USA > Delaware > Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 1 > Part 37
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In 1858, the people of Delaware who had been opposed to the Democratic party, again organized what was called "The People's party," which gave promise of success, as it drew to it not only the old whigs but quite a number also of disaffected democrats, who had become, for various causes, dissatisfied with the methods and management of their party. In the first campaign, 1858, they failed to elect their governor candidate by only 203 votes. In 1860 they divided upon the question as to whether they should send delegates to the Republican Convention, to be held at Chicago, only, and support the nominees of that party, or send to the convention to be held at Baltimore by a new party then just formed and called the " Constitutional Union Party." Finally, in State Convention, they agreed that those members of the People's Party, who were inclined to support the can- didates for President and Vice President, nomi- nated by the Republican Party, should send delegates to Chicago, and those who favored the Constitutional Union Party, should have themselves represented in the Baltimore Con- vention ; and this was done, and at the presi- dential election in November, although it was supposed in the early part of the campaign that Lincoln, the republican candidate, would get the vote of only a small portion of the People's party, he was the second highest out of the four candidates in the field in Delaware, viz : Lincoln, Breckenridge, Bell and Doug-
The breaking out of the rebellion in 1860-61 added great strength to the Republican party in the border, as well as in the northern states. In Delaware, however, the people who sus- tained the war for the suppression of the rebel- lion-which included all those who had voted for Lincoln, the great bulk of those who had voted for Bell, as well as of those who had supported Douglass-were appreliensive that
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if they should assume the name of "Republi- | Such was the hostility in the minds of many can" it would drive away from them many who people to the name Republican, that had Mr. Cannon's party assumed that name in 1862 he would no doubt have been defeated. In 1868 the majority against Gen. Grant, the Republi- can candidate for the presidency, and Gen. Torbert, the candidate for Congress, amounted to more than three thousand. were not yet ready to fight under the banner of the Republican party, and they, therefore, in 1862, combined all who were favorable to the suppression of the rebellion, by force of arms, under the name of "The Union Party," which re-nominated Fisher for Congress and William Cannon, of Sussex, who had been all his life a In 1870 a new factor in politics appeared in the enfranchisement of the colored race, under the amendments to the Federal constitution and the laws of Congress enacted for their enforcement. The colored people, some three thousand in number, almost without a single exception, voted the republican ticket, but the defection of the white votes from the Republi- can ranks was so large in consequence of the enfranchisement of the African race, that the state ticket nominated by the democracy was triumphant by some two thousand or up- wards. leading democrat, for the office of Governor. Meantime the state had raised and sent into the field three regiments of about a thousand men each, one-third of which, at least, were men entitled to vote in the state and gener- ally would have voted the Union ticket. but as there was no law of the state authorizing their votes to be taken in their camps, and as the Secretary of War would not permit them to return home to vote, the democracy succeeded in electing a majority of the Legislature by very small majorities, and their candidate for Congress, William Temple-an old slave- holding whig ;- while W. Cannon's popularity with his old party pulled him through by a majority of about one hundred in the state. Fisher was defeated by thirty-six votes. Tem- ple died before taking his seat, and in Novem- ber, 1863, Nathaniel B. Smithers, Republican, of Kent, was chosen at a special election in his stead. In 1864, Mr. Smithers was re- nominated, but was defeated by John A. Nicholson, of Kent, by a majority of some four or five hundred.
In 1866 the Union party adopted the name of Republican and have continued to bear that name to the present time, acting always in union with the national party of that name. The republican candidate for governor that year was James Riddle, of New Castle, and for Congress they selected Rev. John McKim of Sussex. The democratic candidates, how- ever, Mr. Nicholson, and Dr. Gove Saulsbury, were elected by a large majority of some twelve hundred. From that time down to the present the Democratic party have had control of both the Legislative and Executive departments of the state, continuously.
Governor Cannon, the first, last, and only republican governor ever elected in the state, died in March, 1865, having filled the office about two years and two months, and Dr. Gove Saulsbury, the speaker of the Senate, by virtue of that office, became the governor.
