During Mr. Verplanck's fourth and last term in Congress he became separated from his associates of the Democratic party by a difference in regard to the Bank of the United States. General Jackson had laid rough hands on this institution and removed to the State banks the public money which had till then been entrusted to its keeping. Many of our best men had then a high opinion of the utility of the bank, and thought much better of its management than, as afterwards appeared, it deserved. The Whig party declared itself in favor of the bank. Mr. Calhoun and the Southern politicians of his immediate school joined them on this question, and Mr. Verplanck, who regarded the bank with a friendly eye, found himself on the same side, which proved to be the minority. The time arrived for another election of members of Congress from this City. The Democratic party desired to re-elect Mr. Verplanck, if some assurance could be obtained from him that he would not oppose the policy of the Administration in regard to the bank. That party understood very well his merits and his usefulness, and made a strong effort to retain him, but he would give no assurance, even to pursue a neutral course, on the bank question, and accordingly his name was reluctantly dropped from their list of nominations. A long separation ensued between him and those who up to that time had been his political associates.
In 1834, the Whig party, looking for a strong candidate for the Mayoralty of the City, offered the nomination to Verplanck, who accepted it. On the other side, the Democrats brought forward Cornelius W. Lawrence, a man of popular manners and unquestioned integrity. Those were happy days when, in voting for a Mayor, the citizen could be certain that he would not vote amiss, and that whoever succeeded in the election, the City was sure of an honest man for its chief officer. One would have thought that this consideration might make the election a quiet one, but it was not so; the struggle was for party supremacy, and it was violent on both sides. At that time the polls were kept open for three days, and each day the excitement increased; disorders took place; some heads were broken, and at last it appeared that Lawrence was elected Mayor by a majority of about two hundred votes.
While in Congress, Verplanck had leisure, during the interval between one session and another, for literary occupations. He wrote about one-third of an annual collection of miscellanies entitled, the "Talisman," which was published by Dr. Bliss in the year 1827 and the two following years. To these volumes he contributed the "Peregrinations of Petrus Mudd," a humorous and lively sketch, founded on the travels of a New Yorker of the genuine old stock, who when he returned from wandering over all Europe and part of Asia, set himself down to study geography in order to know where he had been. Of the graver articles he wrote "De Gourges," a chapter from the history of the Huguenot colonists of this country, "Gelyna, a Tale of Albany and Ticonderoga," and several others. In conjunction with Robert C. Sands, a writer of a peculiar vein of quaint humor, he contributed two papers to the collection, entitled "Scenes in Washington," of a humorous and satirical character. He disliked the manual labor of writing and was fond of dictating while another held the pen. I was the third contributor to the "Talisman," and sometimes acted as his amanuensis. In estimating Verplanck's literary character, these compositions, some of which are marked by great beauty of style and others by a rich humor, should not be over-looked. The first volume of the "Talisman" was put in type by a young Englishman named Cox, who, while working at his desk as a printer, composed a clever review of the work, which appeared in the "New York Mirror," and of which Verplanck often spoke with praise.
In 1833, Verplanck collected his public speeches into a volume. Among these is one delivered in August of that year, at Columbia College, in which he holds up to imitation the illustrious examples of great men educated at that institution. In one of those passages of stately eloquence which he knew so well to frame, he speaks of the worth of his old adversary, De Witt Clinton, the first graduate of the College after the peace of 1783, and pays due "honor to that lofty ambition which taught him to look to designs of grand utility, and to their successful execution as his arts of gaining or redeeming the confidence of a generous and public spirited people." In the same discourse he pronounced the eulogy of Dr. Mason, who had died a few days before. In the same year, Verplanck, at Geneva College, delivered an address on the "Right Moral Influence and Use of Liberal Studies," and the next year, at Amherst College, another on the converse of that subject, namely, the "Influence of Moral Causes upon Opinion, Science and Literature." In 1836, he gave a discourse on "the Advantages and Dangers of the American Scholar." Of these addresses let me say, that I know of no compositions of their class which I read with more pleasure or more instruction. Enlarged views, elevated sentiments, a hopeful and courageous spirit, a wide knowledge of men and men's recorded experience, and a manly dignity of style, mark them all as the productions of no common mind.
After separating from the Democratic party, Mr. Verplanck was elected by the Whigs, in 1837, to the Senate of the State of New York, while that body was yet a Court for the Correction of Errors,--a tribunal of the last resort,--and in that capacity decided questions of law of the highest magnitude and importance. Nothing in his life was more remarkable than the new character in which he now appeared. The practiced statesman, the elegant scholar and the writer of graceful sketches, the satirist, the critic, the theologian, started up a profound jurist. During the four years in which he sat in this Court, he heard the arguments in nearly every case which came before it, and delivered seventy-one opinions--not simply his written conclusions, but elaborate judgments founded on the closest investigation of the questions submitted, the most careful and exhaustive examination of authorities, and a practical, comprehensive and familiar acquaintance with legal rules and principles, even those of the most technical nature, which astonished those who knew that he had never appeared for a client in Court, or sat before in a judicial tribunal. I use in this the language of an able lawyer, Judge Daly, who has made this part of Verplanck's labors a subject of special study.
