the election by what we considered reliable authority that Gov. Richardson had so decided. We, with those of our contemporaries who have spoken upon this subject, are decidedly in favor of the extra session being called at as early a day after the land sales as practicable. There are many reasons, we think, why this should be done. The simple fact that we are much in need of a criminal code and revenue law, which tice of his profession until July, 1861, when he was appointed surgeon of the 27th regiment Ohio volunteer infantry, remaining with the regiment until the spring of 1863, when he resigned. His military career commenced actively in the Missouri campaign, under Frémont, thence to New Madrid and Island number 10, under General Pope, thence to Pittsburg Landing, and through the siege of Corinth under Halleck; then in the battle of Iuka and Corinth under General Rosecrans. Returning to Ohio, Dr. Thrall engaged in mercantile pursuits until the election of Rutherford B. Hayes as governor, when he became his private secretary and held the office for three years, resigning to accept an appointment as United States marshal of the southern district of Ohio. He held this office during the eight years of Grant's two terms as president, after which he was engaged in various branches of manufacturing and merchandizing. In 1901 he was elected surgeon-general of the G. A. R. for the United States, and was elected recorder of the Ohio commandery of the Loyal Legion of the United States in May, 1902; and was reelected in 1903 and 1904.

'The funeral of Governor Cuming at Omaha was a notable and imposing event for that period of sparse population and scanty sources of the trappings of pageantry; and he was especially fortunate in his eulogist. The formal funeral oration was delivered by James M. Woolworth, April 17, 1858. Making due allowance for the young orator's natural North Platte, or Omaha partiality or bias, he yet gave to the commonwealth, in this fine address, a very valuable sketch of the character and career of its first actual governor. Furthermore, the oration is remarkable for its rhetorical construction, its formal and stately style, showing the great influence of the dominant classical training of those days. This feature of the address has been modified, and its almost extravagant youthful warmth of expression is wanting in the writings and addresses of the seasoned lawyer and scholar of later days, while its clean-cut diction abides as a characteristic of his style.

THE ORATION

"MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN-The tolling bell, the meeting of the citizens called to express a city's sorrow, the solemn announcement to the court, the judge on the bench, the juror in the box, the counsel at the bar turning from the business all undone, the soldier marching with slow and measured tread, with muffled drums and colors furled, and arms reversed, the public buildings draped in mourning, the public offices closed, business and labor all suspended, the flags at half mast, the minute guns, the lengthened process, unwhispered sympathies and sorrows, tearful eyes, sad, sad hearts,-what cause, what abundant cause, for all these tokens of public and private bereavement! "Thomas B. Cuming dead! That form that passed and repassed before our eyes, daily, almost

should go into immediate operation, is suffi cient reason of itself, we think."

Between the Florence fiasco in the early part, and the special session in the latter part of the year 1858 occurred another event of great importance-the death of Secretary and Acting Governor Cuming,1 at Omaha, on the 23d of March, and which opened the way for hourly, that mingled among us, made one of us on the street, in the office, at the public meeting, at the social gathering, ever present, ever welcome everywhere; so recently erect and proud and ironbound, now prostrate, cold, dead. That countenance, set with the firmness of the ruler of a great country, yet varying with the varying emotions which chase each other through his mind, fixed now in the changeless expression of death. That cye that beamed ever with ardor and intelligence, and anon flashed lightning from its black depths with the kindlings of brilliant intellect, closed now forever. That voice which thrilled, and swayed, and commanded the public assembly, gasped its last words, silent now. Nerveless the hand that grasped a brother's cause so generously ever-ever as you, sir, or I, and how many others can testify. High ambitions, great promises, sanguine hopes-all shattered into dust. A people cut off from its leader, its stay, its hope. What cause, what abundant cause, for public and private sorrow!

