822 



WILKINS, WILLIAM. 



WISCONSIN". 



more heartily welcome to any gifts she had to 

 bestow. More than once he was urged to 

 allow himself to be nominated for United States 

 Senator ; and had he consented, he would have 

 been elected by acclamation. Such honors as 

 he would accept, the State heaped upon him. 

 He was the chosen counsellor in all her educa- 

 tional matters; director and president, if he 

 would serve, in her hospitals, asylums for the 

 insane, and her reformatories ; an inspector of 

 her prisons, in which he regularly taught a 

 Bible-class of prisoners, and often preached ; 

 president of the Society for Aiding the Poor, 

 and an officer in nearly every social charity of 

 the city, and the counsellor and friend of every 

 one who went to him in perplexity and anxiety. 

 His death was sudden and unexpected. He 

 had overtasked himself in the final revision of 

 his "Elements of Moral Science," while suffer- 

 ing from a heavy cold : on the 26th of Septem- 

 ber, 1865, he was smitten with paralysis, and 

 survived four days, without return of con- 

 sciousness. 



WILKINS, Hon. WILLIAM, an American 

 statesman and diplomatist, born in Eastern 

 Pennsylvania, in 1779 ; died at his residence in 

 Home wood, near Pittsburg, June 23, 1865. 

 He removed to Pittsburg in boyhood, where 

 he was educated, and in 1810 was president of 

 the Pittsburg Manufacturing Company, the du- 

 ties of which office he sustained with ability and 

 judgment. Subsequently, upon the transfor- 

 mation of this institution into the Bank of 

 Pittsburg, he became its president, but in 

 1819 resigned for the purpose of entering the 

 Legislature. Mr. Wilkins represented the coun- 

 ty twice in the Legislature, and whatever di- 

 versity of opinion may be entertained as to his 

 political views, it cannot be denied that he ex- 

 hibited fine powers of debate and great apti- 

 tude for the details of business. From this 

 time his public life began. He was a Senator 

 in Congress from 1831 to 1834; a Minister to 

 Russia in 1834; a Representative in the lower 

 House of Congress from 1843 to 1844, and dur- 

 ing the latter year was appointed Secretary of 

 War, on the 15th of July, by President Tyler. 

 John C. Calhoun was at that time a member 

 of the Cabinet, as Secretary of State. Mr. Wil- 

 kins was on board the U. S. ship Princeton 

 when the " Peacemaker " exploded and Secre- 

 tary Upshur was killed. Mr. Wilkins also filled 

 most creditably the office of Judge of the U. S. 

 District Court for the Western section of Penn- 

 sylvania. In 1847, in conjunction with Mr. 

 Thomas Bakewell and John Harper, he founded 

 the Western Pennsylvania Hospital. Mr. Wil- 

 kins was a man of clear and vigorous intellect, 

 and was ever equal to the responsibilities of 

 professional or official station. Frequently en- 

 gagod with all the ardor of a strong nature in 

 political discussions, he was honorable and fair 

 in his deportment toward his political oppo- 

 nents. For some time previous to his decease 

 his health had been impaired in consequence 

 of a fall 



WISCONSIN. The political canvass of this 

 State commenced in September. On the 6th 

 the Republican Convention met at Madison and 

 nominated a full State ticket, headed by the 

 name of Lucius Fairchild as candidate for Gov- 

 ernor. Two reports were made by the Com- 

 mittee on Resolutions. That of the minority 

 declaring that the seceding States should be 

 compelled, as a condition precedent to read- 

 mission to their privileges in the Union, to 

 adopt constitutions which " make no discrimi- 

 nation as to right of suffrage on account of 

 color," was laid on the table; and the majority 

 resolutions, reported by Senator Doolittle, were 

 adopted. The following are the most import- 

 ant of these: 



Resolved, That while we welcome the cessation of 

 war in the Southern States, we do not close our eyes 

 to the fact that a large portion of the whole popula- 

 tion are fresh from acts of hostility toward the Gov- 

 ernment and toward its institutions, are still un- 

 settled in opinion, and many of them unreconciled to 

 the results of the contest in which, for more than 

 four years, they have been engaged. We rejoice to 

 be assured that the Government will not withdraw 

 from these States the strong arm of military power 

 until it has full and satisfactory evidence of such a 

 spirit of true and permanent loyalty as to make them 

 safe participants in the right of self-government, in- 

 sure obedience to the Constitution and laws, acqui- 

 escence in the emancipation of the slaves, and pro- 

 tection to the freedmen in the right to enjoy the 

 fruits of their labor, as well as security of them 

 against unlawful violence and persecution. 



Resolved, That, in the opinion of this convention, it 

 is due to equal justice and to the altered condition 

 of things, that the Constitution of the United States 

 should be so amended as to make the representation 

 of each State in the House of Representatives pro- 

 portionate to the number of legally qualified male 

 electors in such States. 



Resolved, That we recognize in the administration 

 of President Johnson substantially the same policy 

 toward the people of the Southern States as that in- 

 augurated by President Lincoln ; that while he has 

 fixed terms of reconstruction with the spirit of lib- 

 erality and kindness, he, nevertheless, has evinced a 

 determination to arrest the abuse of political power, 

 wherever exercised for disloyal purposes ; and that 

 we believe he will so control and direct the work of 

 reconstruction as will eventually restore the Union 

 entire, and secure them all the rights to which they 

 are entitled under a free and enlightened Govern- 

 ment ; and that we pledge to him, in the great work 

 of restoring civil government in those States upon 

 that basis, our hearty and unanimous support. 



The Democrats assembled at the same place 

 on the 20th, and nominated for Governor, 

 Brig. -Gen. Harris 0. Hobart, and a full ticket 

 of State officers. In an address to the Conven- 

 tion, Gen. Hobart announced that he was op- 

 posed to a high tariff, and favored impartial 

 taxation, and the doctrine that Africans should 

 not vote, although he was willing that they 

 should hold property, be witnesses in courts of 

 law, and be educated. He praised warmly 

 President Johnson's reconstruction policy, and 

 declared his belief that a continuation of the 

 present military policy in the South would lead 

 to hostility and possibly to a renewal of the 

 war. Resolutions were adopted endorsing the 

 President's policy of restoring the Union on the 



