The herald., 1898-03-06
BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS

49, - ~
with and married his sister, whom hi
finally deserted under circumstances Of
great cruelty. These happenings resulted
IN some disclosures that set the garrison
and the town on edge. The main question
was as to Dare's honesty in this new atti'
| tude, for 1t turned out that he was also
an ex-convict. We must leave the reader
to discover for himself the details of q
most interesting and exciting episode In
| this Montana town, and how the strange
plot was finally wrought out. 1t is strange
and well told story. Captain King has
hardly told better one of camp life in the
west We notice in Miss Mackubin the
habit of inventing or developing adverbs
after a new style that has always seemed
an affectation. Thus the moon shone
"whitely," he spoke "brokenly'' or "ag-
srievedly' or sat 'dumbly," all OF which
seems an unnecessary strain on the lam
guage
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF THOMAS
CORWIN. BY Josiah Morrow. w. H.
Andrews 6 Co., Cincinnati. Price, IS.
Here, in a fine. large volume, is fairly
told the main story of one of the most
interesting men this nation has produced.
He was orator, lawyer and statesman.
Ills local renown when young man in the
little Ohio town in which he was reared
was as marked and as genuine as his fame
later in life and in high places.
Thomas Corwin was born in Bourbon
county, kentucky, in 1874. but four years
later migrated with his father to the then
Northwest territory" His education so
far as strict school work was concerned.
appears to have been slight, since it will
be remembered that he drove a wagon
from his home in Lebanon to Cincinnati,
taking the farm produce there and bring
ing back goods for the Lebanon mer-
chants, and on the breaking out OF the
second war against England he drove the
same wagon to carry supplies for the
little army gathering on the frontier
under General Harrison. This latter Incl
dent gave him the nickname of THE
Wagon Boy" and was used with great
effect at many points in his political
career, notably in the memorable cam
paign which made him governor of Ohio
in 1S4O which office he held two years,
having meantime been a member of the
state legislature and for three terms a
member of congress.
He was Whig of the straight school
and an ardent follower of Henry Clay,
whose cause he so ably advocated in 1874.
His six years in the United States senate
was followed by term as secretary of
L
Fillmore. On retiring from this position
he established d law office in Cincinnati,
though retaining his local business at
Lebanon. He was then, in 1858 and again
in 1860, elected to congress by the Repub-
licans. He was an enthusiastic supporter
of Lincoln for president and by him was
made minister to Mexico. With this mis-
sion his political career closed. He estab-
lished law office in Washington in 1864,
and died there a year later. Dec. 49, 1865.
Great as was Corwin as a lawyer, q law
yer of the old school now so rapidly pass
ing away, his fame rests mainly on his
public utterances. We have said he was
a Whig, and of the Straight sort But,
unlike so many of his party, he was not
so strict a constructionist as to feel COM
PEELED to apologize for slavery or to doubt
the right to restrict and destroy it. In
deed, his opposition to the Mexican war
was largely based upon the fact that new
territory would be opened for slavery, and
the contest between the sections injured.
Undoubtedly his speech in the senate in
1S47 was the great effort of his life, and
one of the great speeches of the time. He
had already spoken to his neighbors at
home on the same theme, at the end of
which Stevenson of Kentucky, who was at
the meeting, calculated: BLESSED be God!
never heard a speech like that
One feels in going through this volume
that an admirable work has been done for
the country in the making of it, and yet
the regret is constant that more material
has not been saved, so that better biog-
raphy could have been written. But we
must remember that the great days of
Corwin's career We're very different from
our own, in that there was no systematic
reporting of speeches then and only very
poor way of preserving them. The day of
the newspaper had not come, and the ora
tor was still doing his work directly before
the people. What fine thing, by the way,
would it be to read some of the speeches of
Tom Marshall and other famous Kentucky
orators. Perhaps, however, things are
made about even in the world, and the lot
of the orator today may be about as happy
and his influence in some ways just as
great as in the old days. But certainly no
public men of recent years have stirred the
country as did happen half a century ago.
The chief value to us of the speeches then
made, and lost by reason of not being re-
ported, would lie in the opportunity that
would be given to compare opinion now
with beliefs then, and to be able to trace
the changes that have occurred in the
country's moods and policy. For example,
Corwn's speech on the Mexican war hap
pens to be fully reported, and is given en-
tire in the volume before us. And what he
says of the true policy of a nation Is just
as fitting in our own times as those in the
midst of which a conflict was then going
on. But for the fear of increasing slavery,
Corwin would not have held his extreme
views in opposition to the policy of Presi-
dent Polk, but in the main his attack was
an attack upon jingoism generally. He
pleaded for peace, for quiet homes, for
reasonable ambition. He protested against
and deplored q nations history
that must be written in blood, quoting the
fine saying of Montesqueu: Happy is
that nation whose annals are dull" One
of the finest bits of oratory ever heard is
found in his characterization of the hor-