LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 RECEIVED BY EXCHANGE 
 
 Class 
 
SENATOR JAMES ROSS 
 
 A SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON 
 
SENATOR JAMES Ross 
 
THE LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OF 
 
 Senator James Ross 
 
 A SKETCH BY JAMES I. BROWNSON, ESQ. 
 
 Read before the 
 
 Washington County Historical Society 
 February 21, 1910 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE SAID SOCIETY AT 
 
 THE OBSERVER JOB ROOMS, WASHINGTON, PA. 
 
 1910 
 
-o,0?- 
 
 IV. 
 
 [Mr. James Irwin Brownson, a member of the Wash 
 ington County Historical Society, was born at Washington, 
 Pa., on January 25,, 1856, of Rev. Dr. James I. and Eleanor 
 M. (Acheson) Brownson; graduated from Washington and 
 Jefferson College in 1875; studed law with Mr. Alexander 
 Wilson and was admitted to the Washington County Bar 
 in 1878.] 
 
V. 
 
 Introduction by the President 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 The meeting this evening of the Washington County Historical 
 society, organized on January 1, 1901, is for the ninth anniversary of 
 its first public meeting, held on February 22, 1901, the birthday of 
 George Washington, the first president of the United States, a day to 
 which we always do honor. 
 
 Our exercise tonight will be the reading by one of our members 
 of a sketch of the Life and Times of Senator James Ross, one of the 
 earliest members of the Washington County Bar, and in his matured 
 years one of the leading statesmen of our State and Nation. His history 
 is almost wholly unknown to the men of this generation, no detailed 
 biography of him having ever been published, and it surely is well 
 that our society should make a record of the personality and work of 
 one who was a citizen of our town in the earliest days of its life. 
 
 On this occasion we will also make a record of the fact that a 
 short time ago, our society, through the kindness of Mrs. Margaret 
 Stockton McKennan, the widow of the late Dr. Thomas McKennan 
 (whom many of us knew so favorably and well) and of her family, 
 became the owner of the fine original oil-painting of James Ross, now 
 before this audience. This accession to our collections is one of our 
 greatest prizes; and on behalf of our society we hereby return to 
 Mrs. McKennan and her sons and daughters our profound thanks for 
 their gift. 
 
 A word, now, as to the painting itself. There is no mark or name 
 discovered upon it, to indicate by whom it was painted, but there is 
 no doubt that it is an original or a replica of a painting of James 
 Ross from life by Thomas Sully, an eminent portrait painter, of 
 Philadelphia, who from his own register of portraits painted by him 
 from 1801 to 1871, painted in all the number of 1931 of eminent persons 
 of his day: See Sully s Register of Portraits, Vol. 32, Penna. Mag. of 
 History, 385; idem, Vol. 33, pp. 22, 147. 
 
 This register shows (33 Penn. Mag. of History, p. 171), that in 
 1812 Mr. Sully painted a "Head" of "James Ross of Pittsburg," and in 
 1813, a "Half-length of James Ross for the Academy of Fine Arts." 
 Our society has a copy of Goodman & Piggot s steel engraving of the 
 Academy of Fine Arts painting, presented to us by Mr. Joseph L. 
 
VI. 
 
 Delafield, a lawyer, of 25 Nassau St., N. Y., one of the single living 
 family of the descendants of James Ross. A comparison of the two 
 portraits will clearly show that they are portraits of the same person, 
 but that the portrait before us is an original or a replica of the 1812 
 painting, and not of the Academy of Fine Arts portrait of 1813. 
 
 All that we know certainly of our painting itself, and how it has 
 reached us, is that it was presented to Hon. Thomas McKean Thomp 
 son McKennan, who was the personal friend of Mr. Ross, by members 
 of the Washington County Bar, during Mr. McKennan s lifetime. 
 Mr. McKennan was for one month the Secretary of the Interior De 
 partment under President Fillmore, and died in 1852, the father of 
 Hon. William McKennan, late the Judge of the U. S. Circuit Court, 
 now deceased, and of Dr. Thomas McKennan, late of East Maiden 
 street, Washington, Pa., also deceased. On the death of his father 
 the painting came to Dr. McKennan, in whose ownership it has re 
 mained until donated to our society: See Crumrine s 1 History of 
 Washington County, 252 n. 6, and 485. 
 
 Mr. Brownson, who is to read the Sketch of the Life and Times 
 of Senator James Ross, needs no introduction to your acquaintance, 
 and I know he will receive your interested attention. 
 
The Life and Times of Senator James Ross 
 
 A Sketch by Mr. James I. Brownson 
 
 James Ross was a native of York County, Pennsylva 
 nia. His grandfather, Hugh Ross, (who was a son of 
 James Ross of Garnet-Fergus, County Antrim, Ireland,) 
 came to America some time previous to the year 1723, with 
 his wife Elizabeth, and settled at Nelson s Ferry, Lancas 
 ter County, now McCall s Ferry in York County, in which 
 locality he resided until his death, in February, 1780. 
 Among the children of Hugh Ross was Joseph Ross, 
 born in 1738, who married Jane Graham. Joseph and 
 Jane Graham Ross lived in a stone house that is still stand 
 ing, in Peachbottom township, York County, about one- 
 fourth of a mile north of the town of Delta, and there on 
 July 12, 1762, was born their son, James Ross, the subject 
 of this sketch. 
 
 The education of James Ross, after a preliminary course 
 in a neighboring school, said to have been the famous acad 
 emy of Robert Smith at Pequea, Lancaster County, was 
 pursued at the College of New Jersey, now known as 
 Princeton University. 
 
 After leaving college he came across the mountains to 
 Washington County, and we find him about the year 1782 
 engaged as a teacher in the log-cabin academy of Dr. John 
 McMillan, near Canonsburg. Dr. McMillan, who was ten 
 years his senior, had come from Fagg s Manor, Chester 
 County, a place distant not more than about 25 miles from 
 the home of Ross s parents, becoming the pastor of the 
 Presbyterian churches of Chartiers and Pigeon Creek 
 in 1776, though deterred by the perilous state of the 
 
4 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 western country from bringing his family to reside 
 in his field of labor until 1778. It was doubtless the pres 
 ence of McMillan here that led young Ross to settle in this 
 region. As to the extent of their previous personal ac 
 quaintance we are not info lined. At the time when Mc 
 Millan made his first journey to what is now Washington 
 County, in 1775, Ross was a boy of but thirteen years, and 
 he was only sixteen years of age when the former estab 
 lished his permanent residence here. Whether it was be 
 cause of personal friendship, or of acquaintance between 
 their families, or merely the circumstance that McMillan 
 had come from his own neighborhood, it is evident that 
 Ross was led hither by the fact that McMillan was already 
 here. 
 
 It has been said that Ross in his young manhood saw 
 military service for a time in the war of the Revolution, 
 and it has also been asserted that after coming west he 
 went out with Col. Crawford s ill-fated Sandusky expedi 
 tion in May, 1782. Whatever basis there may be for either 
 of these statements, certain it is that he was engaged for 
 some time in the peaceful pursuit of a teacher under Dr. 
 McMillan. Tradition tells that he at first intended to 
 make the ministry his permanent calling. While occupied 
 as a teacher his attention was directed toward the study 
 of the law by Hugh Henry Brackenridge, then a lawyer 
 living at Pittsburgh, whose practice took him over the 
 greater part of Western Pennsylvania, and who after 
 wards became a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsyl 
 vania. Brackenridge encouraged and assisted him by the 
 loan of books to undertake a course of study in prepara 
 tion for the bar. To complete this preparation Ross went 
 to Philadelphia. On his return he was admitted to the 
 bar of Washington County. No record of his admission 
 has been found, and its exact date is unknown. The best 
 evidence on the subject indicates that it was some time in 
 the year 1784. He became a resident of Washington, and 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. O 
 
 lived and maintained a law office here until the latter part 
 of 1794 or early in 1795, when he removed to Pittsburgh. 
 He quickly took rank as a lawyer and came into full prac 
 tice. He became widely known, and his practice extended 
 over a number of counties. He was admitted to the bar of 
 Fayette County in December, 1784, to that of Westmore 
 land County in 1785, and, after the erection of Allegheny 
 County by the act of September 24, 1788, he was admitted 
 in that county on the 16th of the following December. 
 
 The late Chief Justice Agnew, who was acquainted with 
 Senator Ross from about 1820 to the time of his death, 
 said of him : i l Nature gave Senator Ross a fine personal 
 presence and a sonorous voice, which, with a thoroughly 
 disciplined mind, made him a leader of the bar for many 
 years . 
 
 Judge Agnew also spoke particularly of the great abil 
 ity displayed by Ross in land cases, which in the early 
 days constituted the most important branch of litigation. 
 Now, the titles to land have been so well settled that it is 
 a comparatively rare thing, in Washington County or in 
 Allegheny County, to have an action of ejectment turn on 
 questions connected with warrants, original surveys or 
 patents; but in the days when James Ross began to prac 
 tice law a very large proportion of the cases tried, and 
 most of the cases of importance, were of this character, 
 and it was in such case s that the greatest demands were 
 made upon the intellectual and legal abilities of the trial 
 lawyer. 
 
 One case of another type, in which Mr. Ross defended 
 his old friend, Dr. McMillan, deserves special mention on 
 account of its local and general interest, as well as on ac 
 count of its being a leading authority in support, of a prop 
 osition of law which Mr. Ross successfully maintained. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Ledlie Birch, a minister of the Pres 
 byterian Church of Ireland, having come to this country 
 
4 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 and having preached for the First Presbyterian Church of 
 Washington for a time, the congregation desired to have 
 him settled as its pastor. With this in view he applied to 
 the presbytery in 1800, and again in 1801, for adnr.ssi ?n 
 to its membership. The presbytery, however, having ex 
 amined Mr. Birch upon the subject of "experimental re 
 ligion", and not being satisfied with the results of the 
 examination, refused to receive him as a member, or to 
 permit his settlement as pastor of the Washington church. 
 Dr. McMillan seems to have taken a leading part in the 
 presbytery, and to have expressed his opinion of the min 
 isterial character of Mr. Birch in somewhat forcible langu 
 age. Subsequently Mr. Birch preferred charges before 
 the presbytery against Dr. McMillan of unministeml and 
 unchristian conduct in falsely aspersing the complainant s 
 character. In defending himself before the presbytery 
 McMillan sought to justify his having said certain things 
 which he admitted having spoken of Birch, and in present 
 ing such a defense he necessarily had to repeat certain cf 
 his former statements. The presbytery, acquitting Mc 
 Millan in every other respect, condemned him for having 
 made use of one expression, viz. that Mr. Birch was "a 
 preacher of the devil", and for this pronounced upon him 
 an ecclesiastical censure, to which he submitted. In 1802 
 Birch brought an action for slander against McMillan in 
 the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County, which 
 was transferred to the Circuit Court of the same county, 
 and is therein docketed at No. 8 September tirm, 1803. 
 The declaration in the case charged the defendant McMil 
 lan with having slandered the plaintiff at the hearing be 
 fore the presbytery, the particular words charged to have 
 been there spoken being that he had called the plaintiff "a 
 liar, a drunkard and a preacher of the devil. 
 
