Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-03-08
BENJAMIN +. wade.

The death of Benjamin F. Wade, which oc-
CURED Saturday morning at his home at JEFF
ferson, o., removes another and almost the
last representative of that generation of
prominent public men who were in their &c
tivity quarter of a century ago. There was
much of the typical American about Mr..
Wade's life and career. Born in October,
1900, in what is now Agawam, Mass, but
then part of the large town of Springfield,
he spent his summers in farm work and his
winters in school teaching, until he reached
early manhood. He then went to Ohio, the
far West of those days, studied law, and at
20 years of age was admitted to the bar at
jefferson, the county town of Ashtabula
county, and he retained his residence there
until his death. His first public office was at
81, when he was elected prosecuting attorney
for Ashtabula county. Two years later he
was sent to the state Senate, and was twice
reelected. Then came iudgeship, and at
IL years of age he was elected to the United
States Senate, where he represented Ohio for
eighteen years.
His senatorial life covered the stormy pc
riod of the fugitive slave law, the repeal of
the Missouri compromise, bleeding Kansas,
attempted compromise between the North
and the South, final secession and long and
costly war Mr. Wade was first and last and
all the time against any and every concession
to slavery or the slave power, and when war
became fact no one labored more incessant-
ly and vigorously to make it warm for the
rebels" than did he, as chairman of the joint
congressional committee on the conduct of
the war. His fiery and impetuous spirit
could not brook any delay, and he lost his pa
thence with Mr.. Lincoln because he did not
always move as fast and as far as the Ohio
senator thought he ought to- and in 1864 he
favored the selection of n President who
would take more radical measures than Mr..
Lincoln thought were warranted. His char
acter was stronger in force than in Judgment,
but his honesty and earnestness were always
above suspicion. After the assassination of
President Lincoln he was president pro TEN
of the Senate and acting Vice President of
the United States until Gen. Grants election
Since his retirement from the Senate in
1863, Mr.. Wade has not been at all promi-
nently before the public. He was one of the
San Domingo commissioners in 1871, and
warmly approved President Grants pet
scheme of annoxing San Domingo to the
United States. In securing the nomination
and election of President Hayes in 1876 Mr.
Wade labored necessarily and laid the foun-
dation of what proved his final illness Mr.
Hayess Southern policy was at once a grief
and disappointment to him, and his patriot
ism was wounded by what he believed to be
injudicious concessions 10 former rebels. His
character was one of those rough and rugged
ones just fitted for the period when he was
on the public stage, and to his sturdy patriot
ism and incessant energy the United States
of to-day is much indebted. He was better
fighter than conciliator, and when the fight
ing was done others were better fitted than
he to gather up the fruits of the victory. But
there would have been no victory and no
fruits of it to gather but for just such men as
"Bluf" Ben Wade.