Gallery of Enterprise & Change

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Gallery of Industry & Enterprise

Debow's Review

January 1852

We have now to speak of one of the most distinguished and useful citizens of Missouri-a man who has been active in the cause of western progress and improvement-who presided over the deliberations of an important convention held in the northwest for their promotion, and who, for his high and liberal views, enjoys a reputation in this particular second to no one on this side of the mountains. Edward Bates was born in Goochland County, Virginia, Sept. 4, 1793, of the plain Quaker stock, which for several centuries dwelt in the low country, between James and York rivers. His ancestors came from the west of England to the Jamestown settlement, the first of them, in or before the year 1625; and their descendants, with a few exceptions, remained in that region till the time of the Revolution, when many of the younger men-his father and several uncles included-took arms against the king, and they thus forfeited their membership in the " Society of Friends." They were plain people, of the middle rank as to property and education, and were, for the most part, small planters and merchants. Being Quakers, they intermarried chiefly with each other, seldom forming matrimonial connections out of the Society. And thus were founded several of the most numerous families in Virginia-i. e., all that bear the names of Woodson and Pleasants, who are of those humble Quakers of Jamestown. Thomas Fleming Bates, the father of Edward, was a man of fair talents, methodical habits of business, and a good fund of practical information. He was bred to trade, in one of the best mercantile houses in the to England, Spain, Portugal, and Madeira as supercargo and purchasing agent. At the beginning of the Revolution, he thought he was in easy circumstances, closed his business in Henrico (or Charles City,) County, where he then lived, and settled on a new plantation on James River, in Goochland. The general poverty of the times, and the depreciation of continental money, soon made his claims and book accounts of no value; and the British army (on its march to the Point of Fork) destroyed his plantation. But his British debts remained, and they sufficed to break him up, when peace was restored. Though a Quaker and a merchant, he was a sound Whig and a brave man. When the British army was encamped upon his plantation, and the lower story of his house occupied as head quarters, for 24 hours, (the family being ordered up stairs,) he was called into the General's presence, and there, a written protection was handed to him by an aid-de-camp. He read it deliberately, thinking sorrowfully of his wife and six young children, folded it into a narrow strip, and thrust it among the burning coals, in a chafing dish which stood on the hearth, ready to make his Lordship's tea, confidently believing that be would be instantly arrested, and perhaps sent to a prison-ship. But Lord Cornwallis was a humane and magnanimous man, loathing the cause in which he was bound to fight. He said, with softened countenance, and in gentle tones," Mr. Bates would to God that you, and all such men as you, were loyal subjects." A few months after, he was at the siege of York, a volunteer soldier in the ranks, under La Fayette, and witnessed the sur colony, and was several times sent abroad- render of Lord Cornwallis and his army, (Oct, 1781.) His son still retains the musket that he fought with on that occasional till as good a deer gun as could be found. He died in May, 1805, leaving no estate but a widow, five daughters, and seven sons, Edward being the youngest of the twelve children. Left an orphan under the age of twelve, and without a dollar, there was still no practical difficulty in his way, for his elder brothers were industrious and prosperous men, and generous with their means. One of them, Fleming Bates, of Northumberland, Va., took him as a son, and would have given him a thorough education, but for a bodily accident-the fracture of a leg bone-which stopped the regular course of his studies, and forced him to quit school. He had been for some time at Charlotte Hall Academy, Maryland, a very good school for boys who were anxious to learn, but a very poor one for those who required compulsion. There he attained a knowledge of the elements of mathematics, &c., and something of the Latin and French languages, with which stock he returned to his brother's house, to suffer a long and painful confinement of nearly two years. His only resource was a good library, and writing materials, at discretion. He had no advice or assistance, no method prescribed, no sequent order of study. Deprived of all active employment, he fell upon the books, with a morbid and indiscriminate appetite, devouring everything that had the name of poetry, from Homer and Shakspeare down to Peter Pindar; and all manner of histories, from Weem's Revolutionary Worthies, up to Livy and Herodotus; and all the while scribbling, as with an itching quill. Thus, thoughts were rapidly engendered, and a mass of ideas accumulated, but, unfortunately, very crude, without any method or classification, and without stopping a moment to think about either taste or judgment. In his boyhood he looked to an office in the navy as the business of his life; and his kinsman, James Pleasants, then the Representative of his native district, in the winter of 1811-12, procured for him the promise of a midshipman's warrant among the first appointments. His hopes were wrought up to ecstasy. It was the nick of time-we were looking for a war with England-his fortune was made-his fame won! We had nothing to do but meet the enemy, and (as Perry said afterwards) they were ours. But all these flickering glories were soon extinguished. His mother, though quite willing to see all her sons march to battle in any emergency of defensive war, was still too much of a Quaker to be willing to see him follow arms as a profession, and depend for support and reputation upon strife and blood. She fairly cried him out of the cherished object of his young ambition, and he renounced the warrant. The world being now before him, he soon determined upon the profession of the law, and to that end accepted the invitation of his brother Frederick, to go and settle in St. Louis; (Frederick