PORTRAITS IN PEN AND PENCIL.

PHILIP FRANCIS THOMAS.

Philip Francis THOMAS was born at Easton, the county town of Talbot County, Md., on the 12th of September, 1810. He was the son of an eminent physician, who pursued the practice of his profession in the same county for more than fifty years. His mother was the daughter of Philip Francis, a gentleman of Irish descent, and of the same family as Sir Philip Francis, the reputed author of “ Junius' Letters." Portraits of several distinguished members of this family are still in possession of a near relative of Mr. Thomas.

Young Thomas was placed at the academy at Easton, then, and for many years, under charge of an Irishman named Thompson, a teacher of great celebrity, particularly of the classics. Here he continued with great advantage, until the death of Thompson, when he was sent to Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., where he remained about two years, until he was suspended for some youthful indiscretion; and returning home, entered the office of Wm. Hayward Esq., of Easton, as a student of law.

He was admitted to the bar in November, 1831, and in a very short time enjoyed an excellent practice. The peculiar bent of his genius, however, impelled him towards public life, and he soon became active in politics, warmly espousing the democratic side, in opposition to even other members of his family, who were all federalists and whigs. But the democratic party were, unfortunately, in a minority of several hundreds in Talbot, and when nominated to the House of Delegates in 1834, he was with his whole ticket defeated by a considerable majority. On the 5th of February, 1835, he was married to Miss Kerr, of Talbot County.

In 1836, we find him again before the people, advocating the call of a convention to reform the constitution of the state; a measure ardently desired by the larger counties of Western Maryland, but unpopular with the smaller counties of the East, and the Eastern Shore particularly. He also warmly defended the stand taken by the nineteen democratic electors, then producing great excitement throughout the state. The democratic party was however again defeated at the October election of that year in Talbot by two hundred votes.

The legislature of 1836, passed a bill amending the constitution, so as to give the people a direct vote in the election for governor; and in 1837, Mr. Thomas took the bold step of canvassing his county alone and without nomination; contrary to the advice and wishes of his warmest friends. Under these disadvantages, he made so gallant a fight, that he was defeated by only seventeen votes. He had succeeded, however, in rallying his party, and infusing into it the best possible spirit. He was a member of the convention which assembled in Baltimore in 1838, under the amended constitution, to select a democratic candidate for the gubernatorial office. The convention nominated Wm. Grason, and Mr. Thomas boldly pledged a majority in Talbot County for the nominee. The pledge was most gallantly redeemed, the county gave Grason 130 majority, elected the whole democratic ticket for the legislature, and Mr. Thomas, who was on the ticket, was elected by over 100 votes. Since then, with the exception of one year, Talbot County has been thoroughly democratic.

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Although the democrats had succeeded in electing their governor, the whigs had majorities in both branches of the legislature. In this body, Mr. Thomas was called upon to play a prominent part, and soon achieved a high reputation for acuteness in debate, sound correct views, and extensive information.

Many questions of vital importance to the state were brought forward and discussed at length. Not the least important of these grew out of the position of the state with regard to her works of internal improvement. Already a debt of eight millions of dollars has been incurred in their prosecution. This sum, though large, had proved to be utterly inadequate to their completion. These works were on a gigantic scale, a panic had seized upon the people, and through them was communicatǝd to the legislature. Those interested in the works called loudly upon the state for further aid. Mr. Thomas' position was one of peculiar difficulty. His immediate constituents, and indeed the whole people of the Eastern Shore, had always been warmly opposed to the whole system of pledging credit of the state to raise funds for the construction of public works. In this state of things he did not hesitate to advocate warmly the policy of extending the credit of the state in aid of these works. In his situation, it must be conceded, that to do so required no small degree of boldness, foresight, and freedom from prejudice. His views were urged with force and effect. “He regarded the subject of the completion of the public works, considering the magnitude of the debt already incurred, as a question of finance. He believed the most certain means of extrication from debt and of relief from perpetual taxation, would be found in an increase of the debt, for the purpose of rendering the works available; the question was, in fact, whether the works should be abandoned, with a loss of all that had been expended on them, or the debt increased, in the hope of ultimate relief from the fruits of the works themselves." With these views he voted for aid to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, to the amount of $1,370,000; for several measures of relief to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; and for a loan of $1,000.000, to the Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal,

His advocacy of this last-mentioned measure was based upon his conviction of its vast importance to the commercial prospects of the city of Baltimore, and his belief that the interests of the whole state were in no small degree dependant upon the commercial prosperity of this city. The sagacity of these views has since been fully vindicated, by the rapid increase of the city of Baltimore, and the prosperous condition of the works of internal improvement, all of which are contributing lazily to the Treasury, except the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which has not yet reached the mineral regions of the state.

