circumstances. His mother was a woman of extraordinary intellectual powers, and of remarkable excellence of character and disposition, universally esteemed as a womanly perfection of nature's noblest handiwork. She died in the year 1825, leaving five surviving sons of tender age, to rely at the very commencement of their career mainly upon their own individual, native, inherent energy, for success in the great battle of life.

In the year 1831, when but fifteen years of age, Delazon, provided with but a small bundle of clothing which he carried under his arm, and almost penniless, started for the "West." After a temporary residence of two or three years in Western New York with an elder brother who had preceded him, and where he sought, and to a limited extent obtained, the facilities of an education, he renewed his journey westward. Having heard that there was a manual labor college in Ohio, where indigent young men. could obtain an education and meet their current expenses by the daily labor of their hands, young Smith lost no time in making his way to that institution. He arrived at Oberlin in the spring of 1834, where he remained two years as a student of the "Collegiate Institute." Then he withdrew because of his refusal to acquiesce in the practice which then prevailed of enticing away, harboring, secreting, and running off North slaves from the Southern States.

On leaving Oberlin, the young student repaired to the city of Cleaveland, where he published a large edition of a small work entitled, "Oberlin Unmasked;" and it is a significant and somewhat remarkable fact, that even at that early period in the history of anti-slavery agitation, he actually depicted, as with the ken of a prophet, the state of things as they existed at a later period. Having arrived in Cleaveland, and resolved upon the study and practice of the law, Mr. Smith at once entered his name as a student in the office of a prominent attorney of that city. In the meantime, he contributed much to the columns of the newspaper press, and frequently became involved in controversies on the subject of religion and politics.

In the spring of 1838, Mr. Smith received a flattering invitation from an association of appreciative gentlemen to return to the city of Rochester, in his native State, for the purpose of establishing a newspaper, to be called the New York Watchman. This position he accepted, and edited the Watchman for a period of two years, in the meanwhile continuing the study of the law.

In the memorable campaign of 1840, Mr. Smith edited and published a very able, spirited, and influential Democratic paper, entitled the True Jeffersonian. His maiden political speeches, delivered to large and promiscuous audiences, were made in the Presidential contest of 1836; and though he had taken an active and prominent part in the New York State elections of 1838, yet it was not until the campaign of 1840 that his extraordinary abilities as a political or "stump" speaker became generally known. During that excited and bitter contest, under the banner of Van Buren and Johnson, he did more than a soldier's duty: he performed herculean labor. In addition to sustaining his True Jeffersonian with marked and acknowledged ability, he canvassed with great success the States of New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

After the close of the campaign of 1840, Mr. Smith established a daily paper called the Western World, but owing in part to the utter prostration of the Democratic party, he discontinued it, and soon after, in the fall of 1841, returned to Ohio, and located in the city of Dayton, where he at once established a Democratic journal, which he named Western Empire, which came to be the leading Democratic paper in that section of the State.

When the then Chief Magistrate of the nation vetoed the Congressional bills re-chartering a national bank, etc., and after Mr. Tyler's policy had become essentially Democratic, Mr. Smith, as the editor of the Empire, and as a Democratic orator, gave to the executive and his administration a prompt, generous, and able support.

In 1843, a difference of opinion arose between Mr. Smith and some of his partisan friends and associates, in reference to the propriety and policy of his defence and support of certain measures of Mr. Tyler's administra

tion, which eventuated in Mr. Smith's voluntarily withdrawing himself from the editorial control of the Empire. Soon afterwards, however, he established another paper, called the Miamian, in the same city.

Prior to the Baltimore Convention of 1844, Mr. Smith declared his preference for and hoisted the name of Gen. Lewis Cass for the Presidency, in the meantime insisting that President Tyler's overtures to be readmitted into the Democratic party should be generously and cordially met, and the leading measures of his administration, being substantially Democratic, sustained and defended, his honest friends fellowshipped, and his Democratic appointees protected and preserved in position.

When Mr. Polk was chosen as the compromise. standard-bearer of the Democratic party, Mr. Smith placed his name at the head of his paper, and was everywhere found energetically, eloquently, and gallantly battling, under the motto of "Oregon and Texas," for Polk and Dallas.

