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population of this State is to be, depends largely upon the generation which is living to-day.

When we contemplate the magnitude of the destiny in store for our noble State, let us realize that we must ourselves furnish to those who are to come after us that lofty example which we wish them to follow. We must set our faces like a flint against corruption in high places as in low ones-in legislative halls and primary conventions. We must make no compromise with gilded dishonesty. We must refuse to recognize two codes of morals, one for private and a lower one for political affairs.

Above all, we must recollect that the only basis of morality is religion; that no people who are unmindful of their obligations to their Creator can permanently prosper; that no amount of material wealth can compensate for the decay of public and private virtue. And whatever our religious convictions may be, or whatever forms of worship or tenets of faith our judgments approve, while we obey the calls of patriotism and render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, let us be careful to render unto God the things that are God's.

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DELAZON SMITH.*

HE progenitors of Delazon Smith were among the very earliest settlers of New England. Capt. Jonathan Smith, the grandfather of Delazon-as was his fatherwas born in the colony of Rhode Island. Capt. Smith was commissioned a captain in the war of the Revolution, and performed signal and important services from the inception of the war at Bunker's Hill until the final victory at Yorktown. From the memoir published of the late Rev. Stephen R. Smith, (who was the nephew of Capt. Smith) we make the following quotation:

My father's family, or rather that of my grandfather on my mother's side, was, by intermarriage and common ancestry, intimately connected with several of the prominent families of the State of Rhode Island. The Hopkinses, Wilkensons, and Harrises, and others in the vicinity of Providence, were near relations; among these the Stephen Hopkins whose name appears among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I have always understood, was cousingerman of my grandfather. The children of my grandfather, John Smith, of Scituate, Rhode Island, were six sons and one daughter, namely, Richard, Joseph, Jonathan, Oziel, Thomas, Hope, and Sarah. The sons were in their several spheres distinguished for their devotion to the cause of national freedom. Richard, the eldest, was a subaltern in one of the New England regiments, during one or two of the campaigns of what was known as the French War, and which terminated in the capture of Quebec and the cession of Canada to Great Britain. Joseph, though never in the regular service, was one of those Green Mountain boys who stormed the breastworks at the battle of Bennington; while his son, a lad of only fifteen years, fought in the second battle on the same day. Jonathan, (the grandfather of Delazon) with a lieutenant's commission, on hearing of the * For explanatory note, see Preface.

battle of Lexington, marched immediately with his company to Cambridge; was several years in the Continental service, and lived till a very advanced age in the enjoyment of his country's bounty. Thomas declined a commission, and entered the service as a volunteer. He was killed at the bridge in Springfield, New Jersey. Captain Olney, of the Rhode Island line, has given in his own memoir, an interesting account of his feelings and fears when left to guard the bridge, where he lost his life. Oziel, though devoted to the cause of liberty, was emphatically a man of peace, and though occasionally called out for short periods of service, it is not known that he ever remained longer than immediate duty required.

The maternal grandfather of Delazon was Joseph Briggs, Esq., a native of Massachusetts, and at the time of the Revolution, a citizen of Vermont. He was also a captain in the War of Independence: he particularly distinguished himself in the battles of Bunker's Hill, Bennington, Saratoga, and Monmouth, and was present at the surrender of Burgoyne. On one occasion, in the midst of the battle, his superior officer, having deserted the American standard, and sought protection under the British banner, Captain Briggs moved gallantly forward to the command, rallied the dismayed and panic-stricken men, charged the enemy boldly and courageously and turned the tide of battle, achieving a victory at a moment when defeat seemed inevitable.

At the close of the war, he returned to his home and resumed the peaceful pursuits of private life, covered with honorable scars, and content with the consciousness of duties well performed, and rejoicing in an honorable peace with its blessings, and the unquestioned freedom of his country. Thus could the young Senator point with pride to his ancestry and to his country's record, which establishes the fact that he descended from "fighting stock:" indeed, every battle-field where a foreign foe has been met and resisted by American arms has been wet with the blood of his kindred. One brother offered himself and was sacrificed upon the altar of his country during the war with Mexico.

Delazon Smith was the fourth son of Archibald Smith, and was born in the village of New Berlin, in the county of Chenango, State of New York, on the 5th of October, 1816. His father was an humble mechanic, in moderate

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