USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 19
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was much aided and stimulated in his studies by correspondence with his uncle, Francis W. Gilmer, then a member of the bar of Winchester, Virginia. He was a close and assiduous student, and in less than a year applied for and obtained a license to practice law, and located himself in Scottsville, Albemarle County, within a few miles of "Mt. Air," the residence of Captain Hudson, his maternal grandfather; but, tempted by the wide field offered in the new western country, he removed in a short time to St. Louis, Missouri. Very flattering prospects of success dawned upon him in that thriving city, but he was induced to abandon them and return to Virginia from a desire to aid his father in the man- agement of his affairs and in the care of a large family. A striking instance of his magnanimity and generosity at this period is given. Always a favorite with his grandfather, Mr. Hudson, the latter had made a will constituting him his sole heir. When Walker Gilmer heard this, he insisted successfully that Mr. Hudson should alter the provisions of the will, and divide the estate equally among his brothers and sisters, after having first secured a competent provision for his father. In his new field of practice in Charlottesville, and the bar of Albemarle and the adjacent counties, Mr. Gilmer met with formidable competition in a host of legal and forensic talent, headed by Philip Pen- dleton Barbour, subsequently a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; but competition only inspired greater exertion, and six years of unflagging devotion to his profession placed him in the front rank of the Albemarle bar. "As a lawyer, he was distinguished for acuteness of mind, adroitness in debate, clear perception of the true issue, skill in the examination of testimony, a fine grasp of the strong points of his cause, and intuitive detection of the weak ones of his op- ponents." He was rather an able and skillful advocate than a profound jurist; and wielded more power over the sympathies and instincts of the jury than over the learning of the judge. In the year 1825, the dispo- sition to amend the Constitution of Virginia began to manifest itself among the friends of reform in notable signs of a desire for concerted action. Notices were published for holding a Convention in Staunton, on the 25th of July, of that year, to consider the best means of effecting the common object, and meetings were held in many counties to appoint delegates to this Convention. "A meeting of the citizens of Albemarle in favor of a Convention assembled in Charlottesville, in response to a call in the Central Gazette. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson, presided; and Thomas W. Gilmer offered a series of resolutions asserting the right of the people to change the existing defective Constitution, and recommending the appointment of delegates from the county to the Convention to be held in Staunton. The reso- lutions were adopted, and Thomas Mann Randolph, Valentine Wood Southall, and Thomas Walker Gilmer appointed delegates. The Con- vention met as appointed, and Mr. Gilmer attended. Thirty-eight
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counties were represented. Among the delegates were some of the most prominent men of Virginia, among whom were Charles Fenton Mercer, Judge John Scott, John R. Cooke, Callohill Minns, Daniel Sheffey, Lucas P. Thompson, Philip Doddridge, and others of like reputation and influence. The Convention remained in session for several days, and finally recommended, by a very large majority: 1. The white basis of representation; 2. The extension of the right of suffrage; 3. The abolition of the Council of State-a lingering relie of the earliest form of government of Virginia as a colony; 4. The adoption of some practical provision for future amendments; and, 5. The adoption of a memorial to the Legislature to submit the ques- tion of a Convention to the vote of the people. Mr. Gilmer took an active part in the debates, and offered an important amendment to the resolution of the committee on the extension of suffrage, which was adopted. The speeches in the body were characterized by the Rich- mond Enquirer as being able and eloquent. It is noteworthy that the third and fourth measures of reform recommended were both rejected by the State Convention of 1829-30. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, by an effective speech, killed the former; and, when the Convention were about to adopt the latter, John Randolph of Roanoke gave it a sum- mary quietus with a senseless sneer and a demonstration with his skinny forefinger. While in attendance upon the Staunton Convention, Mr. Gilmer met with Miss Ann E. Baker, the daughter of Hon. John Baker, a member of Congress from Virginia. She became his wife in the month of May following. During the political canvass which resulted in the election of General Andrew Jackson to his first term as President, Mr. Gilmer became one of the editors of the Virginia Advocate, a news- paper published in Charlottesville, and devoted to the success of the party of General Jackson. He had for several years been a constant contributor to the Central Gazette, also published in Charlottesville, by C. P. Mckennie, and had acquired some reputation as a writer. His co- editor of the Advocate was John A. G. Davis, professor of law in the University of Virginia, a man of rare modesty, brilliant talents, and profound learning. The Advocate was ably edited, and did good cam- paign service. During the editorial career of Mr. Gilmer a controversy arose between the Virginia Advocate and the Lynchburg Virginian about the opinion of James Madison on the Bank question, which was carried on for some time with acrimony, and ended in a personal difficulty between Mr. Gilmer and Richard H. Toler, the editor of the Virginian. Mr. Gilmer went to Lynchburg and demanded an apology from Mr. Toler for some offensive language he had used towards him, and, not feeling satisfied with the result of the interview, assaulted Mr. Toler. The parties afterwards became friends, and frequently met in the State Legislature on the most amicable terms. In the spring of 1829, Mr.