At the close of the campaign of 1844, President Tyler appointed Mr. Smith as Special Commissioner of the United States to the Republic of Ecuador, in South America. In the execution of this mission, Mr. Smith was clothed by his government with full powers to treat with the government of Ecuador. He was especially instructed to remain at Quito from nine to twelve months, and if at the expiration of that period the objects of his mission had not been accomplished, or if in his judgment there was no immediate prospect of a satisfactory issue, he should return to the United States. Upon his arrival at Quito, Mr. Smith found the government to which he had been accredited embroiled in intestine wars. After having remained at the capital of the Republic for one i month, and exchanged a few letters with the self-constituted officers of the provisional government, and. ascertaining the utter impossibility of accomplishing the | objects of his mission, he returned home.

On his return from South America, in the spring of 1846, Mr. Smith located himself in what was then the territory of Iowa, where he purchased and settled upon;

a farm, and engaged in the labors of agriculture, associa ting therewith, to a limited extent, the practice of the law. In the formation of the State government, he took a prominent and active part. During his residence in Iowa, he appears to have been the especial favorite of the Democracy of his (Van Buren) county, for on three several occasions they presented his name as their first choice for Congress, and once to a Democratic State convention as their choice for Governor.

In the year 1850, Congress, at the close of the long session, declared the seat of Hon. Wm. Thompson, from Iowa, vacant, it having been contested by the Hon. Daniel F. Millar. Understanding that no convention would be held, and that Mr. Thompson would not contest the matter before the people, and did not desire to run for an election to fill the residue of the term, the Democratic friends of Mr. Smith held a mass meeting and placed him in nomination for that position. Subsequently, however, Mr. Thompson resolved upon making the canvass, and the result was the election of Mr. Millar, the opposition candidate.

During his residence in Iowa, Mr. Smith was constantly on hand engaged in fighting the battles of the Democracy, and with the same zeal, intrepidity, and eloquence which had characterized all his previous efforts in the advocacy and defence of his favorite principles.

During the Presidential campaign of 1848, he edited with decided ability the Iowa Democrat, in support of Cass and Butler, the Democratic nominees; and in the meanwhile canvassed upon the stump a large portion of the State, in company with Gen. A. C. Dodge, our late Minister to Spain, and the late Chief Justice Joseph Williams. Very much of the credit for having in that day placed the Territory of Iowa upon her feet as a Democratic State is eminently due to Mr. Smith.

Having lost several members of his family by death, and having suffered deeply from sickness and other misfortunes during his residence in Iowa, Mr. Smith resolved upon seeking health and home and fortune by removing still farther Westward. Accordingly, in the spring of

1852, he set out with his family in an ox-wagon for the Territory of Oregon, crossing the Plains and the Rocky Mountains. He was five months making the journey from the Missouri River to the Dalles of the Columbia. Himself and family suffered severely for a protracted period with sickness whilst on the Plains, but at last arrived in safety and health in the Valley of Willamette, though not until they had lost every head of cattle, and in fact every thing in the shape of property which they possessed.

Undaunted, and neither dismayed nor disheartened, Mr. Smith selected for himself a land-claim (under the act of Congress of 1850, granting lands to all citizens who should reside upon and cultivate the same for a period of four consecutive years) in the county of Linn, in the heart of the Valley, and soon thereafter established his family there. Having thus provided a home, he applied himself vigorously and unremittingly to the practice of the law, devoting the proceeds to the cultivation and improvement of his farm, and to securing the comforts and surrounding himself with the elegancies of life.

In the spring of 1854, the Democracy of Linn county nominated Mr. Smith as a candidate for the Legislature, and he was elected by a majority of upwards of two hundred. In the following year, he was again nominated for the same position, and returned by a majority of four hundred.

Upon the convening of the Legislature, he was chosen Speaker of the House of Representatives, receiving ninetenths of the votes cast. In 1856, he was again renominated and reëlected to the Legislature by an increased majority, and in the year following, he was chosen one of the delegates to the convention to frame a constitution for the State government; and finally, in July, 1858, he wa chosen one of the first United States Senators from the State of Oregon, by a four-fifths vote of the members of the Legislature assembled in joint convention.

Did the space allotted to this hurried sketch allow, we should take pleasure in quoting briefly from some of the numerous speeches, addresses, and orations delivered by Mr. Smith on various occasions, and which have been