 One of the points made by Mr. Boss in his defense of 
 McMillan was that what was said by the defendant in the 
 course of the trial before the presbytery was, in legal par- 
 
SKETCH BY MK. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 
 
 lance, a "privileged communication"; that is to say, the 
 plaintiff having called the defendant before an ecclesiasti 
 cal tribunal, the jurisdiction of which they both acknowl 
 edged, the defendant had the right and privilege of speak 
 ing freely in his defense, and, so long as he did not travel 
 out of the case to slander the plaintiff, the words spoken 
 by him in the course of his endeavor to exculpate himself 
 were not actionable. It had previously been well settled 
 that in a court of justice a charge o>r recrimination, made 
 by a defendant, that is pertinent to the matter in question 
 in the case, cannot be made the subject of an action for 
 slander, the reason for this being that it is essential to the 
 proper administration of justice that every defendant 
 have freedom of speech in his own defense ; and the con 
 tention of Mr. Ross was that the same rule should be ap 
 plied to a proceeding before a presbytery, notwithstanding 
 the fact that this was not a court of law but a private 
 tribunal acting by the consent of those who submitted 
 themselves to it. The applicability of such a rule to trials 
 in denominational tribunals was a new point, and the trial 
 court ruled against the contention of Mr. Ross, but the 
 Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Tilghman, 
 sustained the point he made and reversed the judgment 
 rendered against Dr. McMillan: 1 Binney s Reports page 
 178. A new trial having been awarded, the case was fin 
 ally settled in 1808, in pursuance of a suggestion made by 
 the court, the entry showing this, dated September 27, 
 reading as follows: "Discontinued by Plff. on the De 
 fendant s paying all the docket costs, and the Plff. receiv 
 ing Three hundred dollars in full of his Bill, and the at 
 tendance of his witnesses, and of all demands under the 
 recommendation of the court, per writing filed with 
 papers." The sum named, $300, was the amount of the 
 verdict which the Supreme Court set aside. I shall men 
 tion this case again, later on, in connection with the polit 
 ical history of Mr. Ross, 
 
D SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 The activities of Mr. Ross covered the whole field of 
 legal practice. He was eloquent before a jury, whether in 
 a civil or a criminal trial. He was forcible in arguing a 
 question of law before a bench of judges. He was noted 
 also as a business lawyer, and in this capacity he had the 
 management of very extensive property interests, in the 
 care of which he not only exhibited the highest degree of 
 professional and business skill, and the utmost fidelity, but 
 also in many instances exercised great kindness in render 
 ing to clients assistance to carry them through financial 
 straits. I am told that by his skilful management and as 
 sistance the great Denny and Schenley estates were saved 
 from practical bankruptcy when they were "land-poor." 
 Among the clients that he served in the management of 
 business affairs was George Washington. The latter own 
 ed a large amount of land in Western Pennsylvania, and 
 Mr. Ross represented him in connection with the sale of 
 this land. An incident that occurred on the occasion of a 
 visit he made to Philadelphia in August, 1795, to confer 
 with Washington regarding this business, is interesting as 
 throwing a strong light upon a side of Washington s char 
 acter which his biographers and panegyrists have largely 
 ignored, viz. that, although usually able to keep his feel 
 ings under strict control, he was not altogether superior 
 to the ordinary passions of humanity. At that time the 
 treaty with England negotiated by Jay, which proved to 
 be very unpopular, was the subject of much discussion in 
 the country, and Washington had been assailed with much 
 violent and vulgar abuse. His Secretary of State, Ed 
 mund Randolph, had just published a pamphlet regarding 
 the treaty, by which the President was incensed to an ex 
 traordinary degree. The incident referred to is thus nar 
 rated in the Philadelphia Press of August 4, 1876, quot 
 ing from a note book of the late Horace Binney Wallace : 
 
 "He [Ross] came to Philadelphia to settle his account, 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. / 
 
 and sending word to the President that he would wait 
 upon him at his pleasure, was invited to breakfast the next 
 morning. On arriving he found all the ladies the Cur- 
 tises, Lewises, Mrs. Washington, and others in the par 
 lor, obviously in great alarm. Mr. Ross described them as 
 gathered together in the middle of the room, like a flock 
 of partridges in a field when a hawk is in the neighbor 
 hood. Very soon the President entered and shook hands 
 with Mr. Ross, but he looked dark and lowering. They 
 went into breakfast, and after a little while the Secretary 
 of War came in and said to Washington : i Have you seen 
 Mr. Randolph s pamphlet? I have, said Washington, 
 and by the eternal God, he is the damnedest liar on the 
 face of the earth ! and as he spoke he brought his fist down 
 upon the table with all his strength and with a violence 
 which made the cups and plates start from their places. 
 Ross said he felt infinitely relieved ; for he had feared that 
 something in his own conduct had occasioned the black 
 ness of the President s countenance. The late Chief Jus 
 tice Gibson had this from Ross himself, and he mentioned 
 it at the house of the late Mr. John W. Wallace, of Phila 
 delphia, as showing that, naturally, Washington was a 
 man of extraordinary passions and sensibilities. 
 
 In 1789, five years after his admission to the bar, and 
 when he was only twenty-seven years of age, Mr. Ross was 
 elected a member of the convention that framed the Penn 
 sylvania constitution of 1790, which stood until remodeled 
 by the constitutional convention of 1837-8. In the conven 
 tion he showed himself to be in advance of the age at 
 least for Pennsylvania in his conception of religious lib 
 erty. The constitution of the United States had already 
 provided that "no religious test shall ever be required as 
 a qualification to any office or public trust under the United 
 States." Mr. Ross believed that it was improper for the 
 constitution of the State to prescribe religious tests, and 
 that it ought to place the subject upon the same footing as 
 the constitution of the United States. Accordingly, when 
 section IV of article IX of the proposed constitution was 
 
8 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 under consideration, reading as follows : No person who 
 acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of re 
 wards and punishments, shall, on account of his religious 
 sentiments be disqualified to hold any office or place of 
 trust or profit under this commonwealth", he supported 
 and voted for a motion, made by another member, to strike 
 out the words * who acknowledges the being of a God and 
 a future state of rewards and punishments", the effect of 
 which would have been to make the section provide simply 
 that no person should be disqualified on account of his re 
 ligious opinions, etc., thus bringing the state constitution 
 into exact agreement on this subject with that of the na 
 tion. The motion did not prevail, but 13 members of the 
 convention voting in its favor and 47 against it, and the 
 section as originally proposed became a part of the consti 
 tution. The same provision, in almost the same words, 
 f orms a part of our present state constitution. 
 
 For his vote on this subject Ross was furiously assailed 
 later, when a candidate for Governor. It was charged that 
 the animating motive of the vote was to be found in hostil 
 ity to religion and the holding of atheistical sentiments. 
 Of course we expect that in the heat of a partisan struggle 
 for office a man s political opponents will paint his actions 
 in the darkest colors and misrepresent his motives ; and yet 
 such an attack as was made upon Ross in this instance in 
 dicates that the general public was lacking in clarity of 
 mental vision. Very likely it was true that Ross had 
 abandoned the orthodox theological views which he enter 
 tained at the time when he thought of entering the minis 
 try, though we have tLc testimony of Dr. McMillan (which 
 will be referred to further on in this paper) that he never 
 manifested disrespect for religion ; but that hostility to 
 the introduction into a constitution of a provision that 
 would impose, or permit the imposition, of religious tests 
 in civil government, and hostility to religion itself, are not 
 at all the same thing, and that the former may be entertain- 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 9 
 
 ed by one who is earnestly religious, is an idea which, in 
 the past, minds not accustomed to clear thinking seem to 
 have had difficulty in grasping. In the year of grace 
 1910, when Pennsylvania has recently abolished all re 
 ligious tests for witnesses, the reasonableness of abolishing 
 all such tests for office-holders will probably be obvious to 
 most religious men. But so slow has been the development 
 of a clear conception of religious liberty, and of the proper 
 relations between religion and civil government, that there 
 are people, even yet, who cannot understand how a man 
 can be sincere, while objecting to the enactment, by consti 
 tution or statute, of religious tests of any kind or to any ex 
 tent, in at the same time professing to be a devout wor 
 shiper of Almighty God. 
 
 In 1794 occurred the disturbance generally known as 
 the Whiskey Insurrection. Of this incident in our history 
 we people of Southwestern Pennsylvania are not proud, 
 but there is much to be said in extenuation of the conduct 
 of the great mass of the people concerned in that affair. 
 One who is conversant with the conditions which gave 
 rise to that movement, will view the lawlessness that was 
 exhibited with a degree of leniency surprising to persons 
 less familiar with its causes. The western counties were 
 thinly populated, and practically without manufactures. 
 They were separated from the markets of the east by the 
 Appalachian mountains, across which it was an extremely 
 difficult and costly operation to transport their products, 
 upon the inferior roads that must be traversed, while their 
 other natural outlet by way of the Ohio and Mississippi 
 rivers was obstructed by reason of the fact that Spain 
 held the right bank, and the mouth, of the Mississippi, 
 and the federal government had not yet secured by treaty 
 the free navigation of that river. The result was that the 
 people of this region felt compelled to turn to the distilling 
 of whiskey as a means of converting their grain into a pro- 
 
10 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 duct which not only had a greater value in the market, but 
 by reason of its lessened bulk was much more easily trans 
 portable. Accordingly stills were set up all over the coun 
 try, and almost every farmer was engaged in the business 
 of distillation. When congress imposed an excise tax on 
 whiskey as a revenue measure, they believed that they 
 were going to be ruined by it ; whiskey was the one product 
 available to them as the means of carrying on trade With 
 the east, and on this they were to be compelled to pay a 
 ruinous tax before they could market it. This view, in 
 connection with their opinion that the government had 
 been neglectful of their interests in failing to provide for 
 them proper outlets to market, led them to regard the excise 
 law as an unjust oppression of the west, and this feeling 
 was intensified by the traditional hatred of excisemen 
 which they had inherited from their ancestors in Scotland 
 and Ireland. Moreover, it was only eighteen years since 
 the Declaration of Independence, the principal inciting 
 cause of which was a determination not to submit to what 
 was regarded as unjust taxation imposed upon the colon 
 ists by England ; and the people had fresh in their recollec 
 tion the honor and praise that had been generally accorded 
 to the men of Boston who by the exercise of force had 
 frustrated the English scheme for the collection of the tax 
 on tea. It is not strange that the common people were un 
 able to perceive the distinction between the two cases 
 that the resistance to England s attempt to tax the colonies 
 was grounded on the explicitly asserted principle that 
 those taxes were unconstitutional, whereas the congress of 
 the United States had an indisputable constitutional right 
 to impose an excise tax. It is not surprising that they 
 should resort, misled as they were to a considerable extent 
 by unscrupulous demagogues, and should regard them 
 selves as justified in resorting, to acts of violence, by way 
 of resisting the enforcement of what they viewed as an 
 odious, discriminating and unjust law. 
 
. 
 
 xN-.f 
 
 SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 11 
 
 James Ross, with other leading men, seeing clearly the 
 dangers into which the people were running, endeavored 
 to moderate and restrain the popular fury. In this en 
 deavor he attended several of the meetings that were held, 
 with the purpose of exercising his influence in favor of law 
 and order. He went, for example, to the meeting of Au 
 gust 1st at Braddock 7 s Field. Armed companies of militia 
 asembled there in large numbers, and it was originally de 
 signed to have them attack and take the United States 
 garrison at Pittsburgh, though after discussion this project 
 was abandoned. The part taken by Mr. Ross on this oc 
 casion is indicated by the remark of Daniel Hamilton, re 
 ported by H. H. Brackenridge in his "Incidents of the 
 Western Insurrection", viz.: "What do you think of that 
 damned fellow James Ross ! He has" been here and all 
 through the camp, persuading the people not to go to Pitts 
 burgh. 
 
 The resistance to the execution of the nation s laws im 
 bued the administration with the feeling that the sov 
 ereignty of the republic was at stake that at all hazards 
 the supremacy of federal law must be maintained, and that 
 the opportunity must be taken of demonstrating to the 
 world that the government which the constitution had 
 erected was strong enough to maintain itself against sec 
 tional attacks. Accordingly measures were taken to or 
 ganize an army for the suppression of this outbreak. But 
 before starting the army on its march across the moun 
 tains, the President, at the suggestion of Chief Justice Mc- 
 Kean, in August, 1794, appointed three commissioners to 
 offer, in the name of the United States, amnesty to those 
 who had been resisting the government, on condition of 
 their giving satisfactory assurances of their submission to 
 the laws of the nation. He named as these commissioners 
 James Ross, who had earlier in the year become a Senator 
 of the United States ; Jasper Yeates, a Justice of the Su 
 preme Court of Pennsylvania, and W illiam Bradford, At- 
 
12 SENATOB JAMES BOSS. 
 
 torney General of the United States. At the same time two 
 commissioners representing the State of Pennsylvania 
 were appointed by the Governor to accompany the federal 
 commissioners. The State commissioners were Thomas 
 McKean, the Chief Justice, and William Irvine, a repre 
 sentative in Congress from Pennsylvania. 
 
