OBITUARY. 17 



tlie battle deserved all my courage, for I was immediately and 

 constantly threatened with assassination ! I felt compelled, in 

 self-defense, to carry my old war pistols all the time in the Hall 

 of Representatives and elsewhere." 



Nevertheless, he stood firmly by the side of w-hat he believed 

 to be the right. Though tempered with extreme charity toward 

 Lis opponents, his words were edged with the keenness of convic- 

 tion. The Missouri compromise was passed, and he was one of 

 the majority of three that carried it, after he had addressed the 

 House upon the question with great vigor and effect. He also 

 introduced the first resolutions ever offered to exchange our pub- 

 lic lands for slaves, and to send the latter in families, with the 

 Bible and the plow, to Africa as fast as the sale of the public 

 lands would allow, declaring to Congress that if the plan were 

 not then adopted the increase of the blacks would soon render it 

 impossible, and a civil war must ensue between the JYorth and South. 

 He lived to see his prediction sadly verified, to see with his clos- 

 ing eye our Union, the great beacon-fire of liberty, whose kind- 

 ling he had known, flicker dimly and fitfully in the presence of 

 bewildered nations 1 Men may not coincide with him concerning 

 the cause of the great calamity, but none will deny the purity or 

 the boldness of his purpose. 



Subsequently Mr. Meigs represented New York city in the 

 State Assembly, and in 1832, as president of the Board of Alder- 

 men, was a stanch servant of the city's interests. He, at that 

 time, strongly advocated the introduction, on a grand scale, of 

 the Croton water, and penned the first resolutions which were 

 offered on the subject. 



The American Institute elected Mr. Meigs recording secretary 

 in 1845, and this position, in connection with that of secretary of 

 the Farmers' Club, he occupied up to the time of his death. The 

 minutes of the meetings and the records of the transactions of 

 the Institute bear witness to his indefatigable industry and his 

 devoted attachment to the cause of Agriculture. No research was 

 too intricate, no exertion too great, provided that by any effort of 

 his own he could add either to its dissemination or to its interests. 

 Day after day in later years he was to be seen faithfully laboring 

 at his post, and keenly at the present time must his co-workers 

 of the Institute feel that the blank in their midst cannot soon be 

 filled. His collations from the foreign journals of science, par- 



[Am. Inst.] B 