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Gilmer was returned by the county of Albemarle to the State House of Delegates. This period, which witnessed the birth of the great Whig and Democratic parties, was one of convulsive throe to the Nation; the political cauldron seethed with mad passions of party spirit. Mr. Gilmer was placed on the important committee of Courts of Justice, and, at the end of two weeks, he is recorded as moving to add to the stand- ing committees one on Revolutionary Claims. It was formed with him- self as chairman. He studied the subject fully, and by active research established, in his exhaustive report, unsatisfied claims of Virginia on the Federal Government which had been overlooked or neglected in former settlements. He moved resolutions of instruction to the Virginia Senators in Congress in relation to the bounty lands for the Virginia State and Continental Lines, which drew attention to the matter, and resulted in an advantageous change of the former provisions in favor of the officers and men of the Virginia State Line. During the Legislative session an effort was made to renew the charters of the State banks, though it would be three years before they expired. This measure was ably and success- fully opposed by Mr. Gilmer. At the spring election of 1830, Mr. Gilmer received the verdict of approval of his course in a re-election to the House of Delegates with an increased majority; and when, after the adoption of the amended constitution, new elections were held, his popularity was further vindicated by a vote nearly double of that of any other candidate for local suffrage of his county. When the General Assembly met in December, 1830, Mr. Gilmer was nominated for Speaker of the House of Delegates by William M. Rives, of Campbell County, who said in his nominating speech : "Mr. Gilmer has left the traces of his genius upon the memory of the members of the last session, and the proofs of his ability on the journal." The former Speaker, Linn Banks, was, how- ever, elected. This session of the Legislature was one of the most in- portant ever convened in Richmond. Upon it devolved the task of re- modeling the Statute Laws in accordance with the amended constitution. The ablest men in the State had been summoned to this duty in the House of Delegates. Among them may be named: Benjamin Watkins Leigh, James . Barbour, Richard Morris, Archibald Bryce, Vincent Witcher, Thomas S. Gholson, William H. Brodnax, George W. Sum- mers, George C. Dromgoole, and John Thompson Brown. The debates were marked by great ability, learning, and eloquence. Mr. Gilmer took an active part in all of the leading questions of the session, and won laurels from the ablest champions in this brilliant arena. In the winter of 1830-1, Mr. Gilmer was induced, by the solicitations of his friends, to undertake the editorial conduetion of a political newspaper to be pub- lished at Richmond. He accordingly published a prospectus in the Enquirer of April 12, 1831, proposing to issue, on the 1st of July, a newspaper to be called the Times, but the scheme was abandoned in
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consequence of his being appointed, by Governor John Floyd, Commis- sioner of the State to prosecute the Revolutionary Claims of Virginia on the United States. Governor Floyd, in his annual message, in speak- ing of this appointment, says of Mr. Gilmer: "If zeal,, talent, and assiduity furnish any augury of success, we may confidently indulge the most pleasing anticipations of it." Mr. Gilmer spent the greater part of the summer, autumn, and winter of the year 1831 in Washing- ton City, collecting the materials and preparing the evidence for as- serting the clainis of Virginia before Congress, and thus escaped the excitement, during the legislative session of 1831-2, on the slavery question. In the spring of 1832 he was again elected a member of the House of Delegates. Mr. Gilmer was also a delegate from Albemarle County to the Convention held in Charlottesville, June 12, 1832, to nominate a candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with General Jackson, and of which James Barbour was the choice; but the previous nomination, by the Baltimore Convention, of Martin Van Buren, nega- tived their action.