was a protege of both Jefferson and Madison-was Secretary of the Territory of Missouri, from 1807 till the state was constituted, in 189.20; and was the second Governor of the state, elected in 1824.) Just as he was getting ready to start to the west, in the winter of'12-13, a British fleet came into the Chesapeake, and troops were suddenly called for, to defend Norfolk. Happening to be in his native county, Goochland, he joined a company of volunteers, marched to Norfolk, and there ate the public rations for six months, rendering no particular service, unless it may be called such to have aided in digging several broad ditches, &c. He was a sergeant in Capt. Hopkins's company of infantry. In the spring of 181.4 he went to St. Louis, then a French village of some 2,000 people. He commenced the study of law, in the office of Rufus Easton, the best read lawyer at the bar, and for some time a delegate in Congress. He studied very diligently, working on the average, (6 days in the week,) 14 hours in the 24. In the winter of 1816-17, he took license, and commenced the practice of the profession. In May, 1829, he married Julia D., fifth daughter of David Coulter, formerly of Columbia, S. Carolina. By her he has had fifteen children, eight of whom survive. Mr. Bates has held several offices under the Territorial Government; Circuit (prosecuting) Attorney, under the State Government; Attorney-General, under the U. S. Government; and District Attorney for Missouri. He was a member, the youngest but one, of the Convention which formed the State Constitution in 1820. He has served at different times in both branches of the State Legislature, and a single term in the U. S. House of Representatives, the 20th Congress. His large family are still dependent upon his professional labor, and he has long ago declined to risk their comfort and his own independence upon the contingencies of political success. It is a pitiable spectacle to behold, even a good man staggering in the path of official duty, under the weight of his private affairs. For more than 30 years, Mr. Bates has been an occasional writer for the newspaper press, chiefly on political subjects, and of those, for the most part, such as concerned the interpretation of the constitution. Although he has been a public speaker for 33 years, there are no speeches of his in print. A few notes and sketches have been published, but he never wrote out a speech for the press. He has attempted it once or twice, upon solicitation, but never could satisfactorily recall, he thinks, the spirit that animated the oral delivery. Mr. Bates has acquired a large reputation in Missouri, as a ready and eloquent speaker. The Latin classic tells us that "poeta ncascitur non fit," but we have small faith in the doctrine, though men do take it blindly for the truth, because it is flattering to their vanity to be supposed the peculiar objects of the Creator's bounty-to be naturally wiser, better, stronger, than other men. There is a much nearer approach to mental equality among men, than is generally supposed; and the actual differences, many and great as they are, may almost always be traced to adequate causes. Those faculties which are most cherished and cultivated, are always most prominent in action. They overshadow and conceal, and almost suppress their uncultivated associates. The will, that king faculty of our moral nature, left free from the control of other wills, may run headlong to ruin, but subjected to a wholesome, self-discipline, never fails to make its possessor a self-dependent man of purpose. He may fail to acquire the wisdom and virtue of others, and may abound in obliquities and follies of his own; but he is sure to be original. His virtues and vices are proper to himself, cognate to the predominant will, and characteristic of the man. Mr. Bates's facility and power as a speaker, are the results, in his own opinion, only of the most diligent and unremitting labor. Many a French volume, (Fenelon, Condillac, St. Pierre, &c.,) he has read aloud in English, and many quires of paper disfigured with rapidly-written verses, (burned before the ink was dry,) as a mere exercise in the choice of phrases, for the expression of thoughts already formed. He had adopted a speaking profession, and looked to it as the only means by which he might hope to ac quire support and reputation; and the course of study and practice which he pursued was such as seemed to him most promising of success. In the 20th Congress, Mr. Bates opposed the occupation of Oregon, considering that country essentially foreign, and the occupation of it by the United States the entering wedge to a system of foreign colonization, conquest, and domination. Then we had no rail-roads, and telegraphs, which at this day have for many purposes annihilated both time and space. He was, from beginning to end, against the Mexican war, and against the acquisition of Mexican Territory, by either arms or money; and wrote several articles on those subjects in the St. Louis papers, none of which were extensively circulated in distant journals. In a letter which we have lately had the pleasure of receiving from Mr. Bates, he remarks, and with this we close our brief and ill-digested memoir: "Were it not proved by constant experience, that the currents of social life often drift men into courses quite opposite to those they attempt to steer, I should be astonished to find myself. in some sort, a public man, in spite of my efforts to the contrary. In youth I was ambitious, and sought distinction with some avidity. But the popular storm which blew General Jackson into the Presidency, blew me out of the track of public life. In the canvass for a second term in Congress, I was so thoroughly beaten, that I was content, as the Kentuckians say, to "stay whipped." and never again to worry myself with the attempt to climb the slippery heights of politics. Thenceforth, I looked only to professional labor, for the means of supporting and educating a numerous family, and to the domestic circle for all my enjoyments. A practice of more than twenty years on this scheme of life, has destroyed whatever of appetite I may once have had, for public distinction; and now, all I desire is, (I hope it is in my reach,) for my children, the means of education, and a fair start in life; and for myself, the quiet esteem of good men."