Other questions of an exciting nature occupied the attention of the legislature at this session. There were four contested seats, and the committee made majority and minority reports in each case. Parties were almost equally divided, and long and fierce debates ensued. Mr. Thomas parti cipated in these debates freely, and with great effect.

At the close of this session of the legislat Mr. Thomas' friends determined to run him as a candidate for Congress, in the district which he resided. The chances of successs were slender, but the triumph would be, therefore, the greater. They relied implicitly upon his powers; and with the accustomed readiness to encounter odds, he placed himself at their disposal.

He was accordingly nominated in the summer of 1839, by a convention

held at Centerville, in Queen Ann's County, as a candidate to represent that district in the House of Representatives.

The district composed of the counties of Cecil, Kent, Queen Ann's, Caroline and Talbot was thoroughly whig, and had been for several terms represented by a whig of high talents and character, the Hon James A., Pearce, at present a senator in Congress from Maryland. Mr. Pearce was again nominated by the whig party. The district was canvassed thoroughly and warmly, Mr. Pearce and Mr. Thomas often meeting upon the stump. During this canvass, Mr. Thomas was arraigned upon the stump, and in the newspapers for his internal improvement votes, in the preceding session of the legislature, and warm appeals were made against him to the popular prejudices of his district, and of his own county particularly, upon that subject. He defended himself by a frank and candid avowal of his views and opinions as given in the legislature, and as set forth above.

The result was the election of Mr. Thomas by nearly 200 majority, every county in the district giving him a majority except Kent, the county of Mr. Pearce's residence. When Mr. Thomas took his seat in Congress he was twenty nine years of age.

The history of the first session of that Congress will be long remembered. It was stormy and tumultuous; its discussions and proceedings marked throughout by the most intemperate feelings ingendered by party strife.

The chief exciting causes of this violent party feeling, were the celebrated cases of the Jersey and Pennsylvania contested seats. After the organization of the house, which was delayed for more than a month, Mr. Adams occupying the chair temporally, Mr. Thomas was placed upon the committee on the militia, then charged with the consideration of the plan of the Secretary of War, recommended by the President, for enrolling and disciplining the militia of the United States. Its deliberations were therefore of much more consequence than usual. The plan had been freely and openly denounced by the whigs throughout the country, and the President charged with the design to raise a standing army. This occasioned the debates in the committee be frequent, long, and violent. The committee finally divided in their report, the majority sustaining the President's views, and the minority reporting against them. Mr. Thomas was also somewhat unexpectedly called upon, to take part in the most exciting matter of the session, the excitement of which was, perhaps, fortunately for the whig party, confined to the committee. Very soon after the house was organized, Mr. Fisher of North Carolina asked to be excused from serving on the committee of elections, and Mr. Thomas was named as his successor. Some of the ablest men in the house were members of this committee. Among them were Fillmore, Truman Smith, and Botts, on the whig side, Campbell of South Carolina, (chairman,) A. V. Brown of Tennessee, and Medîll of Ohio. When Mr. Thomas became a member of this committee, the contest from Pennsylvania, between Ingersoll and Naylor, was nearly disposed of; he therefore declined participating in the proceedings relative to

Whilst the committee were proceeding with the case, the New Jersey contestants were at home taking testimony. The amount of labor imposed upon the committee may be judged of from the fact, that they brought with them evidence applicable to something short of six hundred contested votes.

It was therefore necessary to authorise the committee to sit during the

that case.

sessions of the house. These sittings commenced in the spring, and continued almost to the close of the long session of Congress, lasting frequently 12 or 15 hours per day, and on one occasion at least, during the whole night. Each contested vote was separately canvassed, the testimony on each side read by the contestants, and discussed by them, and then debated by the members of the committee, often with great violence, after de* bate, decided by yeas and nays, recorded upon a journal kept by a special clerk. As may be readily conceived the most important

questions arising under the laws of evidence, and of residence involving “ Conflict of Laws,” were continually coming up for discussion.

During this investigation, General Harrison was nominated as the whig candidate for the presidency; and the whig members of the committee were too clear sighted not to discover, that their policy was to protract its sessions and delay its report. Much capital was to be manufactured out of the New Jersey case by artful misstatements and denunciations of the democratic party, and the report being delayed or prevented, contradiction or explanation would be nearly impossible. The course pursued by these gentlemen in accordance with this policy, prevented the committee from reporting until a short time before the close of the session. In proof of the interest taken by Mr. Thomas in this case, and of his habit of attention to business, it is proper to state that he was not absent from the committee room a single day during its sittings, which lasted several months. He was, therefore, rarely in the house, and of course had no opportunity to participate in its proceedings.