The National Democratic party,in 1872, were badly divided in sentiment in regard to the nomination of a presidential candidate. There had been, also, much dissatisfaction in the re- publican ranks, resulting in the formation of a third party calling itself the Conservative or Liberal Republican party. It was small, but active and quite aggressive. It held a National Convention at Cincinnati, early in that year, be- fore either the Republicans proper or the Dem- ocrats, and nominated for president, Horace Greeley, the life-long advocate of protection to American labor, and the life-long opponent of slavery, even in the slave States. He had perhaps said harder things in his paper, the New York Tribune, of slave-holders and dem- ocrats than any other man in the nation ; but he had been frightened out of his senses, in the opinion of many, by the magnitude of the civil war ; had annoyed President Lincoln with his wild and pragmatical propositions for peace on almost any terms ; so that our "way- ward sisters" the seceding states might go in peace, and had finally crowned the climax of his folly by volunteering to become the bail of Jefferson Davis-the ex-president of the ex- confederate government. It was thought by the Liberals that these latter day vagaries would commend him favorably to the Demo- cratic party which had been out of power for some twelve years. At the Democratic Na- tional Convention held in Baltimore in June,
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1872, Greeley was accepted as the presidential candidate, and Gratz Brown, another original abolitionist, was also accepted as the candidate for the vice presidency, along with the plat- form of the Liberal or Conservative Republi- cans.
The Democracy of Delaware, however, which had been regarded as strongly pro-slavery, did not take kindly to Greeley and Brown, and such was their disaffection that many cut off the head of their tickets containing the electoral candidates, and others even voted for General Grant, who carried the State by quite a hand- some majority, and Major James R. Lofland, the Republican candidate for Congress, was also elected over Custis B. Wright, the democratic nominee, by a small vote.
At all the elections held since then the Democratic party has been in the ascendant. Ever since the death of John M. Clayton, the State has been represented on the floor of the United States Senate by two democratic Senators from Delaware, except during a -
period of some six or eight weeks, when Hon. Joseph P. Comegys, the present Chief Justice held the position of Senator by appointment of Governor Causey, to fill the vacancy occa- sioned by Mr. Clayton's death in November, 1856.
The Democratic Legislature, in 1873, passed certain enactments which have been known as the assessment and collection laws, denounced by the Republicans as "the infamous tax laws," the object of which, as is alleged, was to pre- vent the negro population from voting as largely as possible, by an indirect method, which would not be held to be repugnant to the amended constitution of the United States, by placing impediments in the way of their getting their names on the assessment list in the first place, and of paying their taxes when they should be assessed ; the State constitu- tion requiring the pre-payment of a county tax as one of the qualifications of a voter.
As a consequence, many negroes and others were thereby without a vote, and in 1874, the democratic majorities were increased. Lofland was defeated of his re-election to Congress, and Dr. Isaac Jump, the republican nominee for Governor also. The Democratic party claims that, inasmuch as this legislation was the same for all parties and colors, it is in itself just and proper.
In 1876 the Republican party rallied again but with no prospect of success. For many years back it had been divided in Delaware into two factions, which as soon as the election was over, fell to abusing and fighting each other more than the democrats, thereby daily diminishing their strength to oppose the party in power in the state. Such was the effect of this factional spirit, that the assessments and payment of taxes to qualify voters, were ut- terly neglected, or attempted in a half-hearted method ; each faction fearing that it might be working only for the benefit of the other ; so that in 1878 the republicans nominated no candidate for Governor, or for Congress, nor any county ticket except in New Castle, which was of course doomed to utter defeat. The elections went by default.
In 1880 the Republican party again mustered their forces, under the leadership of a few skill- ful and energetic men in each county, who man- aged to get a pretty full assessment and general payment of taxes for that year; though they were still short on their voting list by at least a thousand votes as they claimed. The canvass of that year served to re-organize and crystallize the party, and at the present writing the out- look wears the appearance of a better show of success for that party at the coming election in November next. At any rate its chances of success are vastly improved, and every thing gives promise of a hard and severe coming political struggle. What will be the out-come ? "Nous Verrons."
August, 1882.
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BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.
REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF DELAWARE.
LAYTON, JOHN MIDDLETON, law- | was the wife of George T. Fisher ; and James yer and statesman, was born in the H. M. Clayton, who died unmarried in 1837. These sisters and this brother of John M. Clayton, all died in his lifetime, only one of them, Harriet, having left any issue now living. village of Dagsborough, Sussex county, July 24, 1796. His father. James Clay- ton, was a man of superior character and intellect. He was large and imposing in Mr. Clayton entered Yale College at the age of fifteen, and graduated September 12, 1815, with the first honors of his class. It is stated that during these four years, he never missed a single recitation, never once absented himself from prayers, was not once absent from church, and never, upon any occasion, violated a single rule of the college. Upon his return to Delaware, he commenced the study of law with his cousin, the Hon. Thomas Clayton. He also spent a year and eight months at the then celebrated Law School at Litchfield, Connecticut, studying sixteen hours a day. After an unusual preparation and training, he was admitted to the bar at Georgetown, in October, 1819. His splendid examination gave early promise of his future eminence and success, and in less than a year his fame as a lawyer and an advocate became well known. Before three years had passed he was sought after and engaged in every import- ant cause in the State. Every litigant was anxious to procure his services, thinking his aid sufficient to secure certain success. The late James A. Bayard affirmed that he did not believe a jury lawyer superior to Clayton had ever lived in this country. Nature had en- dowed him with every personal charm as well appearance, and his wife, Sarah (Middleton) Clayton, was also distinguished in person and features, and possessed rare social gifts. Her fine powers of conversation she transmitted to all her children. She was of Virginia ancestry and a native of the eastern shore of Maryland. Her husband was descended from Joshua Clayton, a Friend, who came to this country with William Penn. He left two sons, John and Joshua. John also left two sons, James and John. James left five sons, the eldest of whom was Governor Joshua Clayton, father of Chief Justice Thomas Clayton. John Clayton, a brother of Governor Joshua, was a distin- guished political personage in colonial and later times, Judge in Admiralty under the Constitution of 1776, Sheriff of Kent and Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. The father of the subject of our sketch was James, the youngest of the five sons of James Clayton. He was born March 24, 1761, was married August 18, 1791, and died November 24, 1820, leaving six children ; Lydia, who married John Kellum of Accomac county, Virginia ; John M .; Harriet, who be- came the wife of Walter Douglass, and after his death married Henry W. Peterson ; Eliza- beth, who never married ; Mary Anne, who |as intellectual gift. When full of his subject and
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Aldina Pub & Eng
Thome & layton .
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Although only thirty-five years of age he was of the State, in IS31. He was re elected to and grace of manner, his skill in handling his the Senate in 1835, but becoming weary of case and the wonderful displays of the re- sources of his great mind. On such occasions political life he resigned his place in December, 1836, and resumed the practice of law. In the room was always filled. His splendid January, 1837, he retired from the bar, and ac- voice, elegance and force of language, and powers of illustration, all remember who wit- nessed or heard them, and have never been equaled in the State.
The death of his father in 1820, left him to provide for the support of his mother, two sis- ters and a young brother. This the lavish generosity of his nature gave him great de- light in doing, and the incentive to labor still further inspired all his powers.
He was married September 12, 1822, to Miss Sally Ann Fisher, an heiress and daughter of Dr. James Fisher of Camden. To his young and lovely wife he was passionately devoted, but after little more than two years of domes- tic happiness she was taken from him, Febru- ary 18, 1825, leaving him two sons, the young- est but a few days old. The shadow of this great sorrow rested upon him for many years. He never fully recovered from it, and would never listen to any suggestion of a second marriage. His youngest son grew to be a young man of great promise, but he died in January, 1849, when in his twenty-fourth year, and the other son two years afterwards.