"Thomas B. Cuming dead! Meet are all these signs of woe. A great 'man has gone to his long home and the mourners go about the streets.' Let the court be closed; he was the noblest of all its members. Let the soldier honor his memory; he was the most gallant of all this band. Let the public officers suspend the public business; he was the chief and ruler of them all. Let the banker close his vaults, the merchant his ledger, and let the mechanic and the laborer lay down his tools, and let a great people assemble in this common sorrow to mingle together their tears for one whose like we shall not see again. Let the long procession bear him to the capitol, lay him in the very penetralia of his country's temple: let the priest of his church say over him the solemn office of his burial chant, over the inanimate remains the sacred requiem of the dead. Let the people gather around him once more to look on those well known features for the last time. Yes, let her-alas for her whose heart breaks beneath the burden of its sorrow-let her gaze and gaze, and as those sad, sad words, 'Never again, never again,' break the awful silence, let every heart melt; then let the tears flow unchecked, unheeded in the common sorrow for the dead and sympathy for the living, and then lay him in the bosom of his own Nebraska, beloved forever; 'earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes.'

"And meet is it that your association, sir, should consecrate an hour to his memory. He was one of its projectors and founders. He contributed of the abundance of his learning and his eloquence to its success. He was on the list of lecturers for the course just ended. Even in his last days he consulted for its prosperity. And yet, sir, I could have wished you had found another to do this sad office to his memory; to teach you his virtues, to recite to your lasting profit the lessons of his life and of his death. And yet what need of words?

"Thomas B. Cuming dead! Perish from among men the great principle of popular sovereignty which

the appointment of J. Sterling Morton as secretary.

There are still surviving contemporaries of Governor Cuming who hold that he was the he vindicated and established here in stormy times, among enraged men who thirsted for his bloodwhich he vindicated and established here, as no one else could, by his own unaided arm, by his own resolute will; perish peace, prosperity, and progress, which by his wisdom and energy he established in the first days of the territory; once and forever perish the achievements of her progress, the home of the settler, the admiration of human heroism, the love of human benefactors; then, and not till then, let us say, Thomas B. Cuming dead!

"Governor Cuming was born in Genesee county, in the state of New York, on the 25th day of December, 1828. His father is the Rev. Dr. Cuming, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, an Episcopal clergyman of distinguished learning, eloquence, and piety. His mother died while he was yet a young child. He was then removed to Rochester, and placed in the family of the Rev. Dr. Penny, an uncle, at that time a distinguished Presbyterian divine, afterwards the president of Hamilton college. He was afterwards removed to the home of his father, in Michigan, under whose care he was prepared for college. In his boyhood Governor Cuming enjoyed a training of the highest character. His father instilled into his young mind with all a parent's anxiety and care those habits of laborious study, of thoroughly mastering whatever engaged his attention which eminently fitted him for the difficult positions to which he was destined. Especial care was had of his religious culture. Those elevated and severe doctrines which distinguished the higher school of the Episcopal church were early instilled into his young mind, and it is believed that through all the distracting scenes of his life, in the midst of the great temptations to easy, often sceptical notions which beset young and ardent minds in our day, he never ceased to revere the salutary teachings of his father and of the church.

"He entered the university of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, at a very early age. But young as he was he carried with him a familiar acquaintance with the Latin and Greek languages, a singular aptitude for their acquisition, and a native fondness for letters in general; and to these he added a devotion to study and an ambition to excel very uncommon at so early an age. He accordingly took a high standing as a scholar. In the classical and belleslettres department he had not an equal in the institution. He enjoyed also an uncommon flow of animal spirits. Perfect health was a blessing he enjoyed from his earliest days till his last sickness; and in a boy, health and activity are concomitant. He mingled in all the sports of college life, in all the mischief, too, and made himself notorious by them. The name of Cuming was known in every hamlet in the state before his first year in college was over. At the age of sixteen he graduated, carrying off the first honors of the institution. His oration is spoken of to this day for the force and eloquence which distinguished it from the platitudes usually spoken by young men on such occasions. Upon his graduation he was appointed geologist to a scientific expedition_sent to explore the mineral regions about Lake Superior; a position whose importance is evident from the immense wealth annually derived from the copper of that country.

ablest of all Nebraskans, and the late Andrew J. Poppleton is quoted as having expressed that opinion; but this estimate is probably extravagant.

