O'CONOR, CHARLES. 



627 



ardent Democrat, espoused in his own mind 

 the cause of the South. After the war, when 

 Jefferson Davis was indicted for treason, Mr. 

 O'Conor became his senior counsel. He was 

 also one of his hondsmen. 



On Oct. 17, 1871, William M. Tweed was 

 arrested in the name of the State of New 

 York on a suit for the recovery of $6,312,- 

 541.37, and was admitted to b;dl in the sum 

 of $1,000,000. With William M. Evarts, ex- 

 Judge Emott, and Wheeler H. Peckham, Mr. 

 O'Conor conducted the prosecution. He was 

 commissioned on behalf of the State 

 of New York by Gov. Hoffman to 

 take such proceedings as might be 

 necessary for the recovery of the 

 money of which the city of New 

 York was alleged to have been de- 

 frauded. Associated with the three 

 lawyers named (one Democrat and 

 two Republicans), he established in 

 New York a branch of the Attorney- 

 General's office, which he named 

 "The Bureau of Municipal Correc- 

 tion." The civil suits for recovery of 

 the money, intrusted to him, lasted 

 until 1875, when the Court of Ap- 

 peals decided that suit should have 

 been brought by the county of New 

 York. Mr. O'Conor immediately draft- 

 ed the Civil Remedies Act, which was 

 passed at the next session of the Le- 

 gislature, and new suits were begun. 

 He became weary with the slowness 

 of the first suits, and published a vol- 

 ume entitled " Peculation Triumph- 

 ant, being the Record of a Five Years' 

 Campaign against Official Malversa- 

 tion, A.D. 1871 to 1875." In 1875 

 the new suits against Tweed and his 

 co-workers were begun under the new 

 act drafted as above described. Mr. 

 O'Conor entered into them with great 

 energy, and their final result is well 

 known. In spite of the technical ob- 

 jections that eventually defeated these 

 actions, they broke down the Tweed 

 Ring completely. Mr. O'Conor con- 

 tended that the actions were what the exi- 

 gency demanded, and that they were proper 

 in form. For his services in the work he 

 declined to receive any compensation what- 

 ever. 



During this period he conducted the great 

 Jumel trial, in which the title to $6,000,000 

 worth of real estate in New York city was in- 

 volved. On the first trial, in 1871, the jury 

 disagreed, nine favoring the defendant for 

 whom Mr. O'Conor appeared. The second 

 trial, in 1872, before a struck jury, was won 

 by the defense. Two months were consumed 

 in the hearing of the first case, and eleven 

 weeks in that of the second. Never, perhaps, 

 had he been engaged in litigation requiring 

 more skill and learning as an advocate, more 

 exhausting labor in the collection and sifting 



of testimony. When he retired from the two 

 suits, he had been triumphantly successful. 

 Afterward, in a single particular, the United 

 States Supreme Court modified the judgment 

 of the court below. After his retirement from 

 the case the property was sold at auction in 

 1882 on a compromise. 



In the winter of 1876-'77, the Electoral Com- 

 mission was organized, pursuant to an act of 

 Congress, to determine the count of the presi- 

 dential vote. Mr. O'Conor appeared before 

 the Commission at Washington, and argued in 



CHARLES O'CONOR. 



favor of counting the electoral votes of the 

 disputed States for Tilden and Hendricks. 



In 1873, when Frank Wai worth, a young 

 man, was tried in the city of New York for 

 the murder of his father, the novelist Mans- 

 field Tracy Wai worth, Mr. O'Conor appeared 

 as counsel for the accused. Old friendship for 

 Chancellor Walworth, grandfather of the mur- 

 derer, probably influenced him. The trial 

 ended in a conviction of murder in the second 

 degree, and a sentence to imprisonment for life. 



Tenders of nomination to office were fre- 

 quently made to him, but with one or two 

 exceptions were declined. In the presidential 

 campaign of 1872, when Horace Greeley was 

 nominated for President by the Democratic 

 Convention at Baltimore, Mr. O'Conor was 

 nominated, in the face of his absolute refusal 



