that no channel was prescribed through which the Governor should return the bill, either by the Constitution or by the rules of the Legislature. The channel is left to his judgment and he, alone, is responsible for it. He may select such as he chooses, and it is the duty of the House to receive the message. He defied any man to controvert this position, and said if the House should override it, it would override the Constitution of the state and erect the standard of revolution. For members to reject it was to violate their oaths. Pause here, before it is too late, he implored. Remember that the country stands on the very borders of an abyss. It needs all our care and efforts to rescue it from the perdition into which we are fast sinking!

It seems that the secretary of state, Allen Tenny*, had refused to present the document without a written order from the governor, and that he had been "spirited" out of the way before such order could be secured. The object of the minority then was to hold the floor and prevent an adjournment, which the majority were planning to bring about, till the secretary could be found and the message be formally presented by him to the speaker. Mr. Sinclair again spoke at length and then Samuel B. Page of Warren got the floor and held it for a long time, replying good-naturedly to all sorts of questions, but refusing to yield to any one. He finally concluded and Mr. Bingham again got the floor, when, at about half past five o'clock, the secretary of state, who had at last been found, appeared in the hall with the Governor's message, which he was instructed to deliver, but which he got no opportunity to do, through the

*Allen Tenny, son of Rev. Erdix and Mary Latham (Kendrick) Tenny, was born in Lyme, N. H., March 29, 1833. He fitted for college at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, and graduated from Middlebury in 1856. He taught for a time in Lyndon, Vt., and Concord, N. H. In 1859 he was made deputy secretary of state, and in 1861 was chosen secretary, serving till 1865, when he declined further service, and went to the Albany (N. Y.) law school, graduating in 1866. Pursuing his studies further, he was admitted to the bar of Connecticut in 1868 and engaged in practice in Norwich, that state, where he continued nearly thirty years. He was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1873 and of the State Senate in 1874, being president pro tem of that body. He was corporation counsel for the City of Norwich from 1874 till 1883, and a United States commissioner for several years. He retired from practice some years ago and removed to Providence, R. I., to look after business interests.

continuance of debate, and the speaker's apparent inclination to hinder rather than facilitate such delivery

At about 6 o'clock, Mr. Saunders of Nashua got in the long contemplated motion to adjourn. The yeas and nays being demanded on this motion the roll call proceeded under great difficulty. Men were on their feet in all parts of the hall shouting and gesticulating, opposing party leaders hurling defiance at each other with every indication of actual violence impending. The only way in which the vote could be taken was by the passing of members before the clerk as their names were called and the shouting of their response in his ears. The call was not concluded until 7 o'clock, when the result showed a majority in the affirmative and the House stood adjourned. The speaker had not received the veto message, but the secretary had finally dropped it on his table at about 6.45 o'clock.

At the opening of the House session, the following day, Mr. Clarke of Manchester, offered a resolution which was finally adopted, providing that a committee of seven be appointed by the speaker to inquire and report whether or not the soldiers voting bill had become a law without the approval of the governor, by constitutional limitation. This committee, as appointed, consisted of Messrs. Barton of Newport, Clarke of Manchester, Parker of Merrimack, Hackett of Portsmouth, Pitman of Bartlett, Wyatt of Dover and Page of Thornton.

Mr. Bingham then moved that the paper from His Excellency, the Governor, placed on the speaker's table the previous day, by Allen Tenny, be now read for the information of the House, but Mr. Adams of Manchester thereupon interjected a call for the general order. Mr. Bingham then moved the suspension of the rules, so that his motion might be in order at that time, but, a call of the roll being demanded, the motion was lost, 102 to 145. A bitter controversy ensued during which Mr. Bingham used plain and emphatic language in denouncing what he characterized as the revolutionary course pursued by the House and speaker in the afternoon previous.

In the afternoon the majority of the special committee reported, declaring that the act in question had become a law, as claimed by the majority leaders. Messrs. Pitman and Page pre

sented a minority report, taking the opposite position, but the House, by practically a partisan majority, adopted the majority report. The question ultimately went to the Supreme Court, which had finally decided the act constitutional and that body also decided it to be law, the constitutional limit having been passed, in any event, in the estimation of the judges, after its legal delivery to the governor, and before it was received in the House.

While there was much excitement over the passage of this act, it may be noted that similar measures were enacted by the legislatures of most northern states, before the close of the war, and in most cases the same were held constitutional by the courts, though the Supreme Court of Michigan, with but one dissenting opinion, decided the act passed by the Legislature of that state, providing for the voting of the soldiers in the field, to be unconstitutional, Judge Cooley joining in the decision.