"At the breaking out of the Mexican war he was a young man averse to the drudgery of any of the professions, but full of the high hopes and aspirations of youth. The sound to arms appealed to the military passions of his nature, for his nature was that of a soldier through and through. He entered the army as a lieutenant, and served out the time of his enlistment. He always regretted that the circumstances of his station prevented his mingling in those great conflicts which reflected such glory on American arms.

"After the war he found himself loose upon the world, without friends to whom he could go, with out means, without advantages, save those he had within himself. Accidentally he found employment as a telegraph operator in Keokuk, Iowa. But it was not enough for him to feed his stomach and clothe his nakedness. The mind of the young man must be at work. He wrote an anonymous article to the Dispatch, a paper published at that place. It arrested attention. He wrote another; curiosity as to who was its author was excited; another and another appeared, and curiosity increased more and more. One person and another to whom they were at first attributed disclaiming the authorship, they were at last traced to the young telegraph operator. The ability which they displayed was not to be lost and he was immediately placed in charge of the paper. It was soon the leading paper in the state, a power in the state, and hardly ever was there a country paper exercising such a large influence. During his residence in Keokuk he married Miss Margaret C. Murphy, whose beautiful devotion to him in all the changes and trials of life has been only equaled by the great sorrow which now crushes her. It was while in charge of the Dispatch, in 1854, and somewhat in reward for the eminent services which he had rendered to the democracy, that he was appointed secretary of Nebraska. He was at this time only twenty-five years of age. He arrived here on the 8th of October, accompanied by his accomplished bride. It is well known that very soon after Governor Burt arrived in the territory he sickened and died, and that Cuming thereupon became the acting governor. Young as he was he brought to the duties of the office qualities singularly fitted to their faithful discharge. His mind was filled with the idea of a Roman governor and pro-consul in Rome's best days. A mind stern, haughty, severe, and unyielding in the policy it had marked out; resolved by its own invincible will to bend all men to that will, to bend itself to none, to be a great power in the state, and then by virtue of that policy to plant the institution of sound and stable government and order and law. To teach all men the wisdom and the power of that great central government which granted them an organization, and gradually, safely, and surely to fit them for citizenship in its great confederacy.

Those

"What a work was that for a man of twentyfive, but how nobly did Cuming do it! factious jealousies and contests, so common and so bitter in new countries, rent the territory into numerous and distracted parties; and when the young governor took one step in the direction of organization he found arrayed against him the combined opposition of all parts of the territory, save this

Governor Richardson, who was absent from the territory at the time of Secretary Cuming's death, returned on the 5th of April, so that for about two weeks there was neither

city alone. When he convened the legislative assembly here all the fury of excited passion burst upon him. Any other man would have stood ap、 palled before it; would have retreated before its threats; would have compromised with its turbulence. To do so, however, was to give up the peaceful organization of a territory, consecrated in the midst of national excitement to popular sovereignty; to give up all law and all order, to give up himself, all he was, all he hoped to be. He did not waver. He issued the certificates of election to those who were elected members of the assembly. He pressed the two houses to an immediate organization, and in one week every vexed question was settled, his opponents defeated in their disorganizing purposes, and orderly government in the territory secured as a new proof of the ability and the right of the people to govern themselves. It was a triumph of his commanding will which awed opposition. It was genius mastering transcendent difficulties. Governor Cuming lived to see the blessings of peace, order, law, and prosperity follow his

acts.

"It is unnecessary for me to recount in your hearing the life of our friend. It was passed in your midst. You were sharers of its joys, of its generosities, of its devotions. It was a part of your own, and the thread of its narrative is entwined with that of yours so that you can not recall the past but you recall him. It was a life of energy, of activity, of effort for every good word and work which concerned this city which was his home, and this territory over which he presided. Beautiful is old age; beautiful as the rich, mellow autumn of a bright glorious summer. The old man has done his work and he is gathering in the abundant harvest of his good services in the love of the old and the reverence of the young. He has laid off the cares of life and waits placidly for the end; waits placidly for the beginning beyond the end. forbid we should not call that beautiful! But more beautiful even than that is young manhood, with strong arm and stout heart, in the face of storm, and wind, and rain, sowing the good seed of national order, prosperity, and peace; sowing the good seed of its own fame which a whole people shall embalm in the memory of its best affections. Raise on the spot where he lies what tomb you will, his true sepulcher is in our hearts, his true epitaph is written on the tablets of our memories.

