USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume III > Part 14
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Finding that her astute veteran diplomatist, Sir Henry Bul- wer, like Napoleon, after a long series of triumphs, had met his Waterloo at the hands of the American Secretary of State, the British government, to escape the disastrous consequences of her own solemn treaty act, at once entered upon a course of perfidious evasion and contemptible quibbling that is probably without a parallel save in the disgraceful history of her own dip- lomacy. Thus, through the shameless pettifogging of Eng- land, the purposes of this great treaty were rendered nugatory, and its plain provisions made the occasion of over a half-century of dishonest trickery and chicanery which only ceased upon its abrogation in 1902. But it accomplished one highly useful end, viz., it averted a bloody war between the two nations. England had abundant occasion for chagrin in the utter drub- bing administered her pet statesman Bulwer. Secretary Clay- ton found that nation, after sixty-four years of fraud and force, intrenched in Central America, and in possession of territory as completely dominating both the Atlantic and Pacific en- trances to the future canal, as the Gibralter does the Mediter- ranean, and left her completely ousted from all her vantage ground, and that, too, by the voluntary act of her own first diplomat especially commissioned as Minister Extraordinary to the United States for that purpose. And yet as an equiva- lent for this large surrender of such advantages upon the part
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of England, Secretary Clayton did not yield one iota for his own country. What the outwitted Bulwer thought was a con- cession, was in reality what had been since the time of Wash- ington the traditional policy of this Government with refer- ence to the interoceanic canal, repeatedly re-affirmed by the Presidents and cabinets of both parties, and even so late as 1894 announced by President Cleveland. This traditional policy was a purpose to share with all the nations the benefits and the control of the great international highway. The present policy of an exclusive control of the present route for such a canal, represents a much later doctrine and national purpose.
Secretary Clayton returned to his home in the summer of 1850, consequent upon the death of President Taylor. In January, 1850, Senator Cass, of Michigan, aided and abetted by Senators Mason of Virginia and Douglas of Illinois, made an attack upon the Clayton and Bulwer treaty, and besides misrepresenting its character and purposes, grossly assailed and vilified .its author, the late Secretary Clayton personally, boldly declaring that not only had the Secretary been out- witted by the English diplomat, Sir Henry L. Bulwer, but that he had deceived the Senate into ratifying the treaty by with- holding a secret agreement with Sir Henry, which in effect betrayed his own country into the hands of England. These attacks upon Mr. Clayton were as cowardly in manner as they were false in matter. Cass and the rest knew that he could illy meet these lying accusations in the only forum then open to him, the public prints ; and they moreover thought them- selves safe in their contemptible course, for the Delaware Leg- islature had just failed through a political deadlock to choose a Senator. But they little knew the high patriotism of Mr. Clayton's State, and her just pride in her distinguished son : for when he requested an opportunity to meet his traducers upon the floor of the Senate, this hopelessly-tied Legislature was forthwith summoned in special session, and Senator Clay- ton triumphantly returned to the Senate from which he had
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previously resigned, and for which before the arising of this emergency, though strongly importuned, he had refused to be again a candidate.
This disinterested act upon the part of the Legislature of Delaware, especially of the Democrats who really held the key to the situation, in choosing a United States Senator of the opposite party, is a unique illustration of lofty state pride and patriotism without a fellow in the history of American politics, and justly reflects great honor upon this State and its people. On March 8, 1853, Senator Clayton, in presence of a highly interested auditory of his fellow Senators, made the first of a series of brilliant addresses in which he fully vindi- cated the Clayton and Bulwer Treaty, of which he was the author, and as completely refuted the base slanders cast upon his official and personal conduct in connection therewith. These speeches were characterized by an amount and variety of exact learning upon every phase, ancient and modern, of the whole lengthy episode that was marvelous. His calumniators found, as Sir Henry Bulwer to his chagrin already had, that Senator Clayton was conversant with every detail of the com- plicated affairs of the Central American States, and British Honduras in their relations to Great Britain; with their geography, together with the history of the tortuous diplomacy of England for nearly three-quarters of a century in that behalf. With biting sarcasm he twitted some of his senatorial assailants as "learned Thebans" for confounding Mexico, and even New Granada as parts of Central America. He showed, by the letter of Vice-President William R. King, Chairman in 1850 of the Senate Committee on Foreign Rela- tions, that the charges of duplicity towards the Senate were totally and maliciously false, or as Senator King wrote. "cruelly untrue."
