he Court was waiting for
me in a case which had stood upon the docket since December, 1859, and
was now for the first time reached in its order. The case was of great
importance, for upon its result depended the closing or reopening of a
litigation which I had conducted for nineteen years, which had
embraced in its different forms more than eighty suits, and in the
course of which the Courts of the State and of the United States had
come into direct conflict. All the tribunals of the State of New York,
where the question had been raised, had decided against my clients.
The Supreme Court of the United States, by a majority of two, had once
decided in their favor.

The present case was to determine whether the Court would adhere to
its former decision. The stake of my clients was therefore immense,
and I was their only counsel.

The case being called after my arrival in Court, the Chief Justice
observed that, as it was too late to begin that day, the argument
would proceed first the next morning, at eleven o'clock, unless the
Attorney-General should claim precedence in another case. Then,
thinking that the Convention would close its business during the day,
I hastened back, and the question being soon taken, I cast the vote of
the State against the proposition before the Convention, and it was
rejected by 11 to 8.

A reconsideration was moved and carried, and an adjournment taken to
half-past seven in the evening. At that hour I returned to the
Convention, but to my disappointment, and in spite of my efforts, it
adjourned to the next morning at ten o'clock, a majority of my
associates voting for the adjournment.

The next morning I endeavored to procure a meeting of the delegation
before ten o'clock, that I might obtain a formal instruction to the
Chairman in my absence to cast a vote of the State against the
proposed amendments. Not being able, however, to obtain the earlier
attendance of all the members, I waited till they appeared in the hall
of the Convention, and there, shortly before eleven o'clock, I called
them together, and, all being present, a resolution, in contemplation
of my absence, was moved and carried, that "the Chairman declare that
New York voted No on each section." Thereupon requesting Mr. King to
act as temporary Chairman in my absence, and when New York was called
to cast the vote in the negative, pursuant to the resolution, I left
the hall and drove to the Capitol as rapidly as possible, that