 Mr. Boss was at that time a resident of Washington 
 County, and this county was the very hot-bed of the Insur 
 rection. His selection to serve as one of the commissioners 
 is a striking evidence not only of the prominence he had at 
 tained, but also of the confidence reposed in him by the 
 federal executive. He discharged his duties as commis 
 sioner in such a manner as to show that this confidence 
 was merited. 
 
 The commissioners assembled at Pittsburgh, and there 
 met a committee, known as the "Committee of Confer 
 ence", appointed to treat with them on behalf of the per 
 sons implicated in the disturbances. After oral confer 
 ences the commissioners and the committee exchanged 
 communications in writing. In a note dated at Pittsburgh, 
 August 22, 1794, and signed by James Ross, J. Yeates and 
 Wm. Bradford, the terms offered by the commissioners 
 were stated as follows : 
 
 "1. It is expected, and required by the said commis 
 sioners, that the citizens composing the said general com 
 mittee, do, on or before the 1st day of September, explicit 
 ly declare their determination to submit to the laws of the 
 United States, and [that] they will not directly or indirect 
 ly oppose the acts for raising a revenue on distilled spirits 
 and stills. 
 
 "2. That they do explicitly recommend a perfect and 
 entire acquiescence under the execution of said acts. 
 
 "3. That they do in like manner recommend that no 
 violence, injuries or threats be offered to the person or 
 property of any officer of the United States, or citizens 
 complying with the laws, and to declare their determina 
 tion to support (as far as the laws require) the civil au- 
 
SKETCH BY MK. JAMES I. BKOWNSON. 13 
 
 thority in affording the protection due to all officers and 
 citizens. 
 
 "4. That measures be taken by meetings in election dis 
 tricts, or otherwise, [to declare] the determination of the 
 citizens in the fourth survey of Pennsylvania to submit to 
 the said laws and that satisfactory assurances be given by 
 the said commissioners that the people have so determined 
 to submit, on or before the 14th of September next. 
 
 If these conditions should be fully complied with, .the 
 commissioners stated that they had power to promise and 
 engage as. follows : 
 
 "1. No prosecution for any treason, or other indictable 
 offense, against the United States, committed in the fourth 
 survey of Pennsylvania, before this day, shall be proceed 
 ed on, or commenced, until the 10th day of July next. 
 
 "2. If there shall be a general and sincere acquiescence 
 in the execution of the said laws, until the said 10th day of 
 July next, a general pardon and oblivion of all such of 
 fenses shall be granted, excepting therefrom, nevertheless, 
 every person who shall in the meantime willfully obstruct, 
 or attempt to obstruct, the execution of any of the laws of 
 the United States ; or be in any wise aiding or abetting 
 therein. 
 
 Thirdly, it was stated that, Congress having on the 5tb 
 day of June preceding passed an act to authorize state 
 courts to take cognizance of offenses against the excise 
 laws, the President had determined to direct prosecutions 
 thereafter to be brought in the state courts, [so that inhab 
 itants of the western counties should not be carried to 
 Philadelphia to meet charges in the United States court,! 
 if, upon experiment, it should be found, in the President 7 ? 
 judgment, that local prejudices or other causes did not ob 
 struct the faithful administration of justice. 
 
 Th^ "general committee ", mentioned in the note of th^ 
 federal commissioners, was a standing committee 
 composed of two persons from each township in the 
 territory affected, which had been appointed by a meeting 
 
14 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 or convention of delegates held at Parkinson s Ferry, now 
 Monongahela City. This committee met at Brownsville on 
 August 28 and 29. and to it the terms offered by the com 
 missioners were submitted. After considerable discussion 
 it was rinaily decided to ascertain the sense of the commit 
 tee, upon the question of accepting the terms offered, by 
 means of a vote taken by secret ballot. The result was 34 
 yeas, and 23 nays. (Six persons afterwards declared that 
 they had voted in the negative by mistake.) This vote, 
 though exhibiting a lack of unanimity in the committee, is 
 said by H. M. Brackenridge ("Whiskey Insurrection", 
 1859, page 229,) to have "suddenly changed the face of 
 affairs", showing that the supposed majority in favor of 
 resistance to the government, which the friends of order 
 had been afraid to antagonize, was in reality a minority, 
 and emboldening those who wished for an accommodation 
 on the basis of the terms offered to come out openly in 
 support thereof. It was, however, only what we would now 
 call a * t straw vote , and when the committee proceeded to 
 take official action, instead of voting to accept the tenns 
 unconditionally, it adopted a resolution declaring merely 
 that "in the opinion of this committee it is the interest of 
 the people of the country to accede to the proposals made 
 by the commissioners on the part of the United States", 
 and followed this with the appointment of a new commit 
 tee of conference for the purpose of endeavoring to obtain 
 some modification of the terms, and then adjourned with 
 out day. The view the commissioners took of this was 
 that there had been a failure to comply with the conditions 
 attached to their offer. Accordingly they informed the 
 new committee of conference that they regarded their pro 
 posals as terminated. But the result of a joint meeting, 
 held on September 2nd by the federal commissioners, the 
 state commissioners and this committee of conference, was 
 that it was agreed to give the people one more chance ; it 
 was arranged that on September llth the people should 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 15 
 
 assemble at their voting places and individually sign en 
 gagements that they would henceforth submit to the laws 
 of the United States, that they would not directly or indi 
 rectly oppose the execution of the excise laws, and that they 
 would support, as far as the law requires, the civil author 
 ity in affording the protection due to all officers and other 
 citizens. 
 
 For various reasons many were reluctant to sign such 
 an engagement, and the signatures were not sufficiently 
 general to be regarded as satisfactory to the government. 
 The result was that the army, which had been assembled, 
 was started on its westward march. Upon its arrival it 
 met with no military opposition, and the principal service 
 it performed was the arresting and guarding of persons 
 accused of complicity in the violations of law that had oc 
 curred during the troubles. 
 
 I shall not go into the question whether there existed an 
 actual necessity for bringing the army hither, nor into that 
 of the necessity or propriety of the military inquests which 
 were held after the army came. 
 
 Mr. Ross was able, by communicating his personal 
 knowledge of various matters, acquired by means of his 
 residence at Washington during the period of the Insur 
 rection, to relieve or assist in relieving from danger of ar 
 rest various persons who were under suspicion of criminal 
 connection therewith, and among these was his friend, 
 Mr. (afterwards Judge) Brackenridge. 
 
 As has already been stated, Mr. Ross became a Senator 
 of the United States in the year 1794. The journal of the 
 Senate shows that on April 2, 1794, a certificate of the elec 
 tion of James Ross as a Senator from Pennsylvania was 
 presented to that body, and on the 24th of the same month 
 he took his seat, He succeeded Albert Gallatin, who had 
 entered the Senate in 1793, but later had been compelled to 
 vacate his seat by a decision that he was ineligible by rea- 
 
16 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 son of not having been a citizen of the United States for 
 the period of nine years preceding his election. The unex- 
 pired term for which Ross was elected ended in 1797, at 
 which time he was re-elected, for the succeeding full term 
 of six years. He thus served continuously as a Senator 
 from 1794 to 1803. 
 
 At the time of his entrance into the Senate he was in his 
 thirty-second year. He soon became a prominent figure. 
 It has been stated that on February 20, 1795, (at which 
 time he had been serving for less than a year,) he was 
 elected president pro tempore of the Senate. This may be 
 correct, though I have not been able to verify it. I do find, 
 in the Annals of Congress, that he was elected to that po 
 sition on March 1, 1799. 
 
 Jay s treaty with England, which was transmitted to the 
 Senate by President Washington on June 8, 1795, and the 
 great unpopularity which it encountered, have already 
 been alluded to. In negotiating that treaty Mr. Jay did 
 the best he could, and got all that it was possible to induce 
 the British government to agree to. The concessions which 
 he obtained fell far short of what he had been striving for, 
 and of what it was felt the United States was justly en 
 titled to ; but it was a question of agreeing on such a treaty 
 as could be obtained, or else letting the differences be 
 tween the United States and Great Britain result in a war 
 for which we were unprepared. The signing of that 
 treaty, and its subsequent ratification, were undoubtedly 
 the wise and proper things to do. But it was roundly de 
 nounced for two reasons: first, as a truckling to England 
 and a shameful surrender of our rightful claims, the ne 
 gotiator and the supporters of it being stigmatized as 
 friends of the British rather than of their own country 
 men ; and, second, as an affront to France, the friend that 
 had aided us in our Revolution. France itself took this 
 latter view. The intensity of feeling that was aroused in 
 this country is indicated by a placard which a gentleman 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 17 
 
 of Boston placed upon the fence in front of his property, 
 reading : i i Damn John Jay ! Damn every one that won t 
 damn John Jay ! Damn every one that won t put lights 
 in his windows and sit up all night damning John 
 Jay ! ! !" The Federalist party, however, stood by 
 Washington s administration and secured the ratification 
 of the treaty by the Senate. Mr. Ross was a man of strong 
 Federalist principles, and acted with his party in this mat 
 ter. His own individual views regarding it are indicated 
 by a conversation recorded by Thomas Jefferson as taking 
 place between himself and Judge Brackenridge in the 
 year 1800. Mr. Jefferson states that Judge Brackenridge 
 informed him that after the negotiation of the treaty he 
 was told by Ross that there was a party in the United 
 States who wanted to overturn the government and were 
 in league with France ; that France, by a secret article of 
 treaty with Spain, was to have Louisiana, and that Great 
 Britain was likely to be our best friend and dependence; 
 and that, on this information he [Brackenridge] was in 
 duced to become an advocate of the British treaty. The 
 point of this was that it made a great difference to the 
 United States who held Louisiana, which then extended 
 along our entire western boundary: Spain, which then 
 held it, was becoming a weak power, and her possession of 
 Louisiana might be viewed with equanimity, whereas if 
 France, a string power, should come into possession of it, 
 the safety and integrity of the United States would be 
 menaced ; hence the wisdom of having Great Britain for 
 our friend. These views respecting the position of the 
 United States as between France and Spain, and with re 
 spect to Great Britain, are identical with those which Mr. 
 Jefferson himself afterwards expressed when President. 
 He wrote to Robert R. Livingston, the minister at Paris, as 
 follows : 
 
 1 l The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to 
 
SENATOK JAMES ROSS. 
 
 France completely reverses all the political relations of 
 the United States, and will form a new epoch in our politi 
 cal course. There is on the globe one single spot the pos 
 sessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is 
 New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths 
 of our territory must pass to market, France, placing 
 herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. 
 Spain might have retained it quietly for years. 
 The day that France takes possession of New Orleans 
 .^ . . seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunc 
 tion, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From 
 that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet 
 and nation." 
 
 The storm over the British treaty slowly subsided, and 
 in time the country came to see that the denunciations 
 which had been heaped on the heads of Jay and Washing 
 ton on account of it were wholly unjust. It was learned 
 that, so far from regarding it as a triumph of British di 
 plomacy, England took exactly the contrary view of it. In 
 1812,at the breaking out of the war begun in that year,Lord 
 Sheffield remarked: "We have now a complete opportu 
 nity of getting rid of that most impolitic treaty of 1794, 
 when Lord Grenville was so perfectly duped by Jay." 
 
 France, our original friend and ally, soon became our 
 enemy, and in the following administration, that of John 
 Adams, we had a short naval war with her, brought on by 
 her aggressions. For the purposes of this conflict sev 
 eral war vessels were built in Pittsburgh and floated down 
 the Ohio to the Mississippi. One of these was named 
 "President Adams," and another "Senator Ross." 
 
 The troubles with France led to the passage of the alien 
 and sedition acts, which the Federalist party pressed 
 through Congress in 1798, and which proved to be a politi 
 cal blunder, and produced a reaction that contributed 
 largely to the subsequent overthrow of that party. 
 
