* * * "When the Southern States return I shall be in favor of their voting population being equally represented with our own, and no further."
* * * "I think that in the long future, when all other of Mr. Lincoln's acts shall be forgotten, his Emancipation Proclamation will adorn history's brightest page. I am opposed to slavery for the reason that I am in favor of the largest human liberty, and I can not understand why some of our fellow citizens who come here that they might be free can deny freedom to others."
* * * "I think it illy becomes those who took up arms to defend their homes, their country, yea, liberty! to make overtures to armed rebellion. I believe that by a rigorous prosecution of the war peace will soon come, our liberties will be secured forever, and that prosperity will follow. Union with slavery will be only a temporary cheat, and can not last. Dissolution will bring ruin, anarchy and an endless effusion of blood and money."
He has been a liberal contributor to the various public enterprises of the city, to churches, public institutions and private parties. He has built warehouses, business blocks and hotels. The park in front of the city hall was donated by him. His name is inseparably interwoven with the history of St. Paul and the State. Rice county bears his name. He was married to Matilda Whitall, of Richmond, Virginia, in 1849.
Edmund Rice, brother of Hon. Henry M. Rice, was born in Waitsfield, Vermont, Feb. 14, 1819. His father died in 1829. He received a somewhat limited common school education and spent most of his early life clerking. In 1838 he came to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he read law with Stuart & Miller, and was admitted to the bar in 1842, making commendable progress in his profession. While a resident of Michigan he was master in chancery, register of court of chancery and clerk of the supreme court. In 1847 he enlisted in Company A, First Michigan Volunteers, of which company he was made first lieutenant, and served through the Mexican War until its close.
In July, 1849, he came to Minnesota Territory, locating in St. Paul, where he became one of the firm of Rice, Hollinshead & Becker until 1855, when he embarked in railroad enterprises. In 1857 he was elected president of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company, and afterward of its successors, the St. Paul & Pacific and the St. Paul & Chicago Railroad companies. He has been long regarded as one of the most energetic and competent railroad men in the State. Mr. Rice has figured largely in the politics of the State, having served several terms in the territorial and state legislatures. He was a representative in the territorial legislature of 1851, a senator in the state legislatures of 1864, 1865, 1873, 1874, and a representative in the sessions of 1872, 1877 and 1878.
In 1885 he was elected mayor of St. Paul, and in 1886 was chosen representative in Congress. Mr. Rice is an uncompromising Democrat in his politics, and is so recognized by his party, which he served as chairman of the state central committee in the presidential campaign of 1872, and elector at large in the campaign of 1876. He was married in November, 1848, to Anna M. Acker, daughter of Hon. Henry Acker, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Of eleven children, the fruit of this union, all are living but the second daughter, Jessie, who married Frank H. Clark, of Philadelphia, in 1870, and died in October, 1874. The eldest daughter, Ellen, is the wife of Henry A. Boardman, of St. Paul.
Louis Robert.—Capt. Louis Robert was a descendant of the French settlers who occupied Kaskaskia and St. Louis when they were in the territory of Louisiana, then a French province. He was born at Carondelet, Missouri, Jan. 21, 1811, and his early life was spent in that region and on the Upper Missouri river. In 1838 he went to Prairie du Chien, and in the fall of 1843 visited St. Paul and removed thither the ensuing year, identifying himself with the interests of that growing young city.