In 1865 Mr. Bingham and Dr. Charles M. Tuttle were chosen as the representatives from Littleton, but the latter failed to take his seat. The House organized by the choice of Austin F. Pike* of Franklin as speaker, who received 196 votes to 105 for Asa P. Cate of Northfield, the Democratic candidate. Samuel D. Lord of Manchester was made clerk and Charles B. Shackford of Conway, assistant. The members of the judiciary committee were: Wheeler of Dover, Upham of Concord, Bingham of Littleton, Smith of Wentworth, Small of Newmarket, Bean of Sandwich, Bowers of Newport, Little of Manchester, Conner of Exeter and Albee of Winchester. The special committee on

*Austin F. Pike, a native of the town of Hebron, born October 16, 1819, died at Franklin, October 8, 1886. He attended the academies at Plymouth and at Newbury, Vt., and studied law with Hon. George W. Nesmith, at Franklin, with whom he subsequently formed a partnership, which continued until the elevation of Mr. Nesmith to the bench. He was very successful in his profession and took high rank as an advovate. He represented Franklin in the Legislature in 1850 and 1852, served in the State Senate in 1857 and 1858, being president the latter year, and was again in the House in 1865 and 1866, serving both years as speaker. He was an earnest Republican and a delegate to the first National Convention of the party in 1856. He served in the Forty-third Congress from the old Second District in 1873 and 1874, his New Hampshire colleagues being William B. Small of Newmarket and Hosea W. Parker of Claremont, and was chosen United States senator in 1883, dying in the middle of his term.

national affairs, upon which Mr. Bingham also served, was somewhat different, but even stronger in its make-up. It included Blaisdell of Hanover, Upham of Concord, Sawyer of Nashua, Bingham of Littleton, Quincy of Rumney, Wheeler of Dover, Small of Newmarket, Stearns of Rindge, Stevens of Portsmouth and Hibbard of Laconia. It may be noted that, the work of rebuilding the state house being in progress at the time, the legislative session was held in the city and county building, the House being accommodated in the city hall, on the lower floor, and the Senate in the court room above.

This was largely a working session and the judiciary committee, as usual, carried the main burden, Mr. Bingham doing his full share of the work. It may be added that the committee, this year, ranked above the average in point of ability, while the judgment of no member carried greater weight, in questions of practical moment, than that of Mr. Bingham.

This session was devoid of partisan controversy, until near the close, when the question of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, submitted by Congress to the legislatures of the several states, came up for consideration. A majority report from the committee on national affairs, in the form of a joint resolution ratifying the amendment had been presented, on June 22, read once and ordered to a second reading. A minority report, signed by Mr. Bingham and Mr. Hibbard of Laconia, was subsequently presented, as follows:

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE,

House of Representatives, June Session, 1865. The undersigned, a minority of the committee on national affairs, to whom was referred the matter of ratifying the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, dissenting from the report of the majority of the said committee, present the following considerations as among the reasons which compel their dissent: namely,

1. Because the extraordinary events of the last four years have left the southern portion of the Union in such an unsettled condition that any proper action there, at the present time, upon this or any other amendment to the Constitution, is utterly impossible; and because the other causes still continue to bias, agitate and inflame the public mind of every portion of the Union to such an extent that the fair, impartial and dispassionate consideration

which a free people ought always to give to changes in their fundamental laws, cannot now be had.

2. Because the proposed amendment is not an amendment authorized by the Constitution, but is revolutionary in its character.

3. Because, in our belief, the future welfare of the people of the United States can be secured only by maintaining and preserving inviolate the authority of the States over all matters of a local and domestic character, and inasmuch as the relation between master and servant is a matter of a nature purely local and domestic, the adoption of this amendment would obliterate the great line of demarcation between federal and state authority, lead to the absorption of every reserved right of the states, and the ultimate consolidation of all power in the hands of the national government.

HARRY BINGHAM,
E. A. HIBBARD,

Minority of the Committee on National Affairs.

On the afternoon of June 27, the subject came up in the House for debate. Mr. Upham* of Concord opened the discussion with a lengthy speech in favor of ratification; and was followed by Mr. Quincy of Rumney (a Democrat who had broken away from his party upon this and most other questions

*Nathaniel Gookin Upham, born in Deerfield, January 8, 1801, died in Concord, December 11, 1869. He was a son of Hon. Nathaniel and Judith (Cogswell) Upham, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1820 at the remarkably early age of nineteen years. He studied law with David Parker, Jr., and, after admission to the bar, located in practice at Bristol, but removed to Concord in 1829, where he continued. He soon gained distinction and when 32 years of age, in 1833, was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court, serving ten years, when he resigned to become superintendent of the Concord Railroad of which corporation he was afterward made president. He was a delegate in the Constitutional Convention of 1850, and a commissioner to adjudiIcate the claims of citizens of the United States and Great Britain in 1853, and again between citizens of the United States and New Grenada in 1862. Politically he was a Democrat till 1861, when he joined the Republican party.

+Samuel H. Quincy, a prominent merchant at Rumney, was a native of that town, a son of Hon. Josiah Quincy who was a distinguished lawyer, leading Democratic politician and the first president of the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad. He was educated at Brown University. He was postmaster at Rumney for a time and represented the town in the Legislature in 1864 and 1865. He subsequently removed to Lancaster, Mass., where he served many years on the school board and as a member of the board of registers. He died December 12, 1893.