ETHAN ALLEN BROWN OF HAMILTON COUNTY.

Ethan Allen Brown was a member of the supreme court of Ohio fro 1814 to 1817; governor of the state from 1818 to 1822; United States senator from 1822 to 1825, and a presidential elector in 1828, casting his vote fc: Andrew Jackson for president, and enjoying the fullest confidence of that distinguished general and statesman.

The pupil and protege of the renowned Alexander Hamilton, he imbibed exactly opposite political views from his friend and preceptor, being as uncompromisingly Democratic as Hamilton was Federalist. He was born on the 4th of July, 1766, 10 years before Jefferson penned the rescript of human liberty, and as a youth participated in the closing scenes of the memorable struggle of the American revolution.

His father was a man of moderate means. which were wellnigh swept away during the war. The young man secured a good education from private teachers, and by teaching and day labor was able to obtain an independent livelihood before he attained his majority. In 1799 he was able to go to New York and fit himself for a profession.

He selected the law and entered himself as a student with Alexander Hamilton, and was admitted to the practice in 1802. After two years' practice in the east he migrated to Cincinnati, O., then a straggling outpost of civilization. Here he found commercial pursuits more remunerative tha the legal profession, and for a number of years was engaged in the purchase of the products of the country and their shipment to New Orleans and other Mississippi river points.

In 10 years his accumulations were considerable, and in 1814 he went east and induced his father to dispose of his holdings there and invest the proceeds in western lands. In conjunction they purchased large tracts at Rising Sun, Ind., which eventually netted them comfortable fortunes.

Although engaged in commercial pursuits he had not abandoned the practice of his profession, and in 1814 was elected by the legislature as one of the judges of the supreme court, his associates being Thomas Scott. Thomas Morris and John S. Edwards. He was chosen for the constitutional term of seven years.

On the 7th of December, 1818, he tendered his resignation as judge to Governor Worthington to accept the office of governor, to which he had been elected at the preceding October election, receiving 30,194 votes to 8,075 cast for James Dunlap. He was not at the state capital when the official canvass of the vote was made by the legislature, and Senator Robert Lucas was made special messenger to proceed to Cincinnati, notify him of his election and request him to appear before the legislature and take the oath of office.

It required seven days for the special messenger to execute his com

mission, and on the 14th of December, 1818, Judge Brown appeared and entered upon the discharge of his new duties. He was re-elected in 1820, receiving 34,836 votes to 9,426 cast for Jeremiah Morrow and 4,348 for William Henry Harrison.

His administration of the affairs of the state was strong and vigorous, and commanded general approval. Internal improvements, popular education and the rigid enforcement of the laws requiring an inspection of ali produce shipped from Ohio to other markets were among the features of his administration.

The banking question, too, became one of great importance, and several of his state papers were directed to its solution. The question of taxing the Bank of the United States, which had established branches in Ohio, came up and led to a sensational climax. A tax of $50,000 for each branch was imposed and collected; suit was brought by the bank, which obtained a judgment in recovery; the state treasurer and auditor were arrested in contempt proceedings, and an act of outlawry of the bank was passed. Fuller particulars of the latter accompany the sketch of William Henry Harrison.

On the 3d of January, 1822, Governor Brown was chosen United States senator to succeed William A. Trimble, deceased, and on the same day he resigned and was succeeded by Acting Governor Allen Trimble, a brother of the deceased senator. He served until the 4th of March, 1825. After retiring from the senate he resumed the practice of the law, and was frequently intrusted with important commissions by President Jackson, among them being American minister to Brazil, where he was sent in 1830, and land commissioner in 1832. Maintaining his law office in Cincinnati, during his later years he spent most of his time on his estates in Indiana. He died suddenly in February, 1852, while attending a Democratic state convention in Indianapolis.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON OF HAMILTON COUNTY.

The military career of William Henry Harrison was no less distinguished than his career in civil life. They both form an important part of the

early history of the nation, the State

of Ohio and the Northwest, and therefore need not be recounted in detail.

He was born in Charles City county, Virginia, February 9, 1773, and cbtained a practical, if not a thorough, education at Hampden Sidney college. Through family influence and connections he was brought into close relations with General Washington and as a youth, enjoyed the friendship and friendly influences of that great cap tain and statesman.

In 1791 he received a commission in the army and came to the Northwest territory, where he was later crowned with such signal military and civic honors. For a time he served on the staff of General Anthony Wayne in his operations against the Indians and their no less savage allies. By successive promotions he became the leader of important operations, and in the war of 1812 became a major general, controlling the military operations along the western and northern fron tiers.

His civil services were coeval with and coequal to his military achievements. He was delegate from the Northwest territory in the Fifth congress. and later secretary of the Northwest territory under Governor Arthur St. Clair. He was the first governor of Indiana territory. After retiring from that office he returned to Ohio, where many additional honors awaited him. No official honor was too exalted or too arduous for him to fill with fidelity and honor. As clerk of the court of Hamilton county he was no less respected than as a member of congress, a senator or as president of the republic.

