434 
ASA OWEN ALDIS. 
He developed and maintained altogether the most profitable 
and important practice in Franklin county, Vermont, after 
his admission to the bar, until 1858, when he was appointed 
associate justice of the supreme court of Vermont. Owing 
to the serious illness of one of his daughters, he determined 
to remove to Nice, France. By the merest accident he re¬ 
ceived the appointment of United States consul at that 
place through the intervention of Senator Edmunds, who 
had been a student in his office. His term of office w T as 
continued from 1865 to 1870, to the entire satisfaction of 
American travelers. 
He returned to the United States and, visiting Washing¬ 
ton with the idea of removing there, was offered on the 
same day an appointment to either one of two positions— 
that of chairman of the Southern Claims Commission or 
member of the commission for adjusting claims under the 
treaty with Mexico. He accepted the former position and 
discharged his duties from 1871 until the expiration of the 
commission, when he was immediately appointed a member 
of the commission for the adjustment of the French claims. 
After the expiration of the last commission he held no offi¬ 
cial position, but continued to reside in Washington, to the 
gratification of his friends, until his death. 
His reported opinions bear evidence of much intelligence 
and training and ability as a lawyer, as his work on the va¬ 
rious commissions in Washington showed conscientious, 
painstaking labor, which was united to the mental charac¬ 
teristics which had made him distinguished as a judge and 
lawyer in Vermont. His bright conversational qualities ; 
his genial, sympathetic disposition; his fixed friendship ; 
his love for the beautiful in nature, literature, and art were 
the facts of his lifetime best known to his friends. As an 
illustration of the joyousness of his nature, a friend relates 
that Judge Aldis, on a lovely afternoon in the early sum¬ 
mer, said to him in Washington, with the fervor of a nat¬ 
ural young girl, “ Oh! my friend, what a beautiful city we 
live in. I cannot tell you how beautiful it seems to me.” 
