Page:The American review - a Whig journal of politics, literature, art, and science (1845).djvu/111

1845.]

skilful burin of our engraver has most happily transcribed the grave, expressive features which the faithful pencil of the sun, through the wonderful process of the Daguerreotype, had caught from the living face of this eminent statesman; and we propose to illustrate the artist's labor by a sketch of the character of its subject, copied from the no less truthful impression which Mr. Frelinghuysen's life and labors, political and philanthropic, have made upon the minds and hearts of his countrymen.

Mr. Frelinghuysen was not only born in New Jersey, but, by all ancestral associations, is connected with the most patriotic events in her history. His father, Frederick Frelinghuysen, at the early age of twenty-two a delegate from that state to the Continental Congress of 1775, in 1777 resigned this elevated station of honor in his country's councils, to take a position of danger in her battlefields, served with distinction as captain of a volunteer corps of artillery, at Monmouth and at Trenton, and afterwards was actively engaged, throughout the war, as colonel in the Somerset militia. After the restoration of peace, the warm gratitude of his fellow-citizens bestowed upon him, in quick succession, the political honors of their state, and, in 1793, elected him to a seat in the Senate of the United States. Seldom has a richer inheritance of public service and of public honor been bequeathed by a father, and never has it descended to a worthier heir.

Theodore Frelinghuysen was born at the village of Millstone, in the county of Somerset, on the 28th of March, 1787, and is now in his 58th year. He prepared for college at the school of the Rev. Dr. Finley, since distinguished as the author of the noble scheme of African colonization, of which his scholar has proved so eminent an advocate; and, in 1804, was graduated at Princeton, with the highest honors of his class. Mr. Frelinghuysen pursued his professional studies, for some years, in the office of an elder brother, and completed them under the auspices of the celebrated Richard Stockton, in 1808, when he attained his majority, and was admitted to the bar.

In a profession whose honors and emoluments, when rightly sought, are seldom sought in vain, Mr. Frelinghuysen rapidly reached eminence. The character of his reputation as a lawyer, and the substantial grounds upon which it rested, are well expressed in the language of one familiar with them:

"The eloquence by which the forensic efforts of Mr. Frelinghuysen were distinguished; his voice, clear, mellow, amd full; his manly appearance, brilliant imagination, vehement declamation, and fine flow of language, together with his acute knowledge of human nature, accurate legal acquirements, strong reasoning powers, and stern adherence to right, rendered Mr. Frelinghuysen the most popular advocate at the bar of eastern New Jersey. His consistent morality in his profession, his scorn for petty artifice and chicanery, his desire to settle rather than protract disputes, and strict integrity in his conduct of legal difficulties, won for him such a reputation for honesty, that his brother lawyers soon complained that juries would believe any thing Mr. Frelinghuysen contended for, simply because he did so."

Mr. Frelinghuysen's devotion to his profession was not such, however, as to preclude him from the adoption and maintenance of decided political opinions, and, with the practical energy of which his father had set him so noble an example, in the progress of the last war he raised and commanded a company of volunteers. In 1817, by the free choice of a legislative body, of which a majority held political sentiments at variance with his own, he was appointed attorney-general, a post of honor and trust which he held until 1826, when he obeyed the high behest of his state, to represent it in the United States Senate. Before this time, and in 1826, he had declined a seat upon the bench of the supreme court of New Jersey, to which the legislature had elected him.

With his election to the United States Senate, the career of Mr. Frelinghuysen upon the broad field of national politics commences, and a rapid survey of that