Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1873-05-15
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DEATH OF JAMES L. ORB.

Our columns are draped in mourning to-day
for the death ola great and distinguished Amer.
lean citizen, born and living from boyhood to
manhood and from manhood to honorable age
within the limits of this State.
James Lawrence Orr was born in Crayton.
vile, Anderson district, S. c., May ~, 1922
and died in St. Petersburg on the night Of the
9TH of May, 1873 in the ffty-6rst year of his
age. His disease is said to have been inham-
nation of the lungs, aggravated, ifnot brought
on, by the severe climate to which he has been
necessarily exposed in the discharge Of his du-
ty. Governor Orr was, like many of the great
men ofhis time, selfmade man, receiving in
his earlier years only the rudiments of an ed
ucation, and, until his eighteenth year, assist
ing his father in his mercantile pursuits. In
1910, however, he entered the University OF
Virginia and graduated in 1872 He studied
law and commenced the practice in 1843, ed
itipg and conducting for some time the An
derson Gazette. In 1874, he was elected to
the Legislature of the State from Pendleton,
and was reelected for several terms. He
spoke in opposition to the notification of the
tariff act and in favor of giving to the people
the election of ofelectors for President and Vice
President. In 1841, he was elected to Con-
gress, and from that time to 1859 was regu-
larly reelected, without opposition. He op-
posed the compromise measures of Mr.. Clay,
and when, in May, 1851, theState Convention
was called in Charleston, to withdraw the
State from the Union, Orr voted and fought
against secession and finally defeated it. He
was elected speaker Of the thirty-6fth Con-
gress, on the first ballot, and he discharged
that high Office with such ability that his de-
cisions were never overruled. He was more
than once prominently urged as a candidate
for President and Vice-President. At the
formation of the Southern Confederacy, Orr
was elected Senator from this State to the Con.
federate Congress- He held other prominent
civil positions during the war, and raised a
regiment for the service, of which he was col,
onel. After the war, he was elected Governor
of South Carolina, and made distinguished
speech before the Constitutional Convention,
which won him the confidence of the Repub.
lican party and placed him among its repre-
sentatives in the judiciary. He was reelected
judge, and in the last campaign led the bolt
ing movement in the interest of what he be-
lieved to be good government. He was ten
dered the mission to the Argentine Republic,
but refused, and Immediately upon the reelec,
tion of General Grant was appointed and con-
frmed Minister to Russia. He sailed for Eu-
rope about three months ago, and has died in
foreign land, with the harness of his country
on his back.
But no State lines can circumscribe the
character or contain the reputation of such a
man as James l.. Orr. When South Carolina
bore herself, like Minerva, at the very front
of the national altar, as among the purest,
highest and most devoted of the vestal virgins
who nursed the flame of American genius, the
name of James L. Orr was primus inter pares
among those that glittered like jewels in the
crown of our national greatness. For long
years he has been regarded as statesman of
the elder days, conversant in his youth with
the fathers Of the republic. The intelligence
that flashes along the conscious wires of the
continent will call forth an expression of ad.
miratiou for departed worth, sorrow for ma
tional loss, and yet with something of melan'
choly satisfaction because death spared him
until he had reached the zenith Of his fame
waited, as in respect, until the confidence and
regard of great people had crowned the