During the territorial era he served both as delegate in congress and as territorial secretary, and was one of the foremost advocates of Ohio's

early statehood.

He became the first governor of the territory of Indiana, was the first United States senator elected to the presidency, and the first president to die in office. When Harrison county was erected and organized by the act of Jan. 2, 1813, it was named in his honor, and all the Harrison townships in the state were similarly named upon their organization.

In

In politics during his earlier years he was a Democrat of the Jefferson school, aggressive at first, but becoming gradually more conservative. As a presidential elector in 1820 he voted for James Monroe of Virginia. 1824 he headed the electoral ticket for Henry Clay of Kentucky. The Federal party passed out of organized existence in national politics immediately preceding the campaign of 1824, and in the break-up General Harrison found himself in close political alliance with his personal friend, Henry Clay, and became one of the original founders of the Whig party, of which he became the successful leader 12 and 16 years later, when he was elected president.

The election of John Quincy Adams in 1824 was a compromise rather than an expression of political opinion. While it was a defeat for the divided Democratic party led respectively by Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and William H. Crawford of Georgia, it was in no sense a triumph for either the disintegrating Federal or the crystallizing Whig party, but the result of a coalition between the friends of Adams, Clay and Crawford in the house of representatives, where the presidential election was settled, Jackson having wihtin a few votes a majority of all the electoral colleges, and a larger popular vote than any two of his competitors.

In 1820-1821 General Harrison served in the state senate from Hamilton county, and was conspicuous for his firmness, ability and farseeing statesmanship and conservatism. He put himself on record as opposed to the principle of the Missouri Compromise, while deprecating the agitation of the sectional slavery question, which he foresaw would finally eventuate in civil conflict.

On another line, while in the Ohio legislature, he framed, recommended and had placed on the statute books the most drastic law perhaps ever enacted by an American legislative body. It pertained to the reserved rights of the state.

This was the act outlawing a great corporation chartered by congress and known as the Bank of the United States, of unsavory memory. In 1818 the Bank of the United States opened two branches in Ohio, and was doing an immense business, which threatened, as it was believed, to drain the resources of the state.

Governor Ethan Allen Brown, in his inaugural on the 14th of December, 1818, called the attention of the legislature to the fact that the bank refused to recognize the laws of taxation then existing, and asked for such legislation as would compel it to pay its just proportion of taxes. Early in 1819 an act levying $50,000 annually on each branch of the bank was passed, and the auditor of state, Ralph Osborne, and the treasurer of state,

Samuel Sullivan, proceeded at once to collect the same, in spite of the protests of the officers of the parent bank and its branches.

The bank brought suit in the district court of the United States to recover back the money thus collected on the ground that the state had no jurisdiction over the corporation by reason of the fact that it was chartered by the United States. In due time it got a decree of recovery and restitution, and the auditor and treasurer were called on to repay the $100.000 with interest. As they had no authority to take the money out of the state treasury in the absence of legislative action, they refused, and were ordered imprisoned for contempt of court.

When the legislature assembled on the 4th of December, 1820, this question confronted it. An act authorizing the auditor and treasurer to comply with the order of the court and satisfy the decree was passed without delay, and then the residue of the question was referred to a joint committee of the two houses for consideration and report.

General Harrison, a member of the state senate, was chairman of this committee, and he presented in its behalf a report, which constitutes a political classic for the force, cogency, logic and eloquence of its arguments. He started out upon the broad ground that the state was a sovereign and could not rightfully be cited into court without its consent previously obtained; that being a sovereign it had jurisdiction of all property within its limits for purposes of taxation, on common principles of equity, unless it was specially exempt by specific provisions of law; that, conceding that the sovereign state of Ohio could be taken into a court, which was not conceded, its dignity was insulted when it was taken into an inferior tribunal; that, inasmuch as the courts of the United States had overridden this just and reasonable contention of the state of Ohio, and it being unwise and impolitic to resist the general government, which, through the courts, had declared the corporation of the Bank of the United States independent of and superior to the legislature and executive of Ohio, therefore it was, in fact, an alien and entitled to no sort of recognition by the sovereign whose inherent jurisdiction it repudiated and defed.

A bill accompanied the report, which was speedily enacted, a summary of its provisions being as follows:

1. No sheriff or jailer was permitted to receive into his custody any person arrested on mesne process, or taken or charged in execution at the suit of the bank or its officers, or any person committed for or on account of any offense charged to have been committed upon the property, rights, interests or corporate franchises of the bank.

2. It was declared unlawful for any judge or justice of the peace to take legal cognizance of the bank by entertaining suits against debtors, taking acknowledgments or proof thereof, of deeds, mortgages and conveyances, and the county recorders were forbidden to enter them of record.

3. Notaries public were forbidden to protest any promissory notes due and payable to the bank, or give notice thereof.

4. Any sheriff violating the act was held responsible on his bond for