This, the most dramatic incident that occurred while Tiffin filled the gubernatorial office, happened in the last year of his term.

Before passing from this period of Tiffin's life, I wish to preserve in this memoir two references to him which I have met in my reading, and which will aid the reader somewhat, perhaps, in individualizing the man. In the Reminiscences of Dr. Chauncey Perkins of Athens, Ohio, his "everyday manners" are thus pleasantly described:

"It was in 1804 that Dr. Tiffin, then Governor of Ohio, spent several days with my father's family while he, the governor, was engaged in the earliest efforts to organize the Ohio University.

"I have a very distinct and clear recollection of his fine conversational powers, and of his graceful, easy manners. He made his company exceedingly agreeable during all his stay in our house, especially by his entertaining and instructive talks with the younger members of our family. I was a student of medicine at that time and the governor, who was a most accomplished physician and surgeon, gave me many instructive lectures and anecdotes derived from his own experi

ences.

"He was very deeply interested in the establishment of the university, and took a very active part in all business matters relating to it."

The second sketch which I reproduce of him at this period is by a very different draughtsman. Thomas Ashe, a typical Englishman of that day, in 1804-6 made a tour of the United States, and sent back to England for publication a series of false and misdescriptive letters which apparently were intended to discourage emigration from Europe to America, by representing that our soil was unproductive, our climate unendurable by reason of its extremes of heat in summer and cold in winter, which made good health impossible to the unfortunate inhabitants; that society, such as there was of it, was ignorant, barbarous and brutal; and that it was certainly true that in this country human beings and brutes alike, coming from the better and more healthful climate and conditions of Europe, rapidly deteriorated physically, mentally and morally; and that no destiny was possible to the inhabitants of the United States but reversion to savagery, rapid decay and ultimate extinction.

Ashe brought with him to Chillicothe a letter of introduction to Governor Tiffin, and was invited to a dinner where he met a number of State officials, about whom he says nothing. He does say, however, that "most fortunately for the new State, its governor is a plain, honest, well informed and very religious man." He learned from the conversation at table that the governor 66 was very much op

posed to the system of negro slavery, and was most efficient in excluding it from Ohio." He also discovered that a subject which lay near to the governor's heart was "the improvement of the penal code of the State, and the simplification of law by dispensing with all technical and obsolete words and phrases and redundancies of expression to the end that common people could more readily understand it." Ashe left the governor's presence "much instructed and well pleased with the time he had passed under his plain but hospitable roof."

All this my reader will probably think is very commonplace and moderate praise of Tiffin, and so it is; but it was more nearly eulogy than Ashe bestowed upon any other American whom he met in all his travels in this country; and I quote him because he permits us to see and hear Tiffin for an hour at his own table and among his own friends, although it may be only through the description and report of the bigoted and prejudiced foreigner, as all of Ashe's letters show him to have been.

Tiffin's second term as Governor of Ohio was now drawing to its close; but before it ended the General Assembly elected him to represent the State in the Senate of the United States; in which he thus became the successor of his brother-in-law, Thomas Worthington, and had John Smith of Hamilton County as his senatorial colleague.

Hon. Daniel J. Ryan, in his lately published

history of Ohio, thus summarizes Tiffin's services as governor:

"No man who has ever filled the gubernatorial chair of Ohio, possessed a greater genius for the administration of public affairs than Edward Tiffin. His work in advancing and developing the State has not been equalled by that of any man in its history."

CHAPTER XI

Tiffin takes His Seat in the United States Senate-His Course in the Senate-His continued Opposition to SlaveryHis Patriotism-Votes for all War Measures-Impeachment of His Colleague in the Senate-Death of Tiffin's Wife He resigns from the Senate and retires to a Farm.

THE first term of the Xth Congress of the United States began on October 26, 1807. It was a special, or extra, session convened by President Jefferson, and upon that day, his credentials having been presented by John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Edward Tiffin took his seat as a member of the most august legislative body in the world. He had been elected to a full term of six years, beginning March 4, 1807, but his senatorial career was destined to be made brief by his own choice; yet, although brief, it was a busy one. No other member of the Senate possessing his ability to win popular applause, ever more modestly and quietly, then nor since, acquiesced in and observed the Congressional rule of etiquette which disapproves of a new member taking prominent part in the public debates of either body, yet none took a more active