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he had conceived, in consequence of ill treatment, a rooted dislike, he studied every day from daylight until 10 and 12 o'clock at night, scarcely excepting even the Sabbath. In September, 1835, having read but six months, Mr. Smith advised him that he was qualified for admission; and, without any solicitation on his part, gave him the necessary certificates, and also letters of recommendation to the prominent men of Laporte county, which Mr. Smith selected for him as a good locality. Mr. Lahm left the residence of that gentleman with the best wishes of all the family except his fellow-student, and even he, sev eral years afterward, wrote a letter apologizing for his conduct.

After examination and admission, Mr. Lahm visited Laporte, but, for considerations of health, remained there only a few days, when he left for his home in Maryland. On reaching Canton, in Ohio, he was pleased with the place, and, through the advice of some connections, was induced to make it his home. He has remained there since October, 1835. The laws of Ohio require of persons who have been admitted to practice in other states, but who have not practiced, a residence of one year before they can be admitted, and also two years' reading before admission. A strict compliance with this law would have compelled Mr. Lahm to read eighteen months before he could have practiced. The one year he could not escape, but the difficulty as to the other six months he avoided by not making known to any one how long he had read. Consequently, at the end of the year he was examined, and at once admitted. He formed an immediate copartnership with A. W. Loomis, formerly member of Congress from Columbiana county, Ohio, and now a resident of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. They continued together, having a very excellent country practice, until the fall of 1841, when Mr. Loomis left the state.

In the spring of 1837, Mr. Lahm received from the Court of Common Pleas of the county the appointment of Master in Chancery, which he held for three years. In the fall of that year he was nominated by a Democratic convention for the office of prosecuting attorney. The contest for nomination was a severe one. He defeated his opponent in a convention of eightyfive delegates by one vote only. This office was not sought by Mr. Lahm. Indeed, for a long time he had refused to be a candidate, having no confidence in his own ability to discharge the VOL. I.-C

duties of the office. He was, however, elected; and at the end of two years he was re-elected, defeating his former opponent in convention by a large vote. At the end of four years he declined a re-election. During his term of office there was an immense amount of criminal business in the county, and he believes that he never lost an indictment for want of form. The most important case in his term was that of Ohio vs. an individual, for forging a certificate of deposit in one of the state banks by alteration, which certificate the accused, being postmaster, took from the mail. The prosecution excited much interest, in consequence of his frauds, on different persons, having amounted to some ten or fifteen thousand dollars. The case was removed to an adjoining county, and the accused was defended by Thomas Ewing, former Secretary of the Treasury under General Harrison, D. A. Starkweather, H. Griswold, John Harris, and others. Mr. Loomis and Mr. Lahm appeared for the state. The accused was convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary.

In the fall of 1842 Mr. Lahm was nominated and elected by the Democratic party to the office of state senator. The most important questions before the Legislature at the session of 1842-3 were the districting the state for members of Congress, and the subject of banks and currency., In both of these questions he took an active part. With reference to the former, he succeeded in keeping his own district unaltered in territory and number. On the subject of the currency, differences began to manifest themselves, at the session of 1842, in the sentiments of Democrats. A very few were in favor of destroying all banks, but a large majority were in favor of a wellrestricted banking system. He was of the number of the latter. The bill known as Bartley's Law was passed in 1842-3. At the session of 1843-4 the question again came up, and a division took place among Democrats on what was called the Wooster Bank Bill, the object of which was to exempt that bank from the provisions of Bartley's Law. Four Democrats of the Senate and seventeen of the House were in favor of this bill. Among them Mr. Lahm took the lead, with a determination to put it through. The bill was passed. It created an intense excitement in the state, and separated the party into divisions, known by the name of "hards" and "softs." This divi

sion gave to the Whigs the Legislature in 1845, and the gov ernor in 1846. In Mr. Lahm's district the division was more general than in any other in the state, which was made the pretext, as to himself, of violent political vituperation.