 As the presidential election of 1800 approached, the sub- 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 19 
 
 ject of the method of electing the President and Vice-Pres 
 ident as prescribed in the constitution seems to have be 
 gun to arouse discussion. On January 19, 1799, Thomas 
 Jefferson jotted down the fact that W. C. Nicholas had 
 told him that in a conversation with Senator Ross, three 
 or four days previously, regarding the subject of having 
 the states agree to some uniform mode of choosing presi 
 dential electors, Ross had said "that he saw no good in 
 any kind of election. Perhaps, said he, the present one 
 may last a while." On its face, this would seem to indi 
 cate a deep distrust of popular government, though evi 
 dently a very imperfect report of the conversation. But, 
 however lacking in foresight Ross may have been as to the 
 endurance of the general system of elections, he had a 
 clear vision of one of its defects and of the dangers in 
 cident thereto, viz. the insufficient provision for the pass 
 ing upon disputed election returns. He foresaw, and 
 made an effort in the year 1800 to provide for, just such a 
 situation as arose in connection with the election of 1876. 
 On January 23, 1800, he introduced in the Senate a res 
 olution for the appointment of a committee "to consider 
 whether any, and what, provisions ought to be made by 
 law for deciding disputed elections of President and Vice- 
 President of the United States, and for determining the 
 legality or illegality of the votes given for those officers in 
 the different states." On January 24th the resolution 
 was adopted, with an amendment adding "that the com 
 mittee be authorized to report by bill or otherwise," and 
 Senators Ross, Laurence, Dexter, Pinckney and Liver- 
 more were appointed as the committee. On February 14, 
 Mr. Ross for the committee reported a bill prescribing a 
 mode of deciding disputed elections of President and 
 Vice-President. It provided that each house of Congress 
 should choose by ballot six of its own members, who to 
 gether with the Chief Justice (or in case of his disability 
 the next senior Justice of the Supreme Court) should 
 
20 
 
 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 form a tribunal, known as the "grand committee," with 
 power "to examine, and finally to decide, all disputes re 
 lating to the election," reporting their decision to the 
 houses. A number of amendments were offered, some of 
 which were adopted, and the bill was passed by the Sen 
 ate substantially as offered, except that, instead of the 
 Chief Justice (or a Justice) of the Supreme Court, the 
 thirteenth member of the grand committee was to be a 
 Senator chosen by the House of representatives out of a 
 list of three submitted to the House by the Senate. When 
 the bill went to the House, a select committee of which 
 John Marshall was chairman, redrafted it, making es 
 sential changes in the method of dealing with disputes 
 relative to the electoral vote, and this new draft passed 
 the House. It was then accepted by the Senate except in 
 one particular, the Senate making an amendment to which 
 the House would not agree, and the disagreement between 
 the two> houses resulted, in the failure of the bill. 
 
 As will be noticed, the bill creating an electoral com 
 mission to pass upon the election of 1876, followed in a 
 general way Eoss s idea of constituting a tribunal com 
 posed of members taken partly from the House of Repre 
 sentatives, partly from the Senate, and partly from the 
 klupreme Court 
 
 The election of 1800 resulted in the turning out of the 
 Federalist party from the control of the government 
 Thomas Jefferson was chosen President. By the Feder 
 alists the accession of the party of Jefferson to power 
 was viewed with profound misgivings. They entertain 
 ed sincere, though as events proved mistaken, forebod 
 ings as to the future of the republic, believing that the 
 country was about to be ruined by the substitution of rad 
 ical demagogism for wise and conservative statesmanship. 
 In an effort to make sure that at least the judiciary shouLl 
 be secured for Federalist principles, they passed, by a 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 21 
 
 strict party vote, within three weeks of the commencement 
 of Mr. Jefferson s term, an act considerably enlarging the 
 number of federal judges and to some extent remodeling 
 the federal courts, and the new judgeships thus created 
 were filled with Federalists by appointments made before 
 Jefferson s inauguration. This expansion of the judi 
 ciary did not meet with popular approval. It was alleged 
 to have gone far beyond the needs of the country, though, 
 in the light of experience, the objections made to it on this 
 score do not seem to be very weighty. If it did to some 
 extent exceed the existing needs, it was, in so far, but a 
 provision for the expansion of business which the rapid 
 growth of the country was steadily bringing about. It is 
 probable that the act would not have been seriously ob 
 jected to, had not the whole scheme been viewed as a de 
 vice to forestall the new administration and entrench the 
 Federalists in the judicial department of the government. 
 But, viewing the matter as they did, the Jeffersonian 
 party determined to get rid of the new judges. At the 
 first session of Congress held during Jefferson s adminis 
 tration a resolution was introduced declaring that the act 
 creating the new judgeships ought to be repealed. After 
 an extended debate the resolution was passed and a com 
 mittee appointed to report a bill for that purpose. When 
 the bill had been introduced, and came up for considera 
 tion, the debate was renewed. It was occupied princi 
 pally with the constitutionality of the proposed act. Mr. 
 Ross made a forcible speech, maintaining that for Con 
 gress to pass a law that would put the recently appointed 
 judges out of office would be to violate the constitutional 
 provisions that gave all judges a tenure during good be 
 havior, and made them irremovable except by impeach 
 ment for misbehavior. It would be constitutionally prop 
 er, he said, to pass a bill providing that as vacancies oc 
 curred in the judgeships no new appointments should be 
 made to fill such vacancies, and the offices so becoming va- 
 
22 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 cant should thereupon be abolished ; but to abolish a judge- 
 ship during the incumbency of the judge filling it was in 
 the face of the intention, manifested by the constitution, 
 that the judiciary should be independent of Congress. If 
 the judgeships in question could be abolished by Con 
 gress, why could it not abolish any other judgeship and 
 thus render the entire judiciary wholly subservient to its 
 will (because holding office at its pleasure,) contrary to 
 the constitutional design that the judiciary should be 
 wholly independent of legislative control? In reply to 
 the argument that it was not proposed to remove the 
 judges from office, but to abolish the office a very differ 
 ent thing, he said, in substance : You admit that it would 
 e unconstitutional to remove a judge from office ; now 7 
 what is the essential difference between removing the 
 man from the office, and removing the office from the 
 man? The two things are in substance and effect th : 
 same, differing only in the form of words employed. The 
 result of this bill will be merely to put these judges out of 
 office and transfer their duties to other judges, and the 
 form of expression in which you state it cannot alter the 
 nature of the act. 
 
 Other Federalist members of the Senate argued to the 
 same effect, but these arguments did not succeed in pre 
 venting the passage of the repealing bill. It went through 
 both houses and was approved by the President. 
 
 In the next session Mr. Ross presented a memorial of 
 certain of the judges affected b^ r the repealing act, assert 
 ing their right to hold office during good behavior, and 
 asking Congress to review the laws relating to the 
 judiciary and assign them duties as members of the 
 judicial department, but offering to submit the right 
 claimed by them to judicial examination and decision as 
 Congress might in its wisdom prescribe. The memorial 
 was referred to a committee of which Mr. Ross was one. 
 The committee reported a resolution directing the At- 
 
SKETCH BY MK. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 23 
 
 torney General to institute legal proceedings, in the na 
 ture of a writ of quo warranto, to test the right, claimed 
 by the petitioners, still to hold their offices; but after de 
 bate this resolution was negatived by a vote of 13 to 15. 
 
 The excise laws, which had produced the Whiskey In 
 surrection, became a topic of debate in the first session of 
 the seventh Congress. Jefferson in his annual message 
 had suggested that the time had come when the internal 
 taxes could safely be dispensed with, and the remaining 
 sources of revenue relied on to provide for the support of 
 government and the discharge of the public debt ; adding, 
 however, that these views as to reducing taxation were 
 formed upon the expectation that a sensible and salutary 
 reduction of expenditures would take place, and for this 
 purpose the civil government, the army a,nd the navy 
 would need revisal. A bill to repeal the internal taxes 
 was brought in in pursuance of this suggestion. In sup 
 port of the proposal to repeal them it was contended that 
 there had been sufficient reductions of expense provided 
 for to remove the necessity for continuing these taxes. 
 Mr. Ross spoke in opposition to the repeal. He ques 
 tioned the accuracy and reliability of the estimates of rev 
 enues from other sources, and of reductions in expense, 
 upon which was based the assertion that the internal taxes 
 were no longer needed; but his principal argument was 
 that the repeal would be a violation of the plighted faith 
 of the United States. He called attention to the fact that 
 the internal taxes had been solemnly pledged for the pay 
 ment of the interest and principal of foreign loans, with a 
 promise that they should not be diverted without the sub 
 stitution of other funds of equal value. He called upon 
 gentlemen to justify, if they could, this flagrant breach 
 of public faith, which was contained in the abolishing of 
 these taxes without any substitute and on pretence of hav 
 ing made savings of public expense, which he declared 
 
24 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 would amount to little more than savings on paper." (An 
 nals of Congress, 7 Cong. 1 sess. p. 210.) He asserted 
 that the repeal of these taxes, without substituting any 
 thing in their place, would he a blow to the national credit, 
 as it was a violation of national faith. Mr. Nicholas, of 
 Virginia, having suggested that since the pledge referred 
 to by Mr. Ross, we had greatly increased our imposts and 
 pledged them for the public debt, and this should equita 
 bly justify a release of the internal taxes, Mr. Ross replied 
 that the pledge of imposts mentioned by Mr. Nicholas was 
 simply a pledge by the act of 1798 of surplus revenue, 
 whereas by the acts of 1791, 1794 and 1795 the entire in 
 ternal taxes had been specifically pledged. Notwith 
 standing these arguments the bill passed. 
 
 In January, 1803, there was an argument in the Senate 
 upon an episode connected with the well known case of 
 Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, celebrated as the first 
 case in which there was an authoritative announcement by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States that it had the 
 right to declare void an act of congress found to be in vio 
 lation of the constitution. President Adams had appoint 
 ed certain persons, among whom was William Marbury, 
 to be justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. 
 The Senate had confirmed the appointments, and the com 
 missions had been made out, signed and sealed, but they 
 had not been delivered to the appointees at the time when 
 Adams went out of office. Jefferson, acting on the idea 
 that the appointments were not complete until the actual 
 delivery of the commissions, countermanded their issue. 
 Marbury, claiming that his appointment was complete, 
 and that he was entitled to have his commission delivered 
 to him, instituted proceedings in the Supreme Court for 
 a mandamus to compel the Secretary of State, James 
 Madison, to deliver the commission. The Senate was 
 asked to pass a resolution permitting its secretary to give 
 a certified copy of the record of its action confirming the 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 25 
 
 appointment, in order that this might be used as evidence 
 in the mandamus proceeding. Mr. Howard, of Maryland, 
 who had presented the petition for this to the Senate, re 
 marked, when the resolution came up for consideration, 
 that he would not trouble the Senate with any observa 
 tions upon the question, as the request was so reasonable 
 that he concluded it would pass without objection. Much 
 to his surprise, however, it not only precipitated an ex 
 tended debate, but failed altogether of passage. He had 
 overlooked the fact that the resolution had a bearing 
 upon the politics of the day. The party associates of Jef 
 ferson were not willing to permit the passage of this o<r 
 any other resolution that would facilitate a proceeding in 
 the court presided over by John Marshall, the object of 
 which was to question an administrative act of President 
 Jefferson. The resolution was opposed and argued 
 against by a number of administration Senators. It was 
 denounced as an attack upon the Executive, and an at 
 tempt to aid the judiciary to effect an invasion of the Ex 
 ecutive s rights. "It is/ said Mr. Wright, "well known 
 why this certificate is requested. It is to aid an audacious 
 attempt to pry into executive secrets, by a tribunal which 
 has no authority to do any such thing ; and to enable the 
 Supreme Court to assume an unheard of and unbounded 
 power, if not despotism. It is to enable the judiciary to 
 exercise an authority over the President, which he can 
 never consent to. It is well known that the persons ap 
 plying are enemies to the President, and that the court are 
 not friendly to him, and, under these circumstances, to in 
 terfere in the business would be making the Senate a par 
 ty. The resolution was supported by several Federalist 
 Senators, among whom was Boss. He contended that as 
 there was nothing confidential about the action of the Sen 
 ate in confirming the nominations in question, and no in 
 junction of secrecy had been imposed in relation thereto, 
 there was no reason for withholding a copy of the record 
 