The animus of the whole affair was the wish by Cass and his fellow conspirators to make political capital out of the charges, and thus injure the Whig party ; although Cass had also a purely personal motive prompting his act, viz., a desire
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to revenge himself upon Senator Clayton for helping defeat his darling ambition to reach the great seat. Senator Clayton was probably the only eminent public man who in his day was not infected with an insane desire to be President. Clay, Webster, Douglas, Cass, Calhoun, etc., etc., had the disease dreadfully. So these monstrous accusations against as loyal and as disinterested a patriot as ever eminently served his country, were fulminated again and again in the Senate, then printed by the authority of Cass himself, and taken up the whole country over by as rabid a partisan press as ever basely sought " to make the worse appear the better reason," till the land was deluged with the cunningly fabricated calumnies. Then the changes, with new falsehoods added, were rung upon the charges by every political huckster in the campaign, till what with the spoken and the printed lies, this remarkable piece of political conspiracy, as adroit as mendacious, has ac- quired an immortality truly diabolical.
So, too, despite the fact that the victim of this conspiracy had torn to shreds the whole garment of cunning lies, for base partisan purposes the wretched calumnies were uttered a second time in the Senate, in the winter of 1853 ; and although Senator Clayton again drove the slander-mongers in confusion before him, yet, amazing as it may seem, those stale “cam- paign lies" were for the third time, and, if possible, with in- creased ferocity, repeated in the year 1856 upon the floor of the Senate, and Senator Clayton was forced to leave the sick- bed to which he was soon to return for aye, to face for the third time his implacable tormentors, and to repel, as he superbly did, their lying attacks upon his good name and fame.
Except perhaps the long-continued and bitter pursuit of Washington himself by the like slander-assassins of his day, no man in public life was ever more unjustly and persistently beset by mendacity and hate than Senator Clayton ; and stranger still these oft-repeated slanders of Cass and Douglas, reiterated, in the very teeth of refutation "strong as proof of Holy Writ," in the hustings, and sown broadcast by a venal
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press, have come to possess such a semblance of truth as to be yet taken by thousands of intelligent readers for historic verity. Indeed, a recent cyclopedia, edited by one of the first editorial writers in the country, in an article on the Clay- ton-Bulwer Treaty, revamps these exploded lies of Cass as the actual facts in the case. The truth is that probably no treaty ever framed by this nation was drawn with more scrupulous care and prevision, indeed, with what would seem in advance of the subsequent actual occurrence, an absurd excess of cau- tion, the adroit Secretary had the word " occupy " defined be- fore the signing of the treaty, as intending a present as well as a future meaning. Than Secretary Clayton none knew better the quibbling, dishonest diplomacy of England, and so tightly did he close every loop-hole, that an evasion of the plain pro- visions and purposes of the instrument drawn by him, was only possible by such a course of downright dishonorable refusal by Great Britain to abide by their own solemn treaty obligations, coupled with a silly crucifixion of the English language, as amounted to a national shame.
Hear what his most distinguished contemporaries had to say about this great piece of statesmanship, words of eulogy pro- nounced over his ashes in the very Senate chamber where but a few days before, even then a dying man, he had made his last masterly defence of his work and name. The great Seward spoke this lofty eulogium upon it. " The first universal fact, a fact indicating an ultimate union of the nations, was the Clay- ton and Bulwer Treaty. It was the felicitous good-fortune of John M. Clayton, not more than his genius and ability that enabled him to link his own name with that great and stu- pendous transaction, and so win for himself the eternal grati- tude of future generations not only in his own country, but throughout the great divisions of the earth."
The eminent lawyer and statesman, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, said : " This treaty is the first instance within my knowledge in which two great nations of the earth have thus endeavored to combine peacefully for the prosecution and ac-
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complishment of an object which when completed must ad- vance the happiness and prosperity of all men." Senator Henry Wilson, afterwards Vice-President, said in congressional debate, " The Senator from Delaware, as the negotiator of the treaty on the part of the United States government entered upon that service inspired with the sublime conception and generous purposes that the grandeur and magnitude of such an occasion was calculated to inspire. That he entered upon the work with the high and patriotic object of framing a treaty which should confer lasting benefits upon our own country and the world, none can doubt."