In 1832, Littleton Waller Tazewell having resigned his seat in the United States Senate, William Cabell Rives, who had just returned from his mission to France, was nominated by Mr. Gilmer, in the Vir- ginia Legislature, to fill the vacancy, and was elected without opposi- tion. Though Mr. Gilmer, by his absence as Commissioner at Wash- ington, had fortunately escaped the excitement of the discussion of the slavery question, he had now to bear his part in the fury of the storm which rose about nullification and appalled the hearts of the stoutest patriots with the menacing thunders of civil war. On the 10th of De- cember, 1832, General Jackson issued his proclamation, which, together with the ordinance of nullification and the other proceedings of the Con- vention of South Carolina, was made the subject of a special message to the General Assembly by Governor Floyd. It was referred to a special committee, of which Mr. Gilmer was a member. General W. II. Brodnax, the chairman of the committee, reported a series of reso- lutions disapproving the ordinance of nullification as passed by South Carolina, and requesting that State to suspend it until after the adjourn- ment of Congress; but also condemning in strong terms the heresies of the proclamation of General Jackson, and reiterating the right of srees- sion as the proper remedy when all peaceful opposition to unconstitu- tional legislation by the Federal Government had failed. An interesting debate occurred on this report, in which Mr. Gilmer participated in a speech of great ability. He announced the essence of State Rights to be the right of a State to judge for itself of infractions of the Constitu- tion, and of the modes and measures of redress. The crisis was a fear- ful one, and Virginia met it nobly. She stood upon the troubled waters and lulled them into peace-sternly rebuking, on the one hand, the evil and mad spirit of arbitrary power which produced the proclamation,
REV. MILES SELDEN, Last Colonial Rector of St. John's Church, in 1773. From a miniature in the possession of the family.
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and, on the other, calming and soothing the excited feelings of her too intemperate sister. Mr. Leigh was sent to bear a message of counsel and peace to South Carolina. Henry Clay, on the 12th of February, offered in the United States Senate his Compromise Bill, which was adopted ; and when the Convention of South Carolina reassembled in March the ordinance of nullification was repealed.
In the spring of 1833 Mr. Gilmer was again re-elected to the House of Delegates. When the Assembly met in December the subject of the removal of the public deposits from the Bank of the United States was warmly discussed, and resolutions were adopted in the House of Dele- gates condemning the course of General Jackson as an arbitrary assump- tion of power, and instructing the Virginia Senators to vote for restoring the deposits to the United States Bank. Senator William C. Rives re- signed his seat rather than obey the instructions, and Benjamin Watkins Leigh was elected in his place. In the spring of 1835 Mr. Gilmer was again elected to the House of Delegates. ' The session of 1835-6 was perhaps the stormiest ever held in the State. The recently amalgam- ated political parties of heterogeneous and diverse clements were in an embryo state, and every man distrustful of his next neighbor in poli- tics. The discussions on the recently developed designs of the abolition party, which was rearing its hydra head, were fierce in the extreme. The question of the Presidential succession, with all the issues of the preceding administration involved, was a prolific factor of ferment. A fire-brand was thrown into the House by the Expunging Resolutions introduced by Colonel Joseph S. Watkins, of Goochland County. This measure of party servility was adopted, and Senator John Tyler, as has been narrated in a preceding sketch, refused to obey the instructions, and resigned his seat, which was filled by the election of William C. Rives.