26 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 of the action taken, when it was represented that this 
 would be material evidence in a cause pending in a high 
 court of justice ; that the giving leave to take such a copy 
 would not commit the Senate upon the merits of the cause, 
 or even upon the question whether the copy would be le 
 gally admissible in evidence on the contrary, there 
 would be infinitely more force in the allegation that by 
 refusing the copy the Senate would be undertaking to 
 prejudge the case; that this being a public record, any 
 person interested had a right to demand a copy ; that an 
 arbitrary refusal would not extinguish the petitioner s 
 right, nor would it defeat the suitor, as the court would 
 either admit inferior evidence to establish the fact or is 
 sue process to obtain what it conceived to be legally at 
 tainable, and the Senate would be in the awkward situa 
 tion of having interfered to stop a proceeding without 
 having the power to accomplish the object. In reply to 
 an argument, made on the other side, that the President s 
 commission was the sole and exclusive evidence of the 
 right to office, Mr. Boss said that he thought it his duty to 
 enter his protest against this newand highly dangerous doc 
 trine; that there was an end of all free and regular govern 
 ment if the President s commission was conclusive evidence 
 of a right to office, or his proclamation of a treaty was con 
 clusive evidence that it had become the supreme law of 
 the land, notwithstanding it might be found, on investiga 
 tion of the Senate s journals, that the appointment or the 
 treaty had never been constitutionally consented to by 
 that body; that while the commission and the proclama 
 tion were good prima facie evidence, the truth of the case 
 must be subject to inquiry by the courts ; that if the extra 
 ordinary doctrine that had been advanced were to be real 
 ized in practice, the transcendent powers of the President 
 would soon leave little, if any, authority or security to the 
 other departments of the government, 
 
 The resolution was negatived by a vote of 13 to 15. 
 
SKETCH BY ME. JAMES I. BKOWNSON. 27 
 
 In the instances above given of the participation of Sen 
 ator Ross in the debates of the seventh congress, the divi 
 sion among the members was on party lines, and the earn 
 estness with which the questions were debated, on the 
 one side and on the other, was largely due to partisan feel 
 ing. But, partisan though the debates were in their in 
 spiration, it will be noticed that the arguments made by 
 Mr. Ross in these several instances were upon an elevated 
 plane: he stood up for respect to the constitution, for the 
 sacredness of plighted faith, and against arbitrary power. 
 
 The speech that gave Mr. Ross his greatest fame was de 
 livered upon the question of the navigation of the Missis 
 sippi river. Before taking up this speech, it may be well 
 to consider the history of the events leading up to the set 
 tlement of that- question by the Louisiana purchase. 
 
 In 1817 James Monroe, then President of the United 
 States, made a tour in the course of which he visited 
 Pittsburgh. A reception was there given in his honor, 
 and in connection with it a public meeting was held, pre 
 sided over by Mr. Ross, at that time president of the 
 select council of Pittsburgh. In the address of welcome 
 with which he opened the meeting Ross referred to the 
 fact that the distinguished visitor was not only the chief 
 executive of the United States, but also one of the persons 
 who as ministers negotiated the Louisiana purchase and 
 thu.3 secured the free navigation of the Mississippi. In 
 response to this part of the address President Monroe 
 said: 
 
 "The gentleman to whom this country owes a great 
 debt of gratitude for the purchase of Louisiana is now 
 president of this meeting. We always differed in politics. 
 He is a Federalist, I am a Democrat. It was he who 
 first called to the attention of President Jefferson the 
 necessit}^ of demanding the free navigation of the Missis 
 sippi river. It was Senator Ross who made Pittsburgh 
 the Gateway of the West/ " 
 
28 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 To what did Monroe refer by his statement that it was 
 Boss who first called Jefferson s attention to the necessity 
 of demanding the free navigation of the river! Clearly 
 he could not have meant that Jefferson was not familiar 
 with the importance to the country of the navigation of the 
 river until Ross brought it to his attention, for the impor 
 tance of the Mississippi as an outlet for the commerce of 
 this country had been a prominent topic of public discus 
 sion from an early day. In the treaty of peace which 
 closed the Revolutionary War our commissioners, princi 
 pally with a view to its utilization for purposes of naviga 
 tion, insisted on, and obtained, the recognition of the Mis 
 sissippi as our western boundary. And before that peace 
 it had figured in negotiations with Spain for an alliance, 
 the claim, asserted by us and disputed by Spain, that as a 
 people living along the upper waters we had a natural 
 right to sail through Spain s territory to reach the river s 
 mouth, being one of the matters necessary to be adjusted 
 before such an alliance could be formed. Again, in 1787, 
 when negotiations for a commercial treaty with Spain 
 were on foot, the subject was discussed in Congress, Spain 
 demanding, as a condition of such a treaty, that the 
 United States relinquish all claim to the navigation of the 
 river through her territory; and a proposal, by way of 
 compromise, that such claim be relinquished for twenty- 
 five years was finally consented to by the Spanish minis 
 ter, but the project fell through because enough votes 
 could not be had in Congress to ratify a treaty containing 
 such a provision. Jefferson s own State, Virginia, whose 
 boundary at that time was on the Mississippi, was vitally 
 interested in the question, and it was much discussed 
 among Virginians. Jefferson was familiar with the sub 
 ject, and on January 30, 1787, he wrote to Madison, in ref 
 erence to the proposition, then made, that the right of 
 navigation be relinquished for twenty-five years: "The 
 act which abandons it is an act of separation between the 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 29 
 
 eastern and the western country." All this was long be 
 fore James Ross entered public life as a Senator. In 
 view of the facts just stated the question recurs, what did 
 Monroe mean by the statement quoted above from his 
 Pittsburgh speech? Possibly the clue to his meaning is 
 to be found in the citations previously made from Jeffer 
 son s writings. As we have seen, Jefferson in the year 
 1800, by means of Judge Brackenridge s report to him of 
 a conversation with Ross, became possessed of Ross s idea 
 that the transfer of the sovereignty of Louisiana to France 
 from Spain would alter the situation of the United States, 
 by giving France interests antagonistic to ours, and would 
 render it advisable to cultivate the friendship of Great 
 Britain in view of France s rank as a strong power; and 
 we find Jefferson, after his accession to the presidency, 
 writing to Livingston an expanded statement of the very 
 same views that had been expressed by Ross. Is it not 
 likely, then, that what Monroe meant to assert was, that 
 it was from Ross that Jefferson derived the idea that it 
 was important to act, with a view to securing the naviga 
 tion of the river, before France would take possession of 
 Louisiana, or at least before any change in our relations 
 with France should throw any fresh obstacles in our way ; 
 and that it was due to Ross, or to agitation set on foot by 
 him, that Jefferson was led to initiate, just at the oppor 
 tune time, the course of action which resulted in the Louis 
 iana purchase? (As we shall see, Ross himself favored 
 another method of procedure than that followed by Jef 
 ferson.) 
 
 In 1795 a treaty had been concluded with Spain by 
 which that country agreed that the navigation of the Mis 
 sissippi, in its whole breadth and from its source to the 
 gulf, should be free to the citizens of both countries ; that 
 citizens of the United States should be permitted for the 
 space of three years from the date of the treaty to deposit 
 their merchandise and effects in the port of New Orleans, 
 
30 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 and to export them from thence without paying any other 
 duty than a fair price for the hire of the stores ; that either 
 this permission should be continued, if found not to be 
 prejudicial to the interests of Spain, or, if not so contin 
 ued, they should be allowed to have upon another part of 
 the banks of the Mississippi an equivalent establishment. 
 By the treaty of 1800 Spain ceded Louisiana to France, 
 but possession was not delivered in pursuance of this 
 treaty until 1804. The Spanish authorities, still in pos 
 session, suspended in 1802 the right of deposit at New Or 
 leans, which had been continued under the treaty of 1795 
 until that time, but refused to assign any other place upon 
 the banks of the Mississippi for such deposit, in compli 
 ance with the stipulation of the treaty providing for this in 
 the event of a withdrawal of this right as to New Orleans. 
 On January 11, 1803, Jefferson sent to the Senate a spec 
 ial message nominating James Monroe as minister extra 
 ordinary and plenipotentiary, to be joined with Robert R. 
 Livingston as minister plenipotentiary, "with full power 
 to both jointly, or to either on the death of the other, to en 
 ter into a treaty or convention with the First Consul of 
 France for the purpose of enlarging and more effectually 
 securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi 
 and in the territories eastward thereof." As the terri 
 tory was still in Spanish possession, he also nominated Mr. 
 Monroe as minister extraordinary to that power, to be 
 joined with Charles Pinckney, the minister to that coun 
 try, for the purpose of treating with the King of Spain on 
 the same subject. 
 
 A month later, on February 14, 1803, Mr. Ross ad 
 dressed the Senate. Referring to what he characterized 
 as "the unjustifiable, oppressive conduct of the officers of 
 the Spanish government at New Orleans," in suspending 
 the right of deposit, and to the fact that the President had 
 sent an envoy extraordinary to Europe to endeavor to 
 obtain relief from the situation, he stated that he was 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 31 
 
 convinced that more than negotiation was necessary that 
 more power and more means ought to be given to the Pres 
 ident, in order to render his negotiation efficacious, and 
 that he desired to offer certain resolutions upon the sub 
 ject, but before doing so would explain his reasons for pre 
 senting and pressing them. Declaring that "to the free 
 navigation of that river we had an undoubted right from 
 nature, and from the position of our western country/ 
 and this right, and the right of deposit in the island of 
 New Orleans, had been solemnly acknowledged and fixed 
 by the treaty of 1795, which treaty had been wrongfully 
 and insultingly violated, he proceeded to show the vital im 
 portance of the navigation of the river to the western por 
 tion of the United States, and the concern of the country 
 as a whole in the matter. He asserted that, as experience 
 had shown, the security of paper contracts or treaties was 
 too feeble and precarious to insure us the right of naviga 
 tion, and it was his firm and mature opinion that this right 
 would never be secured while the mouth of the Mississippi 
 was exclusively in the hands of the Spaniards : from the 
 very position of our country, from its geographical shape, 
 from motives of complete independence, the command of 
 the navigation of the river ought to be in our hands. He 
 therefore contended that as hostilities had been offered to 
 us by the wrongful act of the Spanish authorities, we 
 should, instead of awaiting the results of a tardy negotia 
 tion, seize the rights of which we had been deprived, plant 
 ourselves upon the river, fortify its banks, and invite those 
 who had an interest at stake to defend it: that when in 
 possession we should be able to negotiate with more ad 
 vantage. He warned the Senate against trifling with the 
 feelings, the hopes and the fears of those who inhabited 
 the western waters, and of the danger that they, should 
 nothing be done for their immediate relief, might take the 
 matter into their own hands and act on their own initia 
 tive. A reference made by him to the probable outcome 
 
32 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 of the pending negotiations with France led to an objec 
 tion that he was trenching upon points of a confidential 
 nature, and a demand that the galleries be cleared. Mr. 
 Ross said he would not proceed with closed doors. The 
 Vice-President ruled that the doors must be closed at the 
 demand of any Senator, after which the Senate would de 
 termine by vote whether or not the business should pro 
 ceed with open doors. Accordingly the galleries were 
 cleared. The Senate having decided that the discussion 
 should be public, Mr. Ross two days later proceeded with 
 his speech. He to some extent repeated and amplified the 
 points he had already made, and concluded by moving the 
 adoption of the following resolutions : 
 
 "Resolved, That the United States have an indis 
 putable right to the free navigation of the river Missis 
 sippi, and to a convenient place of deposit for their pro 
 duce and merchandise in the island of New Orleans. 
 
 "That the late infraction of such their unquestionable 
 right is an aggression hostile to their honor and interest. 
 
 "That it does not consist with the dignity or safety of 
 this Union to hold a right so important by a tenure so un 
 certain. 
 