Again Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, said Febru- ary 25, 1856, in Congress, " I consider that the negotiation of this treaty was the highest honor of which any statesman might well be proud." And even Senator Cass, chief of his relentless traducers, admitted with unblushing self-stultifica- tion in one of his attacks, " that the Clayton and Bulwer Treaty if carried out in good faith would peaceably do the work of the Monroe Doctrine, and free an important portion of our continent from foreign interference." It was no fault of Secre- tary Clayton's that a measure so expansive in its world-wide philanthropy and so humanely fostering peaceful commerce and international brotherhood as to elicit such eulogies, should be aborted and defeated in much of its intended benefits by the dishonorable conduct of one of the signatory nations ; and still less any fault of his that by the irony of fate, because of the now recognized seismic character of the Nicaraguan route, the great project that gave birth to this famous treaty, the Nica- raguan Canal will never be realized ; but it will, nevertheless, ever remain an imperishable monument of the far-seeing wis- dom and earnest patriotism of the great brain that conceived and the bold heart that executed this noble specimen of states- manship.
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THOMAS CLAYTON.
The father of Thomas Clayton was Dr. Joshua Clayton, a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, and the last of the " Presidents," as the early Governors of Delaware were styled till 1793 ; upon the adoption of the new constitution in 1792, he became, from 1793 to 1796, the first governor under the new régime.
His son Thomas chanced to be born out of the State by reason of the fact that in July, 1777, to avoid the apprehension and excitement caused by the passage of the British army across the State, his mother had been conveyed to Massey's Cross Roads, Md., where the future Senator and Chief Justice first saw the light. Dr. Joshua Clayton was the great-grandson of Joshua Clayton, who, with his brother, Powell Clayton, came over from Lincolnshire, England, with William Penn in 1683. Thomas Clayton had a classical education at Newark Academy, then a famous institution, and at nineteen began the study of law in the office of Nicholas Ridgely at Dover, to be duly ad- mitted to the bar three years thereafter. There were legal giants in the land in those days, but for all that the youthful David soon wrested more than his due share of the spoils of the profession in a large and growing practice.
He was made Secretary of State under Governor Truitt in 1808, and three years after Governor Haslet appointed him Attorney General. He was elected to the House of Repre- sentatives in 1814, but was defeated at the ensuing national election for supporting a bill which passed both Houses of Congress, changing the mode of paying the members. Seven years thereafter the Legislature of his State honored him by an election to the Senatorial office made vacant by the ap- pointment of the Hon. Caesar A. Rodney, minister to Buenos Ayres. Mr. Clayton took his seat in the United States Senate, January 15, 1824, where he remained four years, or until the end of the nineteenth Congress. Upon the reorganization of the judiciary of the State in 1828, Governor Charles Polk ap- pointed him Chief Justice of Common Pleas ; and when this
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Court and the Supreme Court were abolished in 1832 by the amended constitution of that year, he was promoted to the office of Chief Justice of the State, and held that position until January 16, 1837, at which time he was chosen Senator to succeed the Hon. John M. Clayton, who had resigned. In 1841 he was again elected to the Senate for the term begin- ning March 4, 1842. But like his distinguished cousin whom he had followed, he too, rating at its true value the bauble of office, relinquished the wearisome toga for the enjoyment once more of the tranquillity of private life at New Castle, which had been his home since 1833, and where, August 21, 1854, he suddenly died.
The exceptional circumstances under which he was selected from a number of candidates for the responsible office of Chief Justice, discloses the profound esteem in which his abilities and character were held both by the Governor and his fellow-citizens generally. Chief Justice James Booth, Sr., a resident of New Castle County, died in 1832, and under the provisions of the Constitution his successor or some judge must also live in that county ; but Mr. Clayton at that time lived in Kent County, and his nomination to the vacancy meant the appointment of a needless fourth judge at consider- able further expense to the State. In a message to the Legis- lature explaining his action, Governor Polk said, "I selected the present Chief Justice of the Common Pleas solely with a view to his learning, talents, integrity and superior capacity for the station which have been amply tested by the records of the court over which he presided." The Governor pro- nounced no vain eulogy ; for Judge Clayton possessed a deep knowledge of the law, and had had a wide juridical experi- ence before coming to the Chief Justiceship, and possessed. moreover, the rare gift of quickly discerning the " point " of the case. The writer in the course of a long experience at the Bar has had occasion to read thousands of cases, but he recalls none, American or English, which announced the true doc- trines of the law in fewer or plainer words.