God

"The resignation of Governor Izard returned Governor Cuming to the responsibilities of the chief executive. While in their discharge the late assembly convened. For some time before he had been suffering from prostrating sickness, and he was little fitted to meet the violent contests which attended the session. He nerved himself for the task

and prepared the message. But the disease which prostrated him gave to his mind a deep coloring of sadness, of doubt for the future, of fear both for himself and the country. He was unable to prevent its tinge appearing in the message, and as he delivered it to the assembled houses, the deep pathos, the hopelessness of some of its passages, cast over the minds of those who loved him, even amidst the excitements of the occasion, a strange foreshadowing of a coming sorrow. The effort

secretary nor governor in the territory. Mr. J. B. Motley, Cuming's private secretary, performed the duties of secretary until the appointment of J. Sterling Morton, who qualiwas too much for him, and he returned to his home to preside over the territory from his sick bed. The hopefulness of his nature did not at all forsake him in his painful sickness. He hoped he might be permitted to rebuild a better and a nobler self on the ruins of the old constitution; that to the services of his country he might add others still higher; that he might yet give wider and freer play to those affections of the heart, to those sentiments of Christian duty and religion which an anxious father had early instilled into his mind. But it was not to be; all the love of friends, all the promises of his young manhood and his abundant acquisitions, all his capacities to do good, all his hopes, all his ambitions could not save him. He was cut down and withered. Peacefully he lies in the embrace of his own Nebraska, and as fond kindred grace the hallowed spot with marble shaft or consecrated iron, with the beauty of the flower, with its rare odor that comes to us as a sweet consolation, a loving people will turn ever and anon from the path of their prosperity to pay their tribute of affection to the great man buried there.

"The character of Governor Cuming was marked by a most striking individuality. In these days, when the etiquette and customs of social life conform even the heartiest salutations and coldest reserve, the dress we wear, all the manners of our life, to one standard of phase and fashion, most men lose, especially in daily intercourse, all distinctive characteristics, become like all others, are least themselves. It was not so with Governor Cuming. You always met him. His peculiarities of phase, of manner, arising not from any desire to be singular, but a natural, unconscious, yet most intense individuality, always impressed you. Besides, you always felt you met a man; a man of will, who resisted all external influences and followed the line of his own convictions and purposes. The physical formation of the man indicated the firm, well-knit, active nature; every inch of him was alive and tremulous with the energy which poured along the nerves. His grasp was the grasp of the lion; for its physical power first, most of all for the mighty will which directed it. This same organization was indicated by the eye, which no one ever looked into and ever forgot. That deep black iris, that fervid glance and gleam indicated an organization very remarkable and seldom seen in temperate zones. It was a torrid eye, from which flashed out all the tremulous sensibilities, all the passions, and all the fire of natures born and bred near the sun. In the mental physiology of Governor Cuming imagination held a large space; but it was not the subtle imagination which delighted in beautiful, soft-phrase words, empty of large, strong, vigorous vision; nor yet, even in its highest altitude, did it soar aloft in the clear but cold regions of disenchanted spirit. It was wrapped about, or rather it was at one with his sensibilities. It dwelt among and upon those visions which are beautiful because they are lovely, and delightful because they are creations of the heart and its affections, not of the cold, selfish mind. This was one peculiarity of his eloquence. It was luxuriantly imaginative, but it was so full of sentiment, of the warm, gushing natural sentiment of the heart. No