 "That it materially concerns such of the American cit 
 izens as dwell on the western waters, and is essential to the 
 union, strength and prosperity of these States, that they 
 obtain complete security for the full and peaceable enjoy 
 ment of such their absolute right. 
 
 * t That the President be authorized to take immediate 
 possession of such place or places, in the said island or the 
 adjacent territories, as he may deem fit and convenient 
 for the purpose aforesaid ; and to adopt such other meas 
 ures for obtaining that complete security as to him in his 
 wisdom shall seem meet. 
 
 "That he be authorized to call into actual service any 
 number of the militia of the States of South Carolina, 
 Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, or of the Mississippi 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 33 
 
 Territory, which he may think proper, not exceeding fifty 
 thousand, and to employ them, together with the military 
 and naval forces of the Union, for effecting the objects 
 above mentioned. 
 
 That the sum of five million dollars be appropriated to 
 the carrying into effect the foregoing resolutions, and 
 that the whole or any part of that sum be paid or applied, 
 on warrants drawn in pursuance of such directions as the 
 President may, from time to time, think proper to give to 
 the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 The resolutions were taken up for consideration on Feb 
 ruary 23rd, and were debated for three days. In the 
 course of the debate Mr. Ross made another extended and 
 able speech in support of the resolutions. In response to 
 an objection that these resolutions meant war, and that ne 
 gotiations should be tried, and exhausted, before resorting 
 to war for redress of grievances, he said that he would 
 agree to an amendment eliminating any direction to the 
 President and giving him a bare discretionary power. In 
 this speech is a remarkable passage exhibiting a broad, 
 statesmanlike view y of the value of Louisiana that was la 
 ter to win the acceptance of the nation : 
 
 "We are not deliberating," said he, "about the right 
 of deposit in New Orleans merely, nor about the island 
 of New Orleans; we are told that we are to look for new 
 and powerful neighbors in Louisiana. What right has 
 Spain to give us these neighbors without consulting us? 
 To change our present security into hazard and uncertain 
 ty ? I do not believe that Spain has a right to do so-. 
 
 "What are the limits of Louisiana? It extends three 
 thousand miles upon your frontier. New Orleans is ceded 
 with it. Then the province of Louisiana and New Orleans 
 lie between the Floridas, and the other Spanish domin 
 ions on this continent. It is not difficult to determine who 
 will command and own the Floridas. They must belong 
 to the master of Louisiana and New Orleans. Then the 
 owners possess the lock and key of the whole western conn- 
 
34 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 try. There is no entrance or egress but by their leave. 
 They have not only three thousand miles on your frontier 
 in the interior country, but they have the command of your 
 outlet to the ocean, and seven hundred miles of sea coast 
 embracing the finest harbors in North America. This 
 makes them, in fact, masters of the western world. What 
 will you give them for this enviable dominion ? . . . . 
 What would this Senate take for the surrender of such an 
 establishment were it ours?" 
 
 The result of the vote taken at the conclusion of the 
 debate was that a substitute, offered by Mr. Breck- 
 inridge of Kentucky, was adopted in the place of the reso 
 lutions of Mr. Eoss. This substitute, omitting all decla 
 rations as to the rights of the United States respecting the 
 Mississippi, merely provided that the President be au 
 thorized, whenever he should judge it expedient, to call 
 out 80,000 effective militia, permitting State executives to 
 furnish, as a part of this detachment, corps of volunteers ; 
 that an appropriation be made for the pay and subsistence 
 of such troops, and for defraying such other expenses as 
 during the recess of Congress the President might deem 
 necessary for the securing of the territory of the United 
 States; and another appropriation for erecting at such 
 place or places on the western waters as the President 
 might judge most proper, one or more arsenals. 
 
 In the course of the debate Mr. Ross had expressed 
 his doubts as to whether much could be hoped for from 
 the French negotiations. Entertaining the view as to 
 the value of New Orleans and Louisiana that is expressed 
 in the quotation given above from his last speech, he 
 did not think France would be willing to part with any 
 portion of what he characterized as "the lock and key of 
 the whole western country." Had he been aware of the 
 motives operating upon the mind of the First Consul ; 
 had he known that Bonaparte was anticipating the out 
 break of another tvar with England, and fearing that in 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 35 
 
 the course of that war England would wrest Louisiana 
 from him, Ross would have thought very differently of 
 the prospects of negotiation. The event proved that 
 peaceable negotiation was the better way. But the nego 
 tiation was originally directed toward the acquisition only 
 of New Orleans and the territory east of the river; and 
 the ambassadors with noble courage exceeded their in 
 structions when they signed the treaty for the acquisition 
 of the entire imperial domain of Louisiana. Can it be 
 doubted (whatever view we may entertain of the wisdom 
 or propriety of the specific proposals embodied in James 
 Ross s resolutions ) that the debate which these resolutions 
 brought about, and the views respecting the value of Lou 
 isiana which he expressed in that debate, assisted in pre 
 paring the minds of the people for the ready acceptance of 
 that treaty and in paving the way for its ratification by 
 the Senate! 
 
 The Louisiana purchase was one of the most mo 
 mentous episodes in our national history. It was the first 
 step in the march of expansion which has carried us from 
 the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean. Without it, the 
 growth of the United States into a wOrld power such as it 
 now is would doubtless have been impossible. For the 
 service which, as Monroe tells us, he rendered in directing 
 Jefferson s attention to the necessity of taking the action 
 which led to this purchase, and for his work in preparing 
 the way for the final acceptance and success of the treaty, 
 we may well echo Monroe s words, in saying that to James 
 Ross this country owes a great debt of gratitude. 
 
 On March 3, 1803, Ross attended the Senate for the last 
 time. The next day he became, by the expiration of his 
 term, a private citizen. 
 
 While serving as a Senator he had twice been the can 
 didate of the Federalists for the governorship of Pennsyl 
 vaniain 1799 and in 1802, being defeated each time by 
 
36 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 Thomas McKean, the candidate of what afterwards be 
 came known as the Democratic party. Five years after 
 his retirement from the Senate he became the standard 
 bearer of his party in the gubernatorial election of 1808, 
 his opponent being Simon Snyder. His defeat was inevi 
 table. The Federalists were a waning party, fighting in 
 vain against the Democratic reaction of which Thomas 
 Jefferson was the leader and exponent, and no candidate 
 representing them could hope for success in that election. 
 The campaigns against Ross, however, were conducted 
 largely along the line of personalities, rather than that of 
 a discussion of party principles. He was attacked, abused, 
 and vilified. His public acts were ascribed to reprehensi 
 ble motives, and he was held up as a man of such princi 
 ples as to make it improper to entrust him with power. 
 Remembering certain political campaigns of slander that 
 have occurred in our own day, we can understand how 
 much reliance to place upon personal attacks against a 
 candidate a century ago as evidence of his true character. 
 A s previously mentioned, his vote against permitting re 
 ligious tests, in the constitutional convention of 1790, was 
 adduced as evidence of atheism and hostility to religion, 
 and it was argued that it was unsafe to place in the hands 
 of a man of such tendencies the extensive appointing pow 
 er which the governors then wielded. The absurd charge 
 was made that in his enmity to religion he had sought to 
 cast ridicule upon its ordinances by administering the sac 
 rament to his dogs. Under date of August 29, 1808, the 
 Rev. John McMillan signed a statement which was pub 
 lished by the supporters of Ross in reply to this charge : 
 
 "This is to certify that I have been intimately acquaint 
 ed with James Ross*,esq.,of Pittsburgh, for more than thir 
 ty years; that I never heard him speak, or heard of him 
 speaking disrespectfully of religion or religious persons; 
 that the stories which are propagated respecting him, as 
 being a deist, and prostituting the ordinances of the Gos- 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 37 
 
 pel, I believe to be wholly unfounded. I short, I know 
 nothing, nor have I ever heard anything against his moral 
 character that could in the smallest degree disqualify him 
 for the office of governor, or ought to be objected against 
 him as a candidate for that office, and I am determined to 
 give him all the support in my power, and hope that all 
 the friends of religion and good order will do the same. 
 
 "JOHN MCMILLAN." 
 
 "Wash. County, Aug. 29, 1808." 
 
 The result of this publication was to bring out at 
 tacks upon Dr. McMillan himself in the newspapers op 
 posed to Ross. The command of the decalogue, "Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness, was suggested to the Doctor 
 as a proper subject for serious study, and it was sought 
 to discredit him, as a voucher for the character of Ross T 
 by publishing a part of the record of the slander suit 
 brought against him by Mr. Birch, to show that he had 
 been a defamer of the latter. 
 
 During the campaign there were published at intervals 
 in the "Aurora," of Philadelphia, the leading Jeffer- 
 sonian newspaper, over the signature of Jane Marie, a 
 number of communications charging Mr. Ross with gross 
 oppression and mistreatment of Mrs. Marie in connec 
 tion with the former s acquisition of his property on 
 Grant s Hill in Pittsburgh, a part of which is now occu 
 pied by the Allegheny County court house. This proper 
 ty was purchased by Ross in 1803 from a Frenchman, 
 John Marie, the husband of the signer of these communica 
 tions. In these publications she informed the public that 
 in 1803, and for ten years previous thereto, she had lived 
 with her husband on the Grant s Hill property, which by 
 the taste of her husband and by her own industry had been 
 converted into a "little paradise;" that her husband had 
 entered into an engagement with her, which was entered 
 upon the public records of the county, never to sell the 
 property on Grant s Hill; that on January 3, 1803, Mr, 
 
38 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 Marie left Pittsburgh in company with Mr. Ross, and after 
 wards proceeded to France ; that about the end of March, 
 1803, on his return to Pittsburgh after attendance in the 
 Senate, Mr. Ross came to her home and informed her that 
 he had bought the property from her husband, to which 
 she replied that Mr. Marie had obtained her signature to 
 deeds for other property by engaging never to part with 
 this one, and she would not permit Ross to have it ; that 
 two or three days later she received a letter from Ross, 
 dated April 1st, of which she gave a copy, the substance 
 of which was that he hoped on better advice and consider 
 ation she would see the propriety of giving him possession, 
 and that he could not consent to cancel his purchase nor 
 was this desired by Mr. Marie, and her continued refusal- 
 to deliver possession ^vould be attended with serious mis 
 fortunes to herself, closing by assuring her of his readiness 
 to do anything which any counsel she might engage should 
 say was justly and honorably expected from him ; that the 
 "menaces" of Mr. Ross, contained in this letter, were car 
 ried into cruel perpetration; she was on August 3, 1803, 
 expelled from her home in an ir decent and barbarous man 
 ner the door was broken open with an axe, she was torn 
 from her bed chamber by the hair of the head, l seized by 
 the legs by a vile ruffian of the name of Griffin" and 
 "dragged, senseless and naked into the public street, 
 where (she) lay, an object of horror to the passengers, who 
 dared not, at the risque of life, to interfere or rescue her. 
 All this, she charged, was done by the orders and direction 
 of James Ross. She further alleged that about five or six 
 months later, as she and her child were walking one even 
 ing past her former residence, then in the occupancy of 
 Ross, the latter sprang forth, an enormous whip of cowhide 
 in his hand, and with horrid imprecations fell upon and at 
 tacked her and the child, beating both of them, and, after 
 breaking upon her the lash of the whip, clubbed it and 
 beat her with the butt into insensibility, inflicting wounds 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 39 
 
 the marks of which she bore upon her for a long time. 
 She complained, further, that Mr. Ross had the courts, 
 magistrates and lawyers all terrorized, so that she was 
 utterly unable to obtain any redress against him. 
 
 If all these allegations were to be accepted as true, they 
 would cast a great stain upon the character and reputation 
 of James Ross. It is patent to the reader, however, that 
 Mrs. Marie s statements need to be very considerably dis 
 counted. Evidently and manifestly, this woman did not 
 write these newspaper communications herself; it is plain 
 that they must have been prepared by a political writer, 
 and the purpose of their publication was avowedly to in 
 fluence the voters in a political campaign. These circum 
 stances, in connection with the general style and manner 
 of the writing, and especially certain insinuations which 
 are made against Mrs. Marie s own lawyers, the principal 
 one of whom was Henry Baldwin, afterwards Mr. Justice 
 Baldwin of the Supreme Court of the United States, stamp 
 her statements as not to be accepted without great allow 
 ance. 
 