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His entire impartiality as a judge was never once ques- tioned. His was of those ruggedly honest natures that in the discharge of a public duty knew neither friend nor foe, fear nor favor, but meted out to all an even-handed justice. They tell to this day a characteristic story or so of the old judge which illustrates this quality of a stern adherence to the law. One day on coming into Court, glancing up at the clock, he noticed that he was ten minutes late, and after confirming the fact by his own time-piece, took his seat on the bench and turning to the clerk said, " Mr. Clerk, enter a fine of ten dol- lars against Thomas Clayton," and then took up the usual court routine. Again, Philip Reybold, Esq., one of the most busy and useful citizens in the whole State, when sum- moned as a witness, failed for two days to respond, and offered as an excuse that he would first attend to some busi- ness of his own in Baltimore. "Is that your only reason, sir ?" asked the judge. "Yes sir," replied Mr. Reybold ; whereupon the Chief Justice said to the clerk, "Fine Philip Reybold twenty dollars, and you, Mr. Sheriff, take charge of Mr. Reybold until he complies with the order of the Court." So, too, he once told his son, Col. Joshua Clayton, to "sit down, sir," for insisting upon a point that the old judge had twice told him was neither law nor relevant. The famous John M. Clayton thought to try the same experiment, but on the second recital received a warning that deterred him from venturing further. This same Col. Joshua Clayton, who afterwards abandoned the law for agriculture, was wont to declare of this Brutus-father of his, that " he sat so upright on the bench whenever I had a case, that he leaned clean back- ward !"
The remains of this intrepid and upright judge lie in the cemetery of the Presbyterian Church at Dover, surrounded by the ashes of many of those who were contemporaries of his useful and honorable career.
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RICHARD H. BAYARD.
Richard H. Bayard was born in Wilmington, September 23, 1796. He was the son of James A. Bayard, the elder. He graduated from Princeton College in 1814 when but seventeen years of age, and after reading law was admitted to the Bar in 1818. Mr. Bayard held many important public offices, being chosen the first Mayor of Wilmington in 1832; and representing his State twice in the United States Senate, from 1836 to 1839 and again from 1841 to 1845. He was Chief Justice of Delaware from September 19th, 1839, until March, 1841, when he resigned to re-enter the Senate of the United States. From 1850 to 1853 he occupied the post of United States Minister to Belgium.
He possessed to a considerable degree the natural abilities of his noted family, but had small opportunity in his brief judicial tenure adequately to display those talents. He is spoken of as the ideal gentleman of the old school. His ap- pearance and manners were of the courtly sort so often met a century ago. He died in the City of Philadelphia in 1868.
EDWARD WOODWARD GILPIN.
Edward Woodward Gilpin was born in Wilmington, July 13, 1803. After receiving a practical business training he read law at Wilmington under Senator John Wales, and was duly admitted to the Bar in 1827, where after many years of practice, he attained the distinction of being one of the lead- ing members of the profession. In 1840 his abilities received their first public recognition by his being made Attorney- General for the State, and performed the duties of that office with marked success for a term of ten years.
In 1857 he was the general choice of the Bar and the people for the honor of the Chief Justiceship, and for nearly twenty years thereafter presided over the Civil and Criminal Courts, and served as a member of the Court of Errors and Appeals, with a degree of usefulness and distinction enjoyed by few of his predecessors, wherein his integrity and ability as a judge
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1803-1876.
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won for him the esteem and admiration of the entire bar. While on the bench at Dover, he was taken with serious heart disease, April 29, 1876, and died literally in the very midst of his judicial labors. He possessed abilities of a high order, was an unusually prompt and efficient judge, and as a citizen was public-spirited and patriotic.
JOSEPH P. COMEGYS.