In the fall of 1844 he was a candidate for Congress. In his own county he received the votes of two thirds of the delegates; but in Wayne, where he was not known, the vote given to Mr. Starkweather, who had the support of the press, overbalanced his in his own county. His friends then nominated him for the State Senate; and when the "hards" found that they could not succeed in defeating him in any other way, they united with the Whigs, and elected the Whig candidate. In the fall of 1846, the division still remaining unhealed, his name was announced as an independent candidate; and although Mr. Starkweather was elected formerly by a majority of about 1800, yet at the election for the thirtieth Congress Mr. Lahm defeated him by a majority of about two hundred.

When in the State Legislature, Mr. Lahm, as chairman of the Committee on Public Institutions, made a report against the removal of the seat of government from Columbus. He investigated the subject thoroughly, and his report is said to have given a quietus to that question. In military matters he has taken some interest. He has been elected to different offices, and received different appointments, first entering the colonel's staff, and then having been elected lieutenant-colonel, and, lastly, brigadier-general, which latter post he now holds.

We should note that he represented his district, which is the eighteenth of Ohio, and consists of the counties of Stark and Wayne, in the Baltimore Convention, which nominated Mr. Polk to the presideney. His own predilections were in favor of General Cass, but he supported Mr. Van Buren under instructions. Though elected, as we have shown, as an independent candidate, he entered Congress with a determination to give his support to all the prominent measures of the Democratic party. And he has done so.

He was married in 1838 to Almira Webster Brown, daughter of Daniel Brown, formerly a merchant of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He has three sons and a daughter living. In person he is about five feet ten inches, rather strongly built, with light brown hair and whiskers.

INGERSOLL, JOSEPH REED,

I. P. Ingersoll ;

Is the son of Jared Ingersoll, who represented in part the

people of the State of Pennsylvania in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. Inheriting an attachment to that instrument, he has never failed to bring to its support his cordial and deliberate exertions. During an active professional career at the bar of Philadelphia, he devoted himself for a considerable time to the practice of the law. With occasional indulgence in literature, and a connection with many of the public institutions of his native city, he has not until within the last few years actually exchanged the labors of a toilsome profession for the more exciting duties of Congressional life. He contributed to the student of maritime law a translation, from the Latin, of the treatise by Roccus on Ships and Freight, with copious original notes. The author of many collegiate and other public addresses, he adhered somewhat steadfastly to his profession, with the exception of a short interval in the twenty-fourth Congress of 1836-7, until the winter of 1842, when he succeeded to a place rendered vacant by the resignation of John Sergeant, in the Whig House of Representatives, at the second session of the twenty-seventh Congress. Since that time he has continued to represent the second Congressional District of Pennsylvania.

The public records bear ample testimony to the ability and laborious research with which he has fulfilled his trust. Early in the first session of the twenty-fourth Congress, when the discordant opinions that have since so much distracted the public councils, in relation to the disposition of abolition petitions, began to threaten serious evils, Mr. Ingersoll offered a proposi

tion which, as indicating the high national ground that he himself occupied, we here subjoin. He offered it, he said, as a means of tranquilizing all parts of the House, without compromise on either side:

"Resolved, That the holding of slaves is a right clearly recognized by the Constitution of the United States, and is thereby secured to the citizens of those states whose policy does not forbid it, as the legitimate subject of individual property, and source of political influence and power; and all attempts to interfere with, or molest them in its exercise or enjoyment, are impolitic, unconstitutional, and unjust."

Without arguing the question whether the same Constitution which gave this security to the possessors of slaves, and which also gave to Congress exclusive power of legislation in all cases whatever over such district as might become the seat of government, did or did not include the power to abolish slavery within its limits, he contended that the true policy was not to let petitions of this character remain unanswered, but to decide them all, and in that decision to pronounce an emphatic vindication of all that was done. At the same session he advocated with much earnestness the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands as a measure of paramount importance and utility.

During the troubled administration of Mr. Tyler several interesting questions were agitated. Among these was the subject of the assumption of state debts by the general government. Mr. Ingersoll is the author of a report in opposition, and in answer to numerous memorials and applications by which that measure was urged. The idea itself has become almost obsolete; but the report will richly repay perusal, and may be found among the records of the House under the date of January 30th, 1843. He is also the author of a report, made at the first session of the twenty-eighth Congress, on the question of so amending the Constitution of the United States as to strike from the third clause of the second section of the first article such parts as, in the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes among the several states, authorize the addition to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, of three fifths of all other persons. The Legislature of Massachusetts adopted cer

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