VERPLANCK, GULIAN 0. 



741 



\va> litUvl for and entered Colutn- 

 llego in 17i>7, whoii but i-lo\en years of 

 llr graduated with honor in 1801, tlio 

 youngest Kaelielor of Arts who over received 

 lii-i ili|il<nii:i trout that College. Ho studied 

 law in tlio otliro of Josiah Otfden Hoti'iiian, 

 juiil in due siM^'in was niltnittod to tho bar, ami 

 opmed an olhYc tor practice in Now- York 

 City. Ho was already somewhat known as an 

 eloquent speaker and orator, and his services 

 in requisition for Fourth of July and 

 other popular occasions. In 1811 Mr. Ver- 

 plunck was married to Miss M. E. Fenno, a 

 beautiful and accomplished lady, who 

 difl in Paris in 1817, and for whom ho was a 

 life-long mourner. In 1811 also, ho foil under 

 tho displeasure of Do Witt Clinton, then Mayor 

 of New York, in consequence of his interfer- 

 ence in behalf of a member of the graduating 

 class of Columbia College at tho commence- 

 ment in that year. Verplanck, Maxwell, and 

 tho student who was tho cause of tho disturb- 

 ance, were tried in the Mayor's Court on a 

 charge of riot, and Mr. Clinton in his charge to 

 tlio jury inveighed with great severity against 

 Verplanck, and denounced him in tho harshest 

 terms. Ho and his associates were fined $200 

 each, and paid the fines promptly, but from 

 that time forward Mr. Verplanck for several 

 years satirized Mr. Clinton unsparingly. lie 

 published a series of letters in the Corrector, 

 over tho signature of " Abimelech Coody, La- 

 dies' Shoemaker," in which Mr. Clinton's public 

 career, and his advocacy of the War of 1812, 

 then just commencing, were handled with great 

 severity. Clinton replied in a pamphlet entitled 

 " An Account of Abimelech Coody, and other 

 celebrated Worthies of New York, in a Letter 

 from a Traveller," in which Verplanck, James 

 K. Paulding, and Washington Irving, were at- 

 tacked, and their figures, features, personal 

 defects, and literary pretensions, made the sub- 

 ject of disparaging comment. Verplanck re- 

 torted in three successive pamphlets, afterward 

 published in a single volume. The first of these, 

 entitled "Tho State Triumvirate, a Political 

 Tale," was directed against the general prin- 

 ciples of Clinton's party. The second, "The 

 Bucktail Bards," vaunted the virtues of his 

 own political friends. The last, and the most 

 effective as well as the happiest of the three, 

 was entitled " Tho Epistles of Brevet Major 

 Pindar Puff," De Witt Clinton, then Governor, 

 being ridiculed in that character. Clinton, in 

 his " Traveller " letters in 1814 had ridiculed 

 Mr. Verplanck's literary pretensions ; tho last- 

 named lampoon of Mr. Verplanck was directed 

 at tho literary character of tho Governor. 



Partly, perhaps, in consequence of this con- 

 tost, Mr. Verplanck was elected to the Legis- 

 lature in 1811, as the candidate of tho malcon- 

 tents, or party opposed to the War of 1812, 

 and again in 1820, shortly after his return from 

 Europe, where he had spent four years, and 

 where his beautiful young wife had died. In 

 the Legislature he was chairman of the Com- 



on Education, and introduced some ira- 

 it. educational measures. 



In 1821 ho was appointed Professor of tho 

 K\ Helices of Revealed Religion and Moral 

 S< irnco in tho General Theological Seminary 

 of tho Episcopal Church, in New York. For 

 four years ho performed tho duties of this pro- 

 fessorship, with what ability is shown by his 

 treatise on the Evidences of Christianity, the 

 fruit of his studies during this interval. 



It was in 1825 that he published his essay 

 on tho Doctrine of Contracts, in which be. 

 maintained that the transaction between tho 

 buyer and seller of a commodity should be one 

 of perfect frankness and an entire absence of 

 concealment; that the seller should bo held 

 to disclose every thing within his knowledge 

 which would affect tho price of what he of- 

 feivd for sale, and that the maxim, which is 

 compressed into the two Latin words, catcat 

 emptor tho maxim that the buyer takes the 

 risk of a bad bargain is not only a selfish but 

 a knavish and immoral rule of conduct, and 

 should not be recognized by the tribunals. 



In 1825 Mr. Verplanck was elected one of 

 the three Representatives in Congress, to 

 which New- York City was then entitled. He 

 immediately distinguished himself as a working 

 member. Then arose the great controversy 

 concerning the right of a State to refuse 

 obedience at pleasure to any law of Congress, 

 a right contended for, under the name of nul- 

 lification, by some of the most eminent men 

 of the South, who also denied the power of 

 Congress, under the Constitution, to levy duties 

 on imported merchandise, for the purpose of 

 favoring tho home manufacturer, and main- 

 tained that it could only lay duties for the 

 sake of raising a revenue. Mr. Verplanck 

 favored neither this view nor their theory of 

 nullification. His view of the subject was pre- 

 sented with great skill and force in a pamphlet 

 entitled "A letter to Colonel William Drayton, 

 of South Carolina," published in 1831. 



While in Congress, Mr. Verplanck procured 

 the enactment of a law for the further security 

 of literary property. To use his own words, 

 it "gave additional security to the property 

 of authors and artists in their works, and more 

 than doubled the term of legal protection to 

 them, besides simplifying the law in various 

 respects." It was passed in 1831, though Mr. 

 Verplanck had begun to urge the measure 

 three years before, when he brought in a bill 

 for the purpose, but party strife was then at 

 its height, and little else than the approaching 

 elections was thought of by members of Con- 

 gress. 



During Mr. Verplanck's fourth and last term 

 in Congress he became separated from his as- 

 sociates of the Democratic party by a difference 

 in regard to the Bank of the United States. 



Verplanck had leisure, during the interval 

 between one session and another, for literary 

 occupations. Ho wrote about one-third of an 

 annual collection of miscellanies entitled "The 