As examples of his judicial ability, I may instance his examination of the whole structure of our State and Federal Government in the case of Delafield against the State of Illinois, where the question came up whether an individual could sue a State; his survey of the whole law of marine insurance and the principles on which it is founded, in the case of the American Insurance Company against Bryan; his admirable statement of the reasons on which rests the law of prescription, or right established by usage, in the case of Post against Pearsall; his exposition of the extent of the right which in this country the owners of land on the borders of rivers and navigable streams have in the bed of the river, in Kempshall's case--a masterly opinion, in which the whole Court concurred. I might also mention the great case of Alice Lispenard, in which he considered the degree of mental capacity requisite to make a will, a case involving a vast amount of property in this city, decided by his opinion. There is also the case of Smith against Acker, relating to the taint of fraud in mortgages of personal property, in which he carried the Court with him against the Chancellor and overturned all the previous decisions. Not less important is his elaborate, learned and exhaustive opinion in the case of Thompson against the People, decided by a single vote and by his opinion,--in which he examined the true nature of franchises conferred on individuals in this country by the sovereign power, the right to construct bridges over navigable streams, and the proper operation of the writ of quo warranto. These opinions of Verplanck form an important part of the legal literature of our State. If he had made the law his special pursuit, and been placed on the bench of one of our higher tribunals, there is no degree of judicial eminence to which he might not have aspired. The Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York, of which he was a member, in their resolutions expressive of sorrow for his death, spoke of him as one whose judicial wisdom and familiarity with the principles and practice of the law, made his counsels of the highest value.
In 1844, after, I doubt not, some years of previous study, appeared the first number of Verplanck's edition of Shakespeare, issued by Harper & Brothers. The numbers appeared from time to time till 1847, when the work was completed. He made some corrections of the text but never rashly; he selected the notes of other commentators with care; he added some excellent ones of his own, and wrote admirable critical and historical prefaces to the different plays. This edition has always seemed to me the very one for which the general reader has occasion.
Almost ever since the American Revolution a Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York has existed, on which is laid the duty of visiting and superintending in a general way our institutions of education above the degree of Common Schools. It consists of twenty-three members, including the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, the Secretary of State and the Superintendent of Public Instruction; the other nineteen members are appointed by the Legislature. The Board assists at the incorporation of all colleges and academies, looks into their condition, interposes in certain specified cases, receives reports from them and makes annual reports to the Legislature, and confers by diploma such degrees as are granted by any college or university in Europe. Mr. Verplanck was appointed a member of this Board in 1826, in place of Matthew Clarkson, who had been a Regent ever since 1787. In 1855 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University, and to the time of his death punctually attended the meetings of the Board, shared in its discussions and bore his part in its various duties. In 1844 the State Library was placed under the superintendence of the Regents. Mr. Verplanck was immediately put on the Library Committee, where his knowledge of books and editions of books made his services invaluable. There were then about ten thousand volumes in the collection, and many of these consisted of broken sets. Under the care of the Regents--Mr. Verplanck principally, who gave it his particular attention--it has grown into a well selected, well arranged library of more than eighty-two thousand volumes. About the same time the State Cabinets of Natural History were put under the care of the Board, and these have equally prospered, every year adding to their extent, until now the Regents publish annually, catalogues of the additions made to them from various sources, and, occasionally, papers communicated by experts in natural history.
Every year in the month of August a University Convocation is held at Albany, to which are invited all the leading teachers and professors of our colleges and academies, and carefully prepared papers relating to education are read. At the first of these conventions, in 1863, Mr. D.J. Pratt, now the Assistant Secretary of the Board, had read a paper on "Language as the Chief Educator and the noblest Liberal Art," in which he dwelt upon the importance of studying the ancient classic authors in their original tongues. Mr. Verplanck remarked that in what he had to say he would content himself with relating an anecdote respecting the first Napoleon, which he had from a private source, and which had never been in print. The Emperor wishing to keep himself advised of what was passing in the University of France, yet without attracting public attention, was wont on certain occasions to send to the University a trustworthy and intelligent person from his household, who was to bring back a report. This man at one time reported that the question of paying more attention to the mathematical sciences had been agitated. On this Napoleon exclaimed with emphasis: "Go to the Polytechnic for mathematics, but classics, classics, classics for the University." At another time Verplanck, still occupied with his favorite studies, gave the convention an address on the pronunciation of the Latin language, in which he came to the conclusion that of all the branches of the Latin race, the Portuguese in their pronunciation of Latin make the nearest approach to that of the ancient Romans. He was desired by the members of the Board to write out the address for publication, but this was never done. Verplanck, as I have already remarked, was an unwilling scribe, and did not like to handle the pen.
The Annual Reports of the Regents, which are voluminous documents, give much the same view of the arrangements for public education in the State as is obtained of a country by looking down upon it from an observatory. Every college, every academy, every school, not merely a private enterprise, and above the degree of common schools, makes its yearly report to the Regents, and these are embodied in the general report which they make to the Legislature, so that the whole great system, with all its appendages, its libraries, its revenues, its expenditures, the number of its teachers and its pupils, and the opportunities of instruction which it gives, lies before the eye of the reader. It now comprehends twenty Colleges of Literature and Science, three Law Departments, two Medical Colleges, two hundred or more Academies, or Schools of that class, besides the Normal School at Albany.