Joseph P. Comegys, the third son of Governor Cornelius P. Comegys was born at Cherbourg, the family seat in Kent County, Delaware, December 23, 1813. His mother was Ruhamah Marim, a sister of Charles Marim, a Kent County lawyer of recognized ability. With much talent inherited from both sides of the family, Joseph P. Comegys, like his brothers, made his mark in his chosen profession. The dis- tinction attained by the Comezys brothers is truly remarkable. Benjamin B. Comegys, one of the brothers, became a leading financier in the City of Philadelphia, Cornelius G. Comegys, another brother, attained great fame as a medical practitioner in Cincinnati, and John M. Comegys, a third brother was unusually successful as an operator in modern dental surgery.
Joseph P. Comegys received his education in the old academy at Dover, noted in its day for the thoroughness of the instruction imparted. When seventeen years of age he began the study of the law with John M. Clayton, who at that time was filling his first term in the United States Senate. Admitted to the bar at Dover in April, 1835, he maintained an active law practice for over forty years, and appeared actively in nearly all the leading trials of that period. In 1855 he was offered by Governor Causey the Associate Justice- ship for Kent County, when Judge Harrington was made Chief Justice, but this office he declined.
In 1876, on the death of Chief Justice Gilpin, he was ap- pointed Chief Justice by Governor Cochran. His advent to the bench was hailed with delight by the members of the bar throughout the State and the high expectations raised by his
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appointment were fully realized by the almost twenty years of service which he rendered on the bench. A man of com- manding presence and great dignity, he was the ideal judge in appearance, and his knowledge of the law and acknowledged ability and impartiality combined to make him an honored and capable judge.
In early days he was an ardent Whig, but in later years was an independent in politics. While he received his ap- pointment as Chief Justice from a Democratic Governor, it is stated on good authority that he had never voted the Demo- cratic ticket or been identified with that party.
On the death of John M. Clayton in 1856 he was appointed by Governor Causey to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate caused by Mr. Clayton's death, and served for a brief term therein, until the next meeting of the General Assembly. Chief Justice Comegys had the greatest love and veneration for his old law preceptor, John M. Clayton. He prepared and read before the Historical Society of Delaware a memorial of Mr. Clayton, containing a full review of his life and political career. This memoir is most eulogistic and shows the tender regard existing between the two men. The wife of the Chief Justice, Miss Margaret A. Douglass, was a niece of John M. Clayton's, and with her and his family he lived for fifty years in the southwest corner of " the green " in Dover. Miss Harriet Clayton Comegys, his daughter, is the only survivor of his three children.
In 1882 the University of Pennsylvania conferred upon Chief Justice Comegys the degree of LL.D. in recognition of his ability in the law and in classic literature. No man had a greater love for his native State, and but few if any deserved more at her hands.
His death occurred at Dover on the first day of February, 1893, and his remains were interred in the Presbyterian churchyard at that place in the presence of all the leading people and officials of the State.
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SUPREME COURT JUDGES APPOINTED A. D. 1897. WILLIAM H. BOYCE.
IGNATIUS C. GRUBB.
CHARLES B. LORE.
JAMES PENNEWILL.
WILLIAM C. SPRUANCE.
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ALFRED P. ROBINSON.
Alfred P. Robinson, the son of Alfred P. Robinson, Sr., at- torney-at-law ; and the grandson of Judge Peter Robinson, was born in Sussex County, Delaware, February 7, 1842, and was admitted to the bar in 1863. The value and efficiency of his fine natural gifts were enhanced by diligent study, wide reading and the teachings of experience, and he soon secured a lucrative practice, rising to the eminence of leadership of the bar of his county.
He was made Deputy Attorney General of the State from 1874 to 1879, under Attorney General Penington; was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1884; and in 1891 was appointed by the Governor one of the Delaware Commissioners on Uniform Interstate Legislation. In the year 1893 he was appointed Chief Justice in the vice of Hon. Joseph P. Comegys resigned, but did not live long enough to fulfil the expectations of a distinguished judicial career raised by his character and talents, dying of heart disease after a brief service of one month as Chief Justice, March 1, 1893, at his home in Georgetown, but a few hours after leaving a ses- sion of Court at Wilmington. No man ever assumed the duties of the bench with higher ideals of its duties and re- sponsibilities, and the grief at his early and unexpected death was universal.
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