836 



WAITE, MORRISON REMICK. 



Court in four cases, involving all the mooted 

 questions. Later, the United States Supreme 

 Court fixed the second Monday of October, 

 1889, for a hearing of the cases. 



The bondholders adopted another method of 

 forcing coupons upon the State, believing that 

 if they overwhelmed the treasury with these, 

 the State, in order to escape bankruptcy, would 

 be compelled to meet the terms offered by them 

 for settling the debt. They decided to take as 

 much advantage as possible of the existing leg- 

 islation of the State, and established a central 

 agency at Richmond, with subagencies through- 

 out the State, for the purpose of facilitating and 

 stimulating the use of coupons in paying taxes. 

 Bondholders were urged to send over their 

 bonds to these agencies, that they might be 

 produced in court under the requirements of 

 the " verification " and " coupon-crusher " 

 acts. Tax-payers were urged voluntarily to 

 file petitions under the former act for verifica- 

 tion of their coupons, although it had been de- 

 cided that the State could not compel them to 

 do so ; the bonds were produced in court by 

 the agents of the bondholders, and in this way 

 a large and constantly increasing number of 

 coupons were forced upon the State. In Rich- 

 mond alone, the number of tax-payers filing 

 petitions for verification increased from 231 in 

 1887 to 720 in 1888. So numerous had these 

 petitions become, that early in 1889 Gov. Lee 

 and others organized a movement to rouse 

 popular sentiment upon the matter and, by 



holding public meetings in the six cities and 

 seven counties from which the tender of cou- 

 pons exclusively came, urged the citizens, as a 

 matter of patriotic duty, to sign resolutions 

 pledging themselves to pay all their taxes here- 

 after in money, in order to save the State 

 from bankruptcy. Many signatures to such 

 resolutions were obtained. 



Political. There was no election for State 

 officers during the year. State conventions of 

 the various political parties were held, to select 

 delegates to the national nominating conven- 

 tions and to nominate presidential electors. 

 The Democratic Convention met at Norfolk on 

 May 16, and the Republicans at Petersburg on 

 the following day. The Petersburg Conven- 

 tion witnessed a factional contest between fol- 

 lowers of ex-Senator William Mahone and John 

 S. Wise, which resulted in the withdrawal of 

 the latter and the holding of a second conven- 

 tion by his followers. Each faction selected 

 delegates to the Chicago Convention. A reso- 

 lution was passed by the Mahone Convention, 

 opposing the proposed constitutional conven- 

 tion. At the November election the Demo- 

 cratic presidential electors were chosen. Re- 

 publican congressmen were elected in the First 

 and Second Congressional Districts, and Demo- 

 crats in the remaining eight districts. 



On the question whether a convention should 

 be called to revise the Constitution, the vote 

 was overwhelmingly in the negative 3,698 

 yeas to 63,125 nays. 



WAITE, MORRISON REMICK, jurist, born in 

 Lynn, Conn., Nov. 29, 1816; died in Washing- 

 ton, D. C., March 23, 1888. He was the eldest 

 of eight children of Henry Matson Waite, Chief- 

 Justice of Connecticut, was graduated at Yale 

 College in 1837, in the class that also includ- 

 ed William M. Evarts, Edwards Pierrepont, 

 Daniel B. Coe, and Benjamin Silliman, Jr., and 

 immediately began studying law with his fa- 

 ther. Soon afterward he removed to Maumee 

 City, Ohio, where he finished his studies, was 

 admitted to the bar in 1839 and began practic- 

 ing in partnership with Samuel Young. In 

 1850 the firm removed to Toledo, and in 1854 

 a new partnership was formed by Mr. Waite 

 and his brother Robert. Though a Whig till 

 1856 and a Republican thereafter, and pos- 

 sessing wide repute for his legal acumen and 

 success at the bar, he was loath to accept pub- 

 lic office based on politics. In 1849 lie was 

 elected a member of the State Legislature, and 

 in 1862 was an unwilling and defeated candi- 

 date for Congress. He was frequently tend- 

 ered but always declined a seat on the bench 

 of the Supreme Court of Ohio, preferring to 

 remain at the bar. The office of member of 

 the Legislature was the only one to which he 

 was ever elected as a political preferment. In 



1871 he was appointed by President Grant one 

 of the three counsel of the United States before 

 the Geneva Court of Arbitration which passed 

 upon the "Alabama" claims, his associates 

 being his old classmate, William M. Evarts, and 

 Caleb dishing. Besides his general arguments 

 before that court, he made a special one, on 

 the liability of the British Government for per- 

 mitting the Confederate steamers to take in 

 supplies of coal in British ports, which at- 

 tracted much attention in legal and diplomatic 

 circles. He returned to Toledo in November, 

 1872, and resumed his practice. In 1873 he 

 was unanimously elected by both parties as a 

 member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention, 

 and at its organization was chosen president. 

 On Jan. 19, 1874, he was nominated by Presi- 

 dent Grant to be the seventh Chief -Justice of 

 the United States, to succeed Salmon Portland 

 Chase, after the United States Senate had re- 

 jected the nominations of George H. Williams 

 and Caleb dishing. After a discussion of one 

 hour the Senate indorsed the nomination, and 

 two days afterward confirmed it, every Sena- 

 tor present, 62, voting in his favor. For his 

 share of circuit labor he took the States of Ma- 

 ryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Caro- 

 lina, and South Carolina. In 1876 he was 



