xample of the illustrious
Reporter of the Constitutional Convention of 1787; and while my notes
lack the beauty and felicity which characterize his, I trust they are
not less full and accurate. I submit them to the country as the best
contribution which I can make to its history, at a most important and
interesting period of our national existence.

The three short years which have passed since the Conference of 1861,
have witnessed singular vicissitudes among its members. Many of them
have entered into the military or civil service of the country, or of
the rebellion which it was the avowed purpose of some members of that
Conference to nourish into vigorous life. Death, also, has been busy
with the roll. BALDWIN, BRONSON, SMITH, WOLCOTT, TYLER, and CLAY, are
no more. ZOLLICOFFER fell at the head of a rebel army. HACKLEMAN
sealed with his blood his devotion to the principles he advocated
upon the field of Corinth, and now, while I am writing these pages in
a morning of beautiful spring, when tree, and shrub, and grass, and
flower, are bursting into life and beauty; from the roar of cannon,
the rattle of musketry, and the deadly storm of lead and iron, which
bearing destruction upon its wings is waking the echoes of the
"Wilderness," comes the mournful tidings that WADSWORTH has fallen. In
that Conference or in the world, there was never a purer or a more
ardent patriot. Those of us who were associated with him politically,
had learned to love and respect him. His opponents admired his
unflinching devotion to his country, and his manly frankness and
candor. He was the type of a true American, able, unselfish, prudent,
unambitious, and good. Other pens will do justice to his memory, but I
thought as I heard the last account of him alive, as he lay within the
rebel lines, his face wearing that calm serenity which grew more
beautiful the nearer death approached, after having given so
abundantly of his goods, now yielding his life to his country in the
hour of her trial, that hereafter the good and true men of the nation
would emulate the illustrious example of his patriotism, and would
prize the blessings of a free government the more highly, as they
remembered that it could only be maintained and perpetuated by such
expensive sacrifices.

L.E.C.

_May_, 1864.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE,

Washington, D.C.

MONDAY, _February 4th, 1861._

Commissioners representing a number of the States, assembled at
W