 Mrs. Marie s charges fall into two distinct divisions, one 
 relating to her expulsion from the Grant s Hill property, 
 and the other to the horsewhipping, some six months later. 
 
 In reply to the first branch of her allegations there were 
 published statements made by several persons. One of 
 these was signed by John Marie. In it he said that after 
 offering the property to other persons, who were not will 
 ing to give the price he asked for it, he finally offered it to 
 Ross (without telling the latter that he intended to leave 
 his family and go to France) and Ross, who had never so 
 licited the purchase, agreeing to Marie s terms, a contract 
 of sale was entered into ; that Marie then went to France, 
 and forwarded thence a letter of attorney to Thomas Col 
 lins, Steel Semple, John B. C. Lucas and John Johnston, 
 authorizing and requiring them to carry his contract into 
 effect, to receive the purchase money owing upon it and to 
 
40 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 invest the same for the support of his family. Joseph Bar 
 ker and George Stevenson certified that before making the 
 sale to Ross, Marie had offered the property to them, but 
 they declined the purchase, thinking the price too great. 
 Another of the statements published was made by John 
 Wilkins, Jr., of Pittsburgh, who said among other things 
 that Mr. Ross had nothing to do with the transaction of 
 putting Mrs. Marie out of the property, which was man 
 aged by the attorneys of Mr. Marie, and that in Pitts 
 burgh, where the circumstances were well known, her story 
 would not operate in the smallest degree to the prejudice 
 of Mr. Ross. 
 
 Let us now see what light the records of Allegheny 
 throw upon the history of this affair. 
 
 John Marie was the owner of outlot No. 6 in the manor 
 of Pittsburgh, containing six acres and fifty-three perches, 
 which was conveyed to him by the proprietaries on May 
 24, 1786. This embraced substantially the whole of the 
 blocks in the present city of Pittsburgh lying between 
 Fourth and Fifth avenue and Grant and Ross streets. On 
 February 13, 1797, he signed and acknowledged the agree 
 ment with Mrs. Marie to which she refers. It is recorded 
 in Deed Book 6 at page 448. By it, in consideration of 
 Mrs. Marie s signing a deed for the conveyance to George 
 Stevenson of certain other property, Marie covenanted and 
 agreed with his wife that he would not at any time * i grant, 
 bargain or sell, lease or convev to any person whatsoever, 
 for any consideration whatsoever," outlot No. 6 or any 
 part thereof, without his wife s full consent and approba 
 tion. By this agreement he did not give, or undertake to 
 give, to Mrs. Marie any interest in this property ; he mere 
 ly covenanted and promised that he would not sell it to 
 any one else without her consent. 
 
 On January 14, 1803, an agreement was signed by and 
 between John Marie and James Ross, which is of record 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 41 
 
 in Deed Book No. 12 at page 62. By this instrument 
 Marie granted, bargained, sold, etc., to Ross, his heirs and 
 assigns, outlet No. 6, and covenanted to deliver possession 
 thereof on the first day of April next ensuing, and also on 
 or before said day to make a good and sufficient deed of con 
 veyance, clear of all encumbrances; further to deliver to 
 Ross s order certain garden implements, and a certain 
 cow, and to leave all grates that were in the house. Tn 
 consideration of this, Ross bound himself to pay $2,000 in 
 hand and to give two bonds for $800 each, bearing interest 
 from April 1st, one to be payable September 1, 1803, and 
 the other March 1, 1804. It was further stipulated that if 
 an order given by Ross to Marie for the $2,000 should not 
 be accepted and paid by the drawees, Thomas McEuen 
 Co., the whole bargain should become void and be cancel 
 ed. Appended to the instrument is a receipt, signed by 
 Marie, for a bill on Thomas McEuen & Co., for $2,000 on 
 ten days sight, and two bonds for $800 each. 
 
 By this agreement Ross became legally entitled to pos 
 session on April 1st, 1803. Mrs. Marie not being a party 
 to it, he would take subject to her right to claim dower, 
 should she survive her husband; but, as the legal owner 
 of the property, Mr. Marie had the power to sell it and 
 deliver possession subject to the dower rights of his wife. 
 Nor would the agreement of 1797 between Marie and his 
 wife interfere with the exercise of such a power : it may 
 be doubted whether, in the then state of the law of married 
 women, the agreement was legally worth anything at all , 
 in any event it would seem not to be specifically enforce 
 able as a restriction of Mr. Marie s dominion over his own 
 property, because it did not purport or undertake to give 
 Mrs. Marie any interest therein, and the prospective dow 
 er interest which she already had by law would not he 
 interfered with by any sale her husband might make with 
 out her joinder. If, however, we lay out of view the que- 
 tion of its legal enforcibility, and look only at the ethics 
 
42 SENATOR JAMES ROSS. 
 
 of the transaction by which this sale was made in disre 
 gard of Marie s promise not to sell without his wife s con 
 sent, two remarks concerning this are to be made: firs 4 , 
 that there is nothing to show that Ross, at the time when he 
 entered into the contract, was aware that this promise had 
 been given ; and second, that the divorce record to be men 
 tioned hereafter indicates that Mrs. Marie was chargeable 
 with such a failure to conform to her duties as a w T ife as 
 would absolve Mr. Marie from his promise. 
 
 At No. 167 June Term, 1803, in the Court of Common 
 Pleas of Allegheny County, Ross instituted an action >f 
 ejectment to obtain possession of the lot in pursuance oi 
 his purchase. At this time tha old practice in ejectment by 
 which this action was based upon a supposed fictitious 
 lease, and fictitious parties were named as plaintiff and 
 defendant, was still in vogue, and in accordance with it th j 
 case was entitled "Richard Fen, lessee of James Ross, vs. 
 John Den, with notice to John Marie, tenant in posses 
 sion." On August 4, 1803, Steel Semple, Esq., appeared 
 as attorney for John Marie, and confessed judgment 
 against him for the premises described in the declaration. 
 Thereupon a writ of habere facias, commanding the sher 
 iff to deliver possession to the plaintiff, was issued. On 
 November 15, 1803, Mr. Baldwin appeared for Mrs. Marie 
 and obtained a rule to show cause why the judgment 
 should not be opened to permit her to make a defense. 
 The same day, on hearing, this rule was discharged. 
 
 On November 15, 1806, to No. 90, November term, 
 1806, John Marie sued for a divorce from Jane Marie. In 
 this proceeding Mr. Marie was represented by Mr. Moun 
 tain, and the attorney of Mrs. Marie was Mr. Wilkins. 
 The case resulted in a decree, entered by the court on Au 
 gust 14, 1807, "that the said John Marie be divorced from 
 the bonds of matrimony contracted with the said Jane 
 Marie, and that their marriage henceforth be null and 
 void. Pending this suit, Mrs. Marie had presented a pe- 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 43 
 
 tition for alimony, which was docketed to No. 36 April 
 term, 1807. After several continuances, this petition was 
 disposed of by the laconic entry, i i Dismissed. 
 
 Having obtained a divorce, and thus being able by his 
 own deed to convey a complete title, Mr. Marie executed a 
 conveyance dated August 28, 1807, two weeks after the de 
 cree granting the divorce, by which he transferred to Mr. 
 Ross the legal title to outlet No. 6, "in order to complete 
 and carry into effect" the agreement of January 14, 1803. 
 
 From all this it is evident that domestic infelicities 
 which had developed in the married life of John and Jane 
 Marie were at the bottom of the whole affair. It was his 
 marital troubles, apparently, that led Mr. Marie in Janu 
 ary, 1803, to sell his property and depart for France. 
 To some extent the husband and wife may be regarded as 
 fighting each other over Mr. Boss s shoulders. 
 
 Mrs. Marie says that her expulsion from the possession 
 of the property took place on August 3rd. The record of 
 the ejectment suit shows that the writ of habere facias, the 
 purpose of which was to effect a transfer of the possession, 
 was issued on August 4th. The thought naturally occurs, 
 whether there can be any error or confusion of dates here, 
 as one would suppose that what would be most likely and 
 natural to happen would be that the dispossession of Mrs. 
 Marie would take place under and in pursuance of the 
 writ of habere facias, and that whatever force was made 
 use of would be brought on by her making forcible resist 
 ance to the execution of the writ. If, however, we accept the 
 statement that Mrs. Marie was expelled on the third, and 
 consider this in connection with the statement of Mr. Wil- 
 kins that the obtaining possession from her was managed 
 by Mr. Marie s attorneys and not by Mr. Boss, then it 
 would seem that the transaction of the third was the tak 
 ing of possession by agents of her husband, and Mr. Boss 
 obtained his possession on the fourth, in a lawful manner, 
 by means of legal process. But Mrs. Marie s harrowing 
 
44 SENATOK JAMES BOSS. 
 
 tale of cruelty and barbarity is drawn in such high colors, 
 and is so evidently grossly exaggerated, that one cannot 
 give it credence, no matter who is to be regarded as respon 
 sible for her expulsion. No doubt there was a scuffle, and 
 no doubt in resisting the setting of herself and her belong 
 ings out of the house she made such a struggle that some 
 injury to herself would inevitably occur, but the account 
 published in her name has colored the facts with a view to 
 creating the desired impression upon the minds of the vot 
 ers. Thus the statement that she was dragged naked and 
 senseless into the public street, is no doubt merely a poetic 
 expression of the fact that in the scuffle incident to ejecting 
 her some of her clothing was torn, and the further fact 
 that her ejection was not accomplished until her powers, 
 were all expended and she was by complete exhaustion in 
 capable of further resistance. 
 
 A similar view may be taken of the second division 
 of her charges, relating to the horsewhipping which she 
 alleges was inflicted upon herself and her child by Mr. 
 Ross some months later. Her story as to that does not, to 
 my mind, bear upon its face the aspect of truth, and I can 
 not believe it. It may be true that there occurred at 
 that time some sort of a scuffle between herself and Mr. 
 Ross, but if so I believe she began the fight herself. 
 
 The reasonable conclusion seems to be that whatever was 
 actually done by Mr. Ross in the matter of the Grant s 
 Hill property, was but the assertion and enforcement in a 
 lawful manner of his legal rights. Whether or not, aside 
 from the question of legal right, and viewing the matter 
 solely from the standpoint of what a chivalrous gentleman 
 ought to and would do in the circumstances, he merited 
 any blame for lack of forbearance and regard for the situ 
 ation in which Mrs. Marie was placed, after he had learn 
 ed of the engagement her husband had given her not to 
 part with this property, it is of course difficult, by reason 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 45 
 
 of our very imperfect knowledge of the facts, to say, 
 though in this connection we must not forget his offer, in 
 the letter he wrote her on April 1, 1803, to do whatever 
 her counsel might say should be justly and honorably ex 
 pected of him, which would indicate that he desired to 
 treat her fairly and considerately. And moreover any 
 other disposition would not be in accord with the charac 
 ter which persons who knew him intimately attributed 
 to him. 
 
 To show what kind of a man James Ross really was, 
 I may here mention a fact for the knowledge of which I 
 am indebted to our worthy President. Mr. Crumrine in 
 forms me that some years ago he was told the following 
 story by a gentleman of Pittsburgh. An ancestor of Mr. 
 Crumrine s informant, holding a tract of land in Alle 
 gheny county under a conveyance made by James Boss, 
 was sued in ejectment, the action being based upon an 
 adverse title. The result of the case was that the title of 
 the plaintiff in that action prevailed, and the title which 
 Ross had conveyed proved to be bad. But the deed which 
 Boss had made for the land in question did not contain 
 a covenant of general warranty, and accordingly Boss was 
 under no legal obligation whatever to make any compensa 
 tion for this failure of the title. Nevertheless, when the 
 litigation came to an end, and the title which he had con 
 veyed was finally adjudged not good, he voluntarily, of his 
 own motion, and without even a request or a suggestion that 
 he ought to indemnify the man who had thus lost his 
 land, went to the latter and handed him a deed for anoth 
 er tract of land, the value of which was fully equal to if 
 not greater than that of the land which had been recovered 
 in the ejectment suit. He did this because he felt that^ 
 as he had been paid in good faith for the land which had 
 been swept away by an adverse title, it was the fair and 
 honorable thing to make good the loss thus suffered, even 
 though he were not legally bound to do so. One who will 
 
46 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 do a thing like this, for reasons and with motives such as 
 I have indicated, shows himself to be a man of high prin 
 ciples and a keen sense of honor. 
 