fied July 12, and assumed the office July 18, 1858.1 With Lewis Cass at the head of the department of state at Washington, backed by his own already recognized leadership, he had a great advantage in the contest for the office. In his last days Mr. Cuming must have realized as the irony of fate the probability that his arch-enemy would succeed him. It is a matter of course that these two brilliant men, of most aggressive temperament and great political ambition, confined within the little limits of the then dominant party of the territory, should have been mutually and bitterly hostile. If Cuming by his masterful manipulation of the capital business had blasted Morton's first hopes and driven him from his first home at Bellevue, Morton had perhaps repaid him in full by thwarting his ambition to become governor. As late as Noinatter what the occasion, he led captive the feelings, if not the convictions of his audience. The very copiousness of his language, his appeals to numerous passions, the magnetic power of his figure gave him a command, sometimes an absolute tyranny over his hearers, very seldom equaled by the greatest orators.

"And yet I would not speak of these qualities to the exclusion of the more substantial. They were the leading peculiarities of his mental organism, and yet logic, large abilities at argument, what the Germans call the absolute reason formed a stable and sufficient substratum. He never laid hold of a subject but he mastered it. He took it in, both in its grand outlines and as a whole, and in its minute details. Its scientific nature and relations were clear to him. He could speak of them, and speak of them in the formal propositions of science. But when he came to speak of them to the people, when the full play of his powers moulded them into forms tangible to the popular touch, visible to the popular eye, then he brought them home to the heart by the most singular appeals of passion, of interest, of desire.

"I have already spoken of his early studies, of his devotion to them, of his ambitions and successes in them. He was known here, not at all as a man of books but as a man of the world, dealing with its appliances, means, objects, and yet to the last he was the same ardent student as in early days. His acquisitions in one so young, whose life had been in excitement little congenial to literary habits, were astonishing. No man ever crossed the Missouri so thoroughly educated. By that intense individuality of which I have spoken, he made what he read a part of himself. His knowledge was not something outside of him; it entered into his being; out of it the muscles and sinews of his mind. drew their vigor. It was always at command. It sounded not like some familiar words, but like himself alone, and graced and enforced every subject which he touched by its abundant illustration.

"His manner was reserved, especially of late years. He held almost every one at a distance. Few penetrated into the great heart within him.

vember 21, 1857, an unmistakably Mortonian article in the Nebraska City News, in commenting on another in the Nebraskian, warmly favoring Cuming's appointment to succeed Izard, assails him in most violent language, though the writer is constrained to say, "that Cuming has talent, that he has brilliant talent is admitted." Those still living who knew the exuberant Morton of those early days will acknowledge the verisimilitude, and even those who have known him best in his ripe and steadied manhood discern truth in the following newspaper comment at the time of his appointment as secretary: "He is a goodhearted, jovial fellow, and of fine capacity, but a little too ultra in his friendships and enmities. As a newspaper writer he has been much too fond of saying acute things without duly considering as to their application."2 But that heart was a great fountain of affection, of sympathy, of generosity. The hard world, long contact with its selfish struggles and hates and jealousies, may have crusted it over with constraint, but within it was warm and true and loving as ever. In his last sickness it came back again to the simplicity and freshness of ingenuous youth. He turned back to old thoughts and feelings and pursuits. The well thumbed volumes of his schoolboy days were once more brought out, and, clustering thick around them the associations of early life, which none but the scholar knows, he read again and again the lines dimmed by the tears that would come. He talked of those high and holy things which most fill a child's wondering mind, which most fill the soul looking into a world where it must be a child again. It was sad to see him then, with such capacities for good, marked for the grave; to hear him wish for life with a strange hope; to hear him speak with deep pathos of those he loved and must leave, of himself and the past, and his resolves and his prayers; but who could help but feel that he had come back again to the freshness of youth, that he might enter into that youth whose freshness is immortal. I am told by those who knew him in his youth that, as he lay awaiting the last mournful testimony which we have paid to him, he looked, more than he ever has since, as he did before the changes and trials of life had placed their marks upon him. Who shall say that that fair, bright, placid face was not the symbol to us of the spirit fairer, brighter, more placid above?

