senator
ITOLn SllSSOuEl, Is u lawyer DE DEOIeS-
sion, Democrat by education, and a
leader by nature. He first became
prominent in politics during the Presi-
Dental campaign of 1850, by warmly
advocating the election of Mr.. Douglas,
and being among the first to character
iZe the Breckenridge movement as plot
to disrupt the Union. 1t was generally
that through his efforts, almost alone,
the vote OF the State was secured for
Mr.. Douglas as against Breckinridge.
Early in 1861, when it became evident
that the South was determined upon
secession, Mr.. Drake broke loose from
all party ties, and took occasion, in a
speech delivered in the State House Of
Representatives in January of that
year, to denounce secession, and to de-
clare himself no longer a Democrat, but
an unconditional Union man.
In February, 1862, in an address de-
livered in st. Louis, remarkable as be-
ing the first speech of the kind ever
made in Missouri, he charged slavery
with being the cause OF the rebellion,
and declared that between the life of
his country and the death of slavery,
he would no more hesitate to destroy
the latter than in view of death he
''would balance between eternal life
and eternal perdition-" Two months
later, in a speech at Mercantile Library
Hail IN IQe same city ne IOOh REOuuO
for emancipation in Missouri, and from
that hour has devoted himself with un-
tiring zeal to the great work of making
Missouri in law and fact free State.
In May, 1864, he was chosen member
ofthe State Convention, and the present
free State Constitution Is the work OF
his pen.
During the last Presidential campaign
Mr. Drake warmly advocated the re-
election of President Lincoln, and was
chosen a member of the Electoral Col
lege from the State at large. Through
the late warm and bitter political con-
test in Missouri no man did more or
abler service for the cause of the peO-
pie, or more untiringly upheld and en-
dorsed Congress in its resistance to Ex-
ecutive apostacy and usurpation, and
the Radical majority of 2O,0o0 in Mis-
souri, was due largely to his efforts on
the stump and in the press.
That SO long and honorable record
should meet with recognition and re-
ward was but q question of time, and
we congratulate the Union men of Mis-
souri,, and the lovers OF human rights
everywhere, that at this time, when the
exigencies of both State and nation de-
mand the best and truest representa-
tives, Charles D. Drake should have
been called into the public service