It was felt that but for these added afflic- tions, and the failure of his health under them, he might have lived many years longer to con- tinue his inestimable services to his country.
bending his energies to the accomplishment of came one of the great leaders of his party. of his object, his appearance in the court-room was grand ; his tall, commanding, finely-de- acknowledged the leading member of the veloped figure, and handsome, expressive convention that framed the present constiution countenance, lending their effect to his case
cepted the office of Chief Justice of the State, tendered him by his friend, Governor Polk. In this position he had no superior ; his great learning, his quick intuitions of the truth and right, his patience and impartiality, peculiarly fitting him for its requirements. He resigned it in little more than three years, and here his professional life virtually ended, although he occasionally took part in important cases.
In March, 1842, he was again elected to the Senate, and on the accession of General Tay- lor to the Presidency in 1849, the office of Secretary of State was tendered him and ac- cepted. In April, 1850, he negotiated the famous Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain. On the death of President Taylor, in July of the same year, he returned to private life. On the 6th of January, 1853, a wanton attack on the above treaty and on Mr. Clayton was made in the United States Senate. So great was the indignation of the people of Delaware, that, although the State Senate was Demo- cratic, a joint meeting of both houses of the the Legislature was speedily arranged, and on the 12th he was returned to the United States Senate that he might meet his assailants on equal ground. This he did in so masterly a manner as to overwhelm and silence his oppo- nents and triumphantly vindicate the princi- ples of the treaty he had inaugurated. Mr. Clayton remained in the Senate till his death, which occurred in Dover, November 9, 1856. His once robust health had been failing for several years. Not only was his death felt to be the loss of Delaware's most distinguished citizen, but a national calamity.
His first public offices were as clerk of the House of Representatives, from 1816 to 1819, and of the Senate in 1820. In 1821 he was ap- pointed State Auditor. The business of this office he found in great confusion, but soon re- duced it to a perfect system. In 1824 he was elected a member of the Legislature, and sub- sequently filled the office of Secretary of State. An appropriate marble monument marks his last resting place in the Presbyterian church- yard in Dover, he having been a consistent member of that church. In 1829 he was elected to the United States Senate, as a whig. On taking his seat, March 4, 1829, he found himself the youngest member of that body, at a time when such mem as Web- To the history of his country and of his State tlon of his public services, only the briefest ster, Clay, Calhoun and Benton were. at the belongs the more full and complete enumera- zenith of their power and influence ; yet he rapidly acquired a national reputation, and be- outline of which has here been attempted.
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More than this is rendered almost supurfluous | Bayard, crowning a hill which commands one by the constant, daily mention of him and the acts of his life, in the press and the literature of the times. He was one of those grand characters whose memory all men delight to recall, and of whom every item that can be gathered up is invested with interest.
of the noblest prospects in that romantic region, mark what is regarded as the cradle of the race. During the persecutions which fol- lowed the massacre of St. Bartholomew, three brothers, Jacques, Thomas and Philippe Bayard, who had embraced the Huguenot faith, fled, with thousands of their fellow-believers, from France, and took refuge in Holland, where their descendants still exist. One of these, Samuel Bayard, early in the seventeeth cen- tury, married Anneke, or Anna, daughter of Balthazar Stuyvesant, and sister of Peter Stuy- vesant, Governor of New Amsterdam. Anna Bayard, being a widow at the time of her brother's appointment, accompanied him to the New World, with her three sons, Balthazar, Nicholas and Petrus, and a daughter Catherine ; landing at New Amsterdam, May 11, 1647. From these three brothers all the Bayards in the United States are descended. The de- scendants of the two elder are still living in New York. Petrus, the youngest, became a convert of the Labadist missionaries during their short stay in New York, and with his family accompanied them to Cecil county, Maryland, where a tract of land had been given them, between the Elk and the Bohemia rivers, forming part of the great Bohemia Manor grant of Augustine Herrmann, the magnate of that region, and a conspicuous . personage in the early history of Maryland. The land was given them by Ephraim Herr- mann,son and heir of Augustine, and who also had been made a convert by the missionaries in New York. It contained about 3,750 acres, which was conveyed in August, 1684, to five persons, one of whom was Petrus Bayard. He passed