'Light be the turf of thy tomb;

May its verdure like emeralds be;
There should not be the shadow of gloom
In aught that reminds me of thee.
'Young flowers and an evergreen tree

May spring from the spot of thy rest,
But no cypress or yew let us see,

For why should we mourn for the blest?" " 'Records of Nebraska Territory, p. 194.

'Copied from Dakota City Herald in Nebraska City News, May 15, 1858.

UNTIL

OF LAND SALES-FIFTH LEGISLATURE

NTIL 1858 there was no political party organization in Nebraska, and political contests were all between democratic factions. Agitation in Omaha in favor of organization in the latter part of 1857 was met by Morton with the contention that the time was not yet ripe for that project. Ferguson, a sound democrat, was elected without regard to party lines. Irretrievable ruin, disgrace, and defeat would follow organization under such leaders as Chapman & Co.-"Chapman, Cuming, and Rankin" being particularly designated and each distinguished by an explosive adjective. The Advertiser was of a like opinion. The interpretation whereof is that voting in sectional opposition the South Platte was pretty sure to win, while under the organization

The Nebraska News, November 21, 1857. Following is the official account of the proceedings of the first party political convention held in Nebraska, as given by the Advertiser of January 28, 1858:

"Agreeably to the previous notice, the democracy of Nebraska Territory assembled at the capitol building, in Omaha, at 11 o'clock A. M., January 8th, 1858.

"On motion of Dr. Benjamin P. Rankin, Esq., Hon. John F. Kinney, of Otoe county, was elected chairman. On motion of A. J. Poppleton, a committee of five was appointed to report permanent officers for the permanent organization of the convention. The chair appointed John C. Turk, of Dakota county; Silas A. Strickland, of Sarpy County; James S. Stewart, of Douglas county; and Elias H. Clark, of Washington county. On motion, the chair appointed the following committee on resolutions: Charles F. Holly, of Otoe county; Andrew J. Poppleton, of Douglas county; William G. Crawford, of Dakota county; Leavitt L. Bowen, of Sarpy county; James S. Stewart, of Washington County. The meeting was then addressed by the president and Silas A. Strickland, of Sarpy. On motion the meeting adjourned until 2 o'clock P.M.

régime the manipulation of the Omaha politicians might prevail. But a correspondent of the Advertiser insisted that organization was necessary "to purge the party of black republicanism, abolitionism, and whiggism;" whose mien, so hideous to democrats of that day, was now visible in the territory. Nevertheless, a mass meeting was held in Omaha on the 8th of January, 1858. A very long platform was adopted, the first resolution declaring that "It is expedient to organize the democratic party in the territory and the same is hereby organized." hereby organized." The resolutions further insisted that the constitution did not confer authority upon the federal government, directly or indirectly, to assume the debts of the several states contracted for local and in

county; William B. Beck, of Burt county; Paris G. Cooper, of Washington county; John Steinberger, of Douglas county; Amos Gates, of Sarpy county; Joseph Vanhorn, of Cass county; Joshua G. Abbe, of Otoe county; Samuel A. Chambers, Nemaha county; Charles McDonald, of Richardson county; Dr. Andrew F. Cromwell, Pawnee county; John Reck, Platte county; J. M. Oakes, of Dodge county. Secretaries:-1st. Secretary, John Howard, of Cass county; 2d, Alfred W. Puett, of Dakota county; 3d, James S. Stewart, of Washington county.

"The committee on resolutions, through their chairman, Judge Holly, reported the following which were unanimously adopted:

"Resolved, That we affirm the Cincinnati platform of 1856, in its letter and spirit, without change or obliteration.

"Resolved, That an early organization of the democratic party, in Nebraska territory is demanded alike by the precedents of the past, and the requirements of the future.

"Resolved, That in organizing the party in this territory, upon a common platform, we will literally know neither North, South, East or West, but will extend the hand of fellowship to all democrats who adhere to the principles and organization of the party, whether they reside north or south of the Platte, or in any other section of our vast and extended territory.

"Resolved, That no better day could have been selected than the anniversary of the glorious 8th of January, 1815, for the natal morn of the Nebraska democracy.