"Yours, T. Ewing."
I complied with his advice, though Mr. Goddard, I think, declined and Mr. Mason was accepted.
On the thirty-first of the same month I was married to Margaret Ceclia Stewart, the only child of Judge Stewart, whom I had known since my removal to Mansfield. She had been carefully educated at the Female College at Granville, Ohio, and at the Patapsco Institute, near Baltimore, Maryland. After the usual wedding tour to Niagara Falls, Montreal and Saratoga, we settled in Mansfield, and I returned to my profession, actively pursuing it until elected a member of Congress.
It is not worth while to follow my professional life into further detail. I shall not have occasion to mention that subject again. Sufficient to say that I was reasonably successful therein. During this period Henry C. Hedges studied law with my brother and myself, and when admitted to the bar became my partner. Mr. Stewart was elected by the legislature a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and after the adoption of the new constitution of 1851, he was elected by the people to the same office.
I had determined in the fall of 1853 to abandon Mansfield and settle in Cleveland, then rapidly growing in importance as the leading city in the northern part of the state. I went so far as to establish an office there and place in it two young lawyers, nominally my partners, but the great political currents of that time soon diverted me from the practice of the law into the political contests that grew out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
"The direful spring of woes unnumbered."
Before entering upon an account of my political life it seems appropriate for me to state my political bias and position. I was by inheritance and association a Whig boy, without much care for or knowledge of parties or political principles. No doubt my discharge from the engineer corps by a Democratic Board of Public Works strengthened this bias. I shouted for Harrison in the campaign of 1840. In 1842 I was enthusiastic for "Tom Corwin, the wagon- boy," the Whig candidate for Governor of Ohio. In that canvass Governor Corwin addressed a great meeting at Mansfield. I heard his speech, and was full of enthusiasm. Mr. Corwin was certainly the greatest popular orator of his time. His face was eloquent, changeable at his will. With a look he could cause a laugh or a tear. He would move his audience at his pleasure. I vividly remember the impression he made upon me, though I cannot recall anything he said. At the close of the meeting I was requested by the committee in charge to take Mr. Corwin in a buggy to Bucyrus. This I cheerfully did. I noticed that Mr. Corwin was very glum and silent, and to cheer him up I spoke of his speech and of the meeting. He turned upon me, and with some show of feeling, said that all the people who heard him would remember only his jokes, and warned me to keep out of politics and attend to my law. He told me that he knew my father, and was present at his death at Lebanon, where he, Mr. Corwin, lived. And then, brightening up, he gave me an interesting account of the early settlement of Ohio, and of the bar and bench, and of his early life as a wagon boy in Harrison's army. His sudden fit of gloom had passed away. I do not recall any circumstance that created a deeper impression on my mind than this interview with Mr. Corwin. His advice to keep out of politics was easy to follow, as no one could then dream of the possibility of a Whig being elected to office in Richland county, then called "the Berks of Ohio." Mr. Corwin was defeated at that election.
I took but little part in the campaign of 1844, when Mr. Clay was a candidate for President, but I then made my first political speech to a popular audience and cast my first vote. The meeting was held at Plymouth, and Honorable Joseph M. Root, the Whig candidate for Congress, was to be the orator. For some reason Mr. Root was delayed, and I was pressed into service. Of what I said I have not the remotest recollection, but my audience was satisfied, and I was doubly so, especially when Mr. Root came in sight. After that I made a few neighborhood speeches in support of the Whig candidate for governor, Mr. Mordecai Partley, a gentleman who for several years had lived in Mansfield, but had long since retired from public office after eight years' service in the United States House of Representatives. Mr. Bartley received 147,378 votes, Mr. Tod, Democrat, 146,461 votes and Mr. King, Third Party, 8,411 votes; so close were parties divided in Ohio in 1844.
At this time I had but two definite ideas in respect to the public policy of the United States. One was a hearty belief in the doctrine of protection to American industries, as advocated by Mr. Clay, and, second, a strong prejudice against the Democratic party, which was more or less committed to the annexation of Texas, and the extension of slavery. I shared in the general regret at the defeat of Mr. Clay and the election of Mr. Polk. I took some part in the local canvasses in Ohio prior to 1848, but this did not in the least commit me to active political life. I was appointed a delegate to the national Whig convention, held in Philadelphia, in 1848, to nominate a presidential candidate. I accepted this the more readily as it gave me an opportunity to see my future wife at her school at Patapsco, and to fix our engagement for marriage upon her return home. The chief incident of the convention was the struggle between the friends of General Scott and General Taylor.
When the convention was being organized, Colonel Collyer, chairman of the Ohio delegation, said there was a young gentleman in that convention who could never hope to get an office unless that convention gave him one, and nominated me for secretary of the convention. Mr. Defrees said there was a delegate from Indiana in the same condition and moved that Schuyler Colfax be made assistant secretary. We then marched together to the platform and commenced our political life, in which we were to be closely associated for many years.