 Speaking of the character and manner of Ross s busi 
 ness dealings, the " History of Allegheny County," after 
 referring to the fact that he had money to lend, and, de 
 siring to lend it safely, was extremely careful about the 
 security for his loans, (which tended to create the idea 
 that he was of a mercenary disposition,) says of him: 
 
 "But he never oppressed any one, and always main 
 tained his integrity as a man and a lawyer. . . . Al 
 together he was a man of great intellect, and a sound law 
 yer, who left a good reputation behind him. 
 
 In another place, this History says : 
 
 "It was the peculiarity of Mr. Ross to be the friend of 
 men in trouble, and when he had money to lend he was 
 ready to help any one in whom he had confidence. And 
 he was no Shylock. He never exacted a heavy rate of 
 interest. When money was worth 20 to 30 per cent, he 
 stuck to the legal rate of 6 per cent. He never demanded 
 more, and would accept of nothing less. And he always 
 got his money back, or its equivalent in land. His kindness 
 was shown, not in giving, but in helping, and he helped 
 many a one, both then [referring to the financial crisis of 
 1817] and long afterward. Among others he helped 
 [James] O Hara and delivered him from the fear of the 
 sheriff and from the agony which pecuniary pressure 
 brings. Ross tided him over that terrible depression, and 
 when O Hara came to die he was able to make a careful 
 division of his huge estate, free from the burden that 
 would have broken him down had Ross not lifted its weight 
 from him. 
 
 After the election of 1808, Mr. Ross did not appear as 
 a candidate in either State or national politics, except that 
 in 1816 he received five electoral votes, from Connecticut, 
 for Vice-President. He interested himself, however, in 
 
SKETCH BY MR. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 47 
 
 municipal affairs, and from 1816 to 1833 was president of 
 the select council of the city of Pittsburgh. During all 
 this period the select council was largely Democratic, and 
 the fact that, notwithstanding this, he was thus kept at 
 its head is a striking evidence of the esteem which he held 
 in the community : it was because he enjoyed the public 
 confidence, and his participation in managing the city s 
 affairs was regarded as for its best interests, and not be 
 cause of political influence. 
 
 He practiced his profession, and, engaging to some ex 
 tent in land speculations, he became by the appreciation of 
 real estate values possessed of considerable wealth. 
 
 In 1834, for the consideration of $20,000, he conveyed to 
 the commissioners of Allegheny County the court-house 
 square in Pittsburgh, bounded by Fifth Avenue, and 
 Grant, Diamond and Ross streets, embracing a part of the 
 Marie property. That portion of this property which 
 extends from Diamond street to Fourth Avenue, between 
 Grant and Ross streets, he retained until his death. He 
 resided upon this for many years. In his will, which is 
 dated October 5, 1841, he speaks of it as the "piece of 
 ground ... on which I lately resided. " He was at 
 that date residing upon a lot in Allegheny City, on Stock 
 ton avenue, east of Sandusky street, where he spent the 
 remainder of his life. He owned a large body of land on 
 the Allegheny river, containing between 2,000 and 3,000 
 acres, a part of which is now occupied by the town of 
 Aspinwall. In the center of this tract he built, in the latter 
 part of the second decade of the nineteenth century, a man 
 sion which he used as a country residence. It is now the 
 residence of Robert C. Hall, who owns, in connection with 
 it, about five hundred acres of the Ross land. 
 
 His life covered an interesting period in the develop 
 ment of what is known in the business world as the Pitts 
 burgh district. The date at which he became a resident of 
 Pittsburgh was less than a year after the original incor- 
 
48 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 poration of that town as a borough by the act of April 22, 
 1794, and it then had a population of less than 1500. In 
 deed, the returns of the preceding census showed that the 
 entire county of Allegheny, which at that time embraced 
 the present counties of Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Craw 
 ford, Erie, Lawrence, Mercer, Warren and Venango, had 
 in 1790 but 10,390 inhabitants. He lived to see a popula 
 tion of about 50,000 in the two cities of Pittsburgh and Al 
 legheny, and of about 130,000 within the limits of Alle 
 gheny County as these had been reduced by the organiza 
 tion, out of her territory, of the nine other counties above 
 mentioned. In 1816 Pittsburgh had advanced sufficiently 
 to receive a city charter, and as we have already seen, Mr. 
 Ross became in that year president of the select council and 
 continued, in that capacity, until 1833 to take a prominent 
 part in the management of its municipal affairs. In this 
 way, as well as by his connection, legal and financial, with 
 various enterprises, he assisted materially in building up 
 what has now developed into the great city of Pittsburgh. 
 He lived to be eighty-five years of age, and for a time 
 preceding his death his mental faculties, as well as his 
 bodily vigor, were much impaired. During this period 
 he is reported to have destroyed many letters and docu 
 ments which he had received from President Washington. 
 Their disappearance is doubtless a serious historical loss. 
 Death came to him on Saturday, November 27, 1847. On 
 the following Monday the members of the bar of Alle- 
 k^cay County held a meeting to give expression to their 
 respect for his memory. It was presided over by Robert 
 C. Grier, of the Supreme Court of the United States. A 
 series of resolutions, presented ,,v Wilson McCandless, aft 
 erwards Judge of the United States District Court, were 
 adopted, reading as follows : 
 
 The senior of the Pennsylvania Bar is no more. James 
 Ross, celebrated throughout the Union as a lawyer and a 
 
SKETCH BY MB. JAMES I. BKOWNSON. 49 
 
 statesman, departed this life on Saturday, at his residence 
 in Allegheny City ; and the bar of Pittsburgh, profoundly 
 appreciating his great talents, and varied learning, have 
 assembled on this occasion to do honor to his illustrious 
 memory. 
 
 1 1 With Addison and Semple, and Campbell, and Woods, 
 and Foster, and Bai^vvin, he gave character and reputation 
 to this bar. His deportment was that of a polished gentle 
 man, and his forensic eloquence made an impression 
 upon the minds anu ^earts of the people of Western Penn 
 sylvania that will not soon be eradicated. His knowledge 
 of the law is stamped upon the reports of cases argued and 
 determined by the gigantic intellect of that early period, 
 and the journals of the Senate of the United States bear 
 witness to the greatness of his statesmanship. 
 
 Resolved, That the event we deplore, although in the 
 course of nature expected, fills us with grief. 
 
 Resolved, That we will endeavor to imitate his vir 
 tues. 
 
 Resolved, That we will wear the badge of mourning, 
 and attend his funeral in a body, tomorrow morning at 9 
 o clock/ 
 
 The funeral services were held at his late residence in 
 Allegheny City, on Tuesday, November 30. They were 
 attended by the judges, the bar and a large concourse of 
 people. His body was interred in the Allegheny Ceme 
 tery at Pittsburgh. 
 
 Mr. Boss was married, on January 13, 1791, to Ann 
 Woods, a daughter of George Woods, of Bedford, Penn 
 sylvania, who was a colonel of the Pennsylvania troops 
 during the war of the Revolution, and a prominent official 
 of Bedford County under the first constitution of the State, 
 and, as a surveyor, assisted by his son George, laid out 
 the town of Pittsburgh in 1784. John Woods, another son 
 of Col. Woods, was one of the earliest members of the Al- 
 
50 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 legheny County bar. Mrs. Boss died at Cornwall, Pennsyl 
 vania, on September 11, 1805, in the thirty-fifth year of 
 her age, having been born on January 13, 1771. James 
 and Ann Boss had three children: James, Mary Jane an l 
 George W. Ross. The two sons died unmarried. The 
 daughter, Mary Jane, born at Pittsburgh June 28, 1797, 
 was married on October 7, 1816, to Edward Coleman of 
 Lancaster and Philadelphia, who served in the assembly 
 and also in the senate of Pennsylvania. She died at Lan 
 caster on September 27, 1825, leaving three children 
 Anne Boss, Harriet, and Mary Jane. The only one of 
 these who left descendants was Harriet, Mary Jane having 
 died unmarried, and the children of Anne (who married 
 George W. Aspinwall) having all died in youth. Harriet 
 married Eugene A. Livingston, a grandson of Chancellor 
 Bobert B. Livingston. (Of the latter I have made menti ori 
 in connection with his ministry to France and the nego 
 tiation of the Louisiana purchase.) She had two children, 
 Eugene and Mary Coleman. Eugene died in 1861, at the 
 age of seventeen years, of fever contracted while serving 
 in the Union army. 
 
 Mary Cbleman married Maturin L, Delafield, of New 
 York City. They have issue) as follows : 
 
 1. Maturin L, Delafield, Jr., born September 29, 1869, 
 now residing a<t St. Moritz, Switzerland. 
 
 2. Joseph L. Delafield, born March 19, 1871, who is a 
 lawyer in New York City. 
 
 3. John Boss Delafield, born May 8, 1874. He also is 
 a practicing lawyer in the City of New York. He has one 
 son, John White Boss Delafieid, born May 12, 1905. 
 
 4. Julia L. Delafield, born October 14, 1875, now Mrs. 
 Frederick William Longfellow. She has three children: 
 Julia Delafield Longfellow, born April 28, 1902 ; Freder 
 ick Livingston Longfellow, born August 18, 1903, and 
 Elizabeth Delafield Longfellow, born February 14, 1905. 
 
SKETCH BY ME. JAMES I. BROWNSON. 51 
 
 5. Edward Coleman Delafield, born July 10, 1877, who 
 is engaged in business in New 1 York City. His children 
 are Maturin L. Delafield, 3rd, born March 17, 1901 ; Mar- 
 garetta Stockton Delafield, born November 3, 1904, and 
 Edward Coleman Delafield, born February 14, 1906. 
 
 6. Mary Livington Delafield, born November 23, 1878. 
 
 7. Harriet Coleman Delafield, born May 7, 1880, now 
 the wife of Jarvis Pomeroy Carter. 
 
 8. Eugene L. Delafield, born August 18, 1882, a gradu 
 ate in mechanical engineering of the Stevens Institute of 
 Technology. 
 
 The Delafield family, as will be seen, are the only liv 
 ing descendants of Senator Bo&s. 
 
 The name of James Boss is commemorated by Boss 
 street in Pittsburgh and by Boss township in Allegheny 
 County. Boss County, in Ohio, is also named for him. In 
 view of the fact that his career commenced in Washington 
 and that he attained eminence and became, Senator while 
 residing here, the town of Washington), or Washington 
 County, ought to give his name to some street or municipal 
 subdivision. 
 
52 SENATOR JAMES BOSS. 
 
 HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF YORK COUNTY. 
 
 Curator and Librarian, 
 George R. Prowell. 
 
 York, Pa., March 14, 1910. 
 
 HON. BOYD CRUMRINE, 
 
 Washington, Pa. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR Your letter and the newspaper reached me on 
 Saturday last. I read the article on Senator James Ross with great 
 interest. It is by far the most complete sketch of him that has ever 
 been written. The author made a diligent study of the life and 
 character of that distinguished statesman before he prepared his 
 paper. He deserves commendation for his splendid biography. I did 
 not find an error in the paper, which is written in an excellent style. 
 
 When you publish the pamphlet, please send to the Historical 
 Society of York County at least two copies. I would like to have more 
 copies, and would be pleased to send you some of our pamphlets if 
 your Society does not have them on file at present. 
 
 I expect to see you in Harrisburg in January. The session of the 
 Federation was short, lasting only two hours. 
 
 I have a steel portrait of James Ross and his birth place, hanging 
 on the wall of the large room in our new Court House, occupied by 
 our Society. This property has recently passed out of the hands of 
 the Ramseys, who are descendants of a sister of Senator James Ross. 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 GEO. R. PROWELL.