In the Presidential election of 1836 Mr. Gilmer voted for Hugh Law- son White, of Tennessee, in opposition to Mr. Van Buren. Both Judge White and General Harrison were voted for by the Whigs of Virginia. The shattered condition of the health of Mr. Gilmer induced him to spend the latter part of the winter of 1837-8 in the South, and at the solicitation of capitalists in Virginia he extended his journey as far as Texas, as agent for them in the selection of lands. This trip made Mr. Gilmer cognizant of the resources of the infant republic of Texas, and enabled him to form a just estimate of its value to the United States, and he was henceforth an ardent and fast friend of its annexation to our Union. Whilst in Texas he was appointed by the government as joint commissioner with Mr. A. G. Burnley, to negotiate a loan of ten millions of dollars for the State. On receiving the appointment he has- tened by home, on his way to the Northern cities, to effect the loan ; but his negotiations were broken off by the unfavorable turn of the
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money affairs of the country, which soon resulted in the suspension of specie payments by the banks. He was compensated, however, by the government of Texas, with $5000 in the bonds of the republic, for his services. Mr. Gilmer was again elected to the House of Delegates of Virginia in 1838. Whilst engaged in legislative service Mr. Gifiner was a frequent contributor to the newspaper press, and in 1834 he published in the Richmond Whig a series of articles on the " Right of Instruction" and other subjects ; and whilst in the North, endeavoring to effect a loan for Texas, he contributed to the Pennsylvanian some very interesting articles on the history of the Texan Revolution, which were extensively copied by the press. In the summer of 1835 he wrote letters weekly from the watering-places of Virginia to the Whig, in which he graphic- ally described the scenery of the country and portrayed the characters and manners of those with whom he was thrown. February 22, 1837, he delivered an address before the Virginia Historical Society, at its annual meeting, which was published in the current number of the Southern Literary Messenger.
When the Legislature met in 1838, Mr. Gilmer was elected Speaker of the House of Delegates by acclaim, his being the only nomination. He was re-elected Speaker when the House of Delegates met again, in December, 1839. February 14. 1840, he was elected Governor of Vir- ginia, to succeed David Campbell on the expiration of his term on the 31st of March. He entered zealously upon his duties. He was ex of- fficio President of the Board of Public Works, and, not being satisfied with the means of information at the command of the Board, he made a careful personal examination of nearly all the important public works of the State. This tour, in the summer of 1840, was at his own pri- vate expense. The information thus obtained enabled him to prepare a very able and valuable message to the Assembly, lucidly presenting the public and material interests of the State. He also reopened with Governor Seward, of New York, a controversy for the surrender of Peter Johnson, Edward Smith, and Isaac Gransey, charged with slave- stealing in Virginia, and who were fugitives from justice. Their ren- dition was ably demanded. Seward, after a delay of six months, replied, refusing to surrender the fugitives. The exasperated Assemby of Vir- ginia, on the 13th of March, 1841, enacted in retaliation a law which subjected all vessels trading from any port in New York to Virginia to a search for stolen slaves. It was, however, made prospective, to allow New York another opportunity to redress the grievance complained of; and the Governor was authorized to suspend the operation of the law when the demand of the State should be complied with, and the law of New York extending the right of trial by jury should be repealed. On the 16th of March, three days after the passage of the retaliatory law, a demand was made by Governor Seward on the Executive of Virginia for the surrender of R. F. Emry, charged with felony in New
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York, and arrested in Virginia. Governor Gilmer refused to comply with the demand until the demand of Virginia for the surrender of the slave stealers, as above, should have been complied with. Thus was the issue joined between North and South, but the Legislature of Virginia receded from its bold position, and failed to sustain Governor Gilmer. Debate ensued, and modified resolutions were passed and communicated to the Governor on the 18th instant. On the same day he sent to the Assembly a message in which he ably vindicated his course, and re- signed his office. The resignation of Governor Gilmer was a complete surprise to the Legislature. Much heated discussion ensued, and party spirit ran high. The passions of his opponents led them to extreme measures. It was proposed to supply his place by a new election, and the commencement of the gubernatorial term was changed by enact- ment to the 1st of January; but the Legislature were unable to agree to elect a successor, and adjourned, leaving the office of Governor to be filled successively by the senior Councillor of State for the yearly term of such precedence, as provided by law. He was thus succeeded until the 31st of March following by John Mercer Patton.
As soon as the resignation of Governor Gilmer became known he was solicited to declare himself a candidate for Congress from the Albemarle district. He accordingly did so, and was elected by a handsome major- ity, and took his seat, on the 31st of May, in the Congress which had been convened by the proclamation of President Harrison, dated the 17th of March.
