CHAPTER XI.

PUBLIC LIFE.

Duty of Citizens.-Activity in Public Affairs.-Political Management.-Delegate to first National Republican Convention.— Fremont.-Seward.-Lincoln.-Elected to State Assembly.Re-elected.-State Senator.-Second Term.-Declines farther Service. Legislative Labors.-Measures Supported.—Official Fidelity.

POPULAR government, like ours, based on an extremely liberal and extended elective franchise, constantly demands the considerate attention of all classes of reputable citizens to securely protect the public interest from injury by prejudicial influences. The very liberality of the franchise, and especially the extraordinary facility for attaining citizenship, affords constant temptation for those having slight concern in the public welfare to seize every opportunity for abusing the great privileges thus generously granted them. It is the more to be regretted, therefore, that any class of intelligent and prosperous citizens should be inclined to avoid the duty of active participation in the direction and conduct of public affairs. Worthy and commendable in every other respect,

as in truth it must be admitted, the Quakers are certainly disposed to evade this duty. Having large property interests at stake, and thus peculiarly exposed to the evils of improvident and unwise administration, it is particularly unfortunate that they, as a class, should not cheerfully exercise the influence in public concerns to which they are justly entitled. By no other dangers are our free institutions more seriously menaced than by the habitual and inexcusable neglect of appropriate political duties by prosperous and self-respecting citizens.

Quite in contrast with the ordinary custom and peculiarity of the Quaker people in this respect, Mr. Cornell was accustomed, from early manhood, to take an active part in public concerns. Whether this variation from the traditions and practices of the ancestry from which he descended was due to, or influenced by, the discipline administered to him as punishment for marrying out of the sect, cannot be stated with any degree of certainty. Whatever the cause may have been, it is a fact, well known to those acquainted with him, that he was, far beyond the average of men, interested in management and direction of public affairs. In the early years of his career it was customary for him to exercise a potenț influence in the determination of events, not only in the school district,

but as well in the local affairs of the village, town, and county. He was an ardent Whig in politics, and occupied an influential position in the counsels of that party.

Always alert and energetic in any cause in which he enlisted, Mr. Cornell was enabled to render valuable service to his party organization as a member of its local committees. For a period of a dozen years after making his residence at Ithaca he was accustomed to give much attention to the details of political work. He was neither an office-holder nor an office-seeker, but he felt it a patriotic duty to contribute his mite to the advancement of those political interests which represented his peculiar faith. He had an admirable faculty for promoting systematic organization which enabled him to forecast results and thus more effectually to accomplish success otherwise unattainable. He was especially active in the great Log Cabin campaign of 1840, which resulted in the elevation of General Harrison to the Presidency. The lamented death of the new President within a month of his inauguration was a sad blow to the partisans who had labored so zealously for his election.

Absence from home much of the time subsequent to 1842, and the pre-occupation of his mind consequent upon the constant and absorb

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ing labors in the development of the telegraph enterprise, diverted Mr. Cornell almost wholly from attention to local politics for many years. Although continuing his affiliation with the Whig party, and taking a lively interest in the general political questions of the State and Nation, he took no part in the direction of partisan matters at home until the organization of the Republican party.

His sympathies had always been in accord with the anti-slavery element of the Whig party, so that, when a general re-organization of the great parties resulted from conflict on the question of limiting the extension of slavery into free territory, it found him enlisted as a determined opponent of the slave power. Mr. Cornell was one of the delegates representing the State of New York in the first Republican National Convention, that assembled in Pittsburgh in February, 1856.

In the great Free Soil campaign of that year he took an extremely active part in support of John C. Fremont as the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and he was a generous contributor in support of the Republican party in all of the succeeding years, until it finally accomplished the complete success of its candidates in the general election of 1860. Mr. Cornell very earnestly favored the nomination of Governor Seward for the Presidency, in the latter year, but,

with equal earnestness supported the candidacy of Mr. Lincoln when he was selected as the Presidential nominee by the action of the National Convention. The Republicans of New York were sorely disappointed by the failure to secure the promotion of Governor Seward at Chicago, and nothing in the political history of the country illustrates more honorable devotion in behalf of party organization, than the remarkably faithful support which was accorded to Mr. Lincoln in the Empire State in the campaign which ensued.

In the autumn of 1861 Mr. Cornell was placed in nomination by the Republican Convention of Tompkins County for the office of member of Assembly of the State of New York This action was taken without his knowledge, and was the spontaneous and unanimous tribute of the representative Republicans of the county, in recognition of his generous services rendered in behalf of the soldiers and their families during the first year of the civil war. He accepted the nomination in the spirit in which it was tendered, and was elected by a very large majority, receiving a vote numbering considerably in excess of his party candidates. His services in the Assembly proved so satisfactory to his constituents, that he was the following year re-nominated by acclamation and re-elected by a largely increased majority.