Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/341

Rh of the Alabama Claims; was attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of President Grant, and while such was in 1874 nominated for chief justice of the supreme court of the United States to succeed Salmon P. Chase. At his own request and because of bitter political opposition, his nomination was withdrawn. Since then he has held no office, and for nearly a quarter of a century has continuously followed the practice of his profession in this state. No man has made a deeper impression upon the times, or contributed more to the state's history than Judge Williams, and in his old age no man is more highly regarded—a great figure in the life of his state and the nation.

At this time also James W. Nesmith was a senator from Oregon, elected in 1860, as a union or war democrat, taking his seat March 4, 1861, his term expiring March 3, 1867. Colonel Nesmith was in his forty-first year when elected, and was a warm supporter of President Lincoln, and urged the vigorous prosecution of the war. He was a member of the senate committee on military affairs, and no man wielded greater influence in the conduct of the war in so far as the same depended on the action of congress. He supported McClellan for president in 1864 as a democrat, and after the death of Lincoln became an ardent friend and defender of Andrew Johnson in his bitter quarrel with the republicans in congress. A man of great plainness of speech and of the keenest satire, he made warm friends and bitter enemies. He opposed the reconstruction policy of the republicans, and thus came in contest with his colleague Judge Williams. President Johnson nominated Senator Nesmith to be minister to Austria, but a republican senate refused to confirm, and when Judge Williams was nominated by President Grant as chief justice, the opposition and influence of Nesmith, although not a member of the senate,