nearly all the rest of his life in Maryland, but died in New York in 1699. The Labadist community was not of long con- tinuance, and in July, 1698, a partition of the land took place, Samuel Bayard, the eldest son of Petrus, receiving a considerable tract as his share. He spent his life on his Bohemia Manor farm in the ease and abundance 'which characterized the open-handed life of the Maryland gentlemen of those times, and ' were distinguished for courage in war and built himself a large brick house, in which he fidelity to their sovereign. In the province of and his descendants lived till 1789. He died Dauphiné, now the department of the Isére, in in 1721, leaving three sons, Samuel, Peter and James, and one daughter, Mary Ann. James the third son, married Mary Asheton, of Vir- the southeast of France, about six leagues from Grenoble, the ruins of the Chateau
AYARD, JAMES A., a distinguished American Statesman, was born in the city of Philadelphia, July 28, 1767. He was the second son of Dr. James A. Bayard, a physician of promising talents and increasing reputation, but who died Jan- uary 8, 1770, at an early period of life. Dr. Bayard was the brother of Colonel John Bayard, who, during the revolutionary war, was a member of the Council of Safety, and . many years speaker of the legislature of Penn- sylvania. He commanded the artillery at the battle of Brandywine, and distinguished him- sclf through the war by his courage and con- duct. Bancroft pronounces him " a patriot of singular purity of character and disinterested- ness ; personally brave, pensive, earnest and devout." The Bayards, in both the Old World and the New, trace back their illus- trious descent to the time when centuries ago the term, "a Bayard" became the synonym for bravery, purity and nobility of character. Romance and history owe to one of their number, Pierre du Ferrail, Seigneur de Bayard, " the Knight without fear and without re- proach," its ideal of a perfect Knighthood. He was the famous captain of Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I, the latter of whom, after the battle of Marignano, would receive the honor of knighthood from no hand but that of Bayard. In 1505 he, single-handed,kept the bridge of the Garigliano against the Span- iards, and saved the whole French army. In the wars between Francis and Emperor Charles V, he was the most trusted French leader, and fell by an arquebuse-shot while conducting the retreat of the passage of the Sesia, April 30, 1524. For generations earlier still the Bayards
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ginia; and of this marriage were born two sons, John and Dr. James Asheton, mentioned in the beginning of this sketch. James Asheton Bayard, the second, and the subject of this no- tice, was but two years old at the time of his father's death. He also had one elder brother, John. He was placed under the guardianship of his uncle, Col. Jno. Bayard who resided in Phila- delphia, and in whose family he lived for several years. His education was first entrusted to the Rev. Mr. Smith, of Lancaster county, with whom he remained some time, but eventually returned to his uncle's family, and pursued his studies uuder a private tutor until his admission to Princeton College. He graduated with the highest honors, September 28, 1784. He pur- sued his legal studies in Philadelphia, on con- cluding which he resolved to practice his profession in the adjoining State of Delaware, and was admitted to the bar in New Castle county in August, 1797. The first years of his · professional life he devoted to severe study, during which time he attained that familiar and exact knowledge of the principles of political science, and of general jurisprudence which in after life were alike serviceable to him at the bar and in Congress. On the 11th of February, 1795, he was married to Miss Bas- sett, the eldest daughter of Richard Bassett, Esq., who was subsequently governor of Dela- ware. Shortly after his marriage Mr. Bayard became actively connected with the dominant party in the State, and in October, 1796, was elected a member of the fifth Congress, in which he took his seat May 22, 1797. He at once became prominent for his zeal, industry, ability and knowledge. In 1801, it was the vote of Mr. Bayard that decided the election of Mr. Jefferson as president of the United States. In February of that year he was ap- pointed minister to France by John Adams, whose presidential term did not expire until the 4th of March following. Nothing could, under any other circumstances have been more gratifying to his feelings ; but from the deli- cate situation in which he had been placed by the late election he instantly declined the appointment. During the following adminis- tration he was called the Goliah of the feder- alist party, and sarcastically denominated the Mr. Bayard left Ghent on 7th January, 1815, and arrived in Paris on the 11th of the same month : 'here he designed to remain until it high priest of the constitution. He was pow- erful and eloquent in opposing what he deemed wrong and in advocating what he believed should be necessary to repair to London, to 28
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