In the meanwhile, the death of President Harrison, which occurred on the 4th of April, just one month after his inauguration, had devolved the Executive office on John Tyler, the Vice-President. There was a Whig majority in both branches of Congress. John White, of Ken- tucky, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. Gilmer entered actively on the work of reform in Congress. He pro- posed the entire separation of the political press from the patronage of the Government, and that the Executive should be required to report to the Senate his reasons for all removals from office. These were capital reforms, but failed. Mr. Gilmer labored, too, through the medium of a special committee, of which he was chairman, for re- trenchment. He served also as a member of the important Standing Committee of Ways and Means. On the 17th of June he offered a resolution for the appointment of a committee to examine into the num- ber of the officers or agents of the Government, modes of transacting business, and expenditures, to report at the next session if any reduc- tion in the expenses of the civil list, or in the number of persons em- ployed, might be effected. The resolution was adopted, and Mr. Gilmer placed at the head of the committee.
President Harrison, in removing to Washington to assume his office, had incurred much expense, which had considerably embarrassed his
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estate. A proposition to give to his family $25,000, the Presidential salary for one year, so enlisted the feelings and sympathies of all, that few men could be found of the opposite party, much less of those who had voted for him, bold enough to oppose it. Every impulse of Mr. Gilmer led him to vote for the bill, but they were controlled by his sense of duty as a Representative. In a brief speech he insisted that Congress ought not to vote it in their representative capacity out of the public funds, but privately from their own personal resources. They had no right to be generous with the money of the people. He also ably opposed the distribution among the States of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. He voted against the United States Bank in every form in which it was presented. The extra session of Congress adjourned on the 13th of September, after a session of about one hun- dred days. At the regular session, which began on the first Monday of December, 1841, Mr. Gilmer was transferred from the Committee of Ways and Means to that of Foreign Relations, of which John Quincy Adams was chairman. The action of Mr. Adams in presenting, Jan- uary 24, 1842, a petition from Haverhill, Massachusetts, for an immedi- ate dissolution of the Union, the debate which resulted from a resolution to censure hin therefor, and the singular conduct of Mr. Adams in the committee, so disgusted Mr. Gilmer and four other members of it that they refused to serve any longer on it with Mr. Adams, and they were excused by the House. In the debate on the general appropriation bill, Mr. Gilmer, in a speech of great ability, advocated striking out all the contingent expenses. He zealously supported President Tyler in the independent course which the latter pursued. Mr. Gilmer was re-elected to Congress, in 1843, over William L. Goggin, after a warm canvass. When Congress assembled December 2, 1843, the majority in the House of Representatives was changed, and was now largely Democratic. John Winston Jones, of Virginia, was elected Speaker. The Cabinet of Presi- dent Tyler having resigned, as detailed in the preceding sketch of his career, on the 15th of February, 1844, he nominated Mr. Gilmer to the Senate to be Secretary of the Navy. The nomination was at once unani- mously confirmed. Mr. Gilmer immediately entered upon the discharge of the duties of his post with the avowed determination to carry into exe- cution the reforms which he had advocated in Congress, but an All-wise Providence intervened, and by a most afflieting dispensation removed,hin from his sphere of human usefulness. He was, as has been narrated, one of the victims of the awful catastrophe on the steamer " Princeton" on the 28th of February, 1844. Thus died Thomas Walker Gilmer, in the forty-second year of his age, stricken down on the very harvest-field of his faithful labors, and with the sheaves of gathered honors standing thick around him. He left issue four sons and two daughters: i. JJohn, died unmarried; ii. Elizabeth, married Colonel St. George Tucker, Confed-
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erate States Cavalry, soldier, poet, and novelist; iii. Rev. George Hud- son, a minister of the Presbyterian Church; iv. Rev. Thomas Walker, of the faith of his brother, married Miss Minor; v. James B., a mem- ber of the bar of Texas, married Mrs. Elizabeth Ford; vi. Juliet. An excellent portrait of Governor Gilmer is in the State Library at Rich- mond. A marble slab marks his remains at "Mt. Air," Albemarle County, Virginia.
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