He united with the majority of the committee, in the report giving the seats to the contestants, against the Broad Seal of the State of New Jersey; and prepared a speech for its defense in the house.

This, however, he was not permitted to deliver, as upon the production of the report, a few days only before the close of the session, the previous question was resorted to and all debate cut off. After

the adjournment of Congress, Mr. Thomas returned to his post on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and took an active part in the presidential campaign, visiting several of the counties of his district, and addressing the people in behalf of the democratic candidate.

At the close of his congressional term, he was again nominated for a seat in the Congress called together by General Harrison in the spring of that year; a due consideration for his private interests however, induced him to retire from public life, and apply himself more closely to his professional pursuits. The nomination was therefore declined. He now resumed the practice of his profession with increased energy, and the office of Judge of the Land Office Court for the Eastern Shore becoming vacant by the demise of Thomas J. Bullet Esq., a very eminent lawyer, the appointment was tendered to him by Governor Grason, and accepted.

He continued to discharge the duties of this office untill by law it was abolished and merged in the Western Shore Land Office, of which the Chancellor of the State is ex officio Judge.

In the fall of 1843, he was prevailed on to represent Talbot County again, in the House of Delegates of Maryland, and was accordingly nominated and elected to a seat in that body. Here a wide field was opened for the exertion of his talents. The finances of the state were in a miserable condition. The public works had failed to yield a revenue, and the interest of an enormous public debt was to be raised by direct taxation. The work of taxation had been commenced in 1840; but great

difficulty had been experienced in enforcing the provisions of the tax laws, and even if enforced, they were clearly insufficient to raise the necessary amount of revenue. The whigs, as usual, had the ascendancy in the legislature. Indeed they had carried the state elections in 1843, by the force of loud and reiterated promises to redeem the credit of the state. But a gybernatorial election was to come off on the ensuing, fall, and an increase of the taxes might be hazardous with effect upon that election, They therefore preferred proving by the paper calculations of their Committee of Ways and Means, that the existing tax laws, if enforced, would yield revenue enough to meet all the state's engagements with a margin. In a speech of great power and effect, Mr. Thomas reviewed and denounced the course of the whigs with regard to the State's finances ; demonstrated the utter fallacy of their paper calculations; and called upon them to redeem the promises upon the faith of which they had been elected, and proceed at once to the passage of bills which should be effectual in producing a revenue adequate to the public exigencies. They, however, contented themselves with relying upon their calculation, and protesting that they had done all that was necessary. It may be appropriately stated here, that at the very next session of the legislature the allegations of Mr. Thomas with regard to the insufficiency of the whig revenue laws, were abundantly sustained. Governor Pratt, (to whom too much praise can scarcely be awarded for his administration of the financial affairs of Maryland, at this fearful crisis,) told them in his inaugural address that they had failed to sustain the public faith, and advised a series of measures for raising additional revenue, which they forthwith enacted into laws.

At the same session, Mr. Thomas again advocated measures for the completion of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, regarding it as more peculiarly a financial measure than before. Finding that the anxiety of the whigs for success in the next gubernatorial election, and their fear of hazarding their chances, had completely paralyzed their state faith energies, and that no renovating measure was to be expected from them at that session, within the last two or three days of the session Mr. Thomas introduced a bill providing for an exchange of the stocks of the state in her internal improvement companies, for state bonds.

Out of this grew the charge of “repudiation,” made against Mr. Thomas, when a candidate for the office of governor,—a charge which it will be easily seen, it was necessary for the whigs to make in order to cover up their own dereliction, which he had so successfully and fearlessly exposed. The charge, however, was not and could not be substantiated, as will be seen from the accompanying circumstances. The stocks, it is true, were at a very low point, but the bonds were in the hands of those who had purchased them at prices ranging from $40 to $60, and the exchange would have worked no injury even at that time. Indeed, subsequent events go far to show, that no injury would have resulted to any one,

if the bill had become a law; except that the capitalists who held the bonds and received the stocks in exchange for them, would have had to expend their money in the completion of the works in order to save themselves, instead of lending it to others effect the same object. Then, as avowed and as shown by the late period at which the bill was introduced, the object of its author was rather to show up to the people the true state of things, than to effect its passage, which indeed could not have been reasonably expected. Besides, at the same session, Mr. Thomas had warmly opposed the law for the sale of coupons belonging to the Sinking