CHAPTER XXX

THE SO-CALLED IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS

ON November 27, 1857, in pursuance of the plan formerly made, Wilmot was recommissioned by Governor Pollock "to fill the vacancy which will occur on the first Monday of December next ensuing, by the expiration of the commission of the Hon. Darius Bullock, President Judge of the Thirteenth Judicial District (Bradford and Susquehanna) as President Judge, etc., until the first Monday of December following the next general election." This merely restored him to the bench for one year, until the people could make their choice for a full term and their candidate could be determined and qualified; but Wilmot's reëlection as his own successor was confidently predicted—indeed, assumed as a matter of course.

Before two months of the interim appointment had expired, however, the same influences which had pursued him ever since the first introduction of the Proviso, and taken on added intensity with each new evidence of the growth of the free-soil movement of which he was incomparably the greatest leader in the State, devised and launched a new form of attack.

Finding it impossible to alienate the support of his constituents in his district, and seeking to forestall the moral and political triumph of his return to the bench by popular vote, they conceived the plan of abolishing the district itself, and the office with it. The recent election of a democratic governor and legislature invited the coup. The plan was to attach Bradford County to the 26th district on the west, and Susquehanna to the 11th district on the east-a move which, in view of the frequent changes made in both judicial and congressional district boundaries and groupings, might have seemed innocent enough; but in order to give the measure the sting of professional and personal disgrace, as

well as the wounds of detachment from an admiring constituency and of enforced retirement to private life, the impulse was made to appear as coming spontaneously from Wilmot's home under the pressure of intolerable grievances.

The men who had been most active in launching the opposition paper, in 1850, "went to work in earnest. Knowing that if the movement was an open one it would arouse the public, they sought in a private manner to obtain the necessary documents to carry out the plan. A petition was secretly circulated among such members of the Bar as it was thought would either inconsiderately or willingly sign it, in the form following":

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met: The undersigned, members of the Bar of Bradford County, respectfully, yet earnestly, pray that a law may be passed, by which said county shall be annexed to the Twenty-sixth Judicial District of this State, and assign as a reason, that in our opinion the due administration of justice demands the passage of such a law-and will ever pray &c.

It bore the signatures of eighteen persons, not all of them members of the Bradford County bar. "The names of the signers of this petition were obtained in the most private manner. The whole plot was enveloped in the deepest secrecy." This characterization comes, it is true, from the pen of one of Wilmot's staunchest supporters, the editor of the Bradford Reporter, in his issue of March 4, 1858; but the atmosphere of melodramatic stealth is actually thick about the letter outlining the movements of the self-constituted committee of the petiioners, which may be left to speak for itself:

(Confidential) Dear Sir:

Towanda, Feb. 15, 1858.

The petition of members of the Bar of this county asking to be set off to Judge Woodward's district is likely to be numerously signed. From present appearances, we shall have the names of

twenty members of the Bar upon it. Mr. Baird will go with it to Athens on Tuesday, and will be at your place on Tuesday night. His chief object in coming there is to get the name of Parsons. Smith's is already on. Pierce, I understand, is not at home. If Parsons should not be at home on Tuesday, would not a line to that effect reach me at East Smithfield on Tuesday about noon or a little after? I have a suit at Smithfield on Tuesday; Baird comes that way, and we intend to get the names of Bullock and Lyman. If Parsons should not be at home, Baird could come home from Smithfield and save a good deal of travel.

Now comes the most important part of my communication. Baird, D'A. Overton, Piollet and myself, will start from here on Thursday, the 18th, at noon, and stay that night at Owego. On the next morning, Friday, we take the cars to the Great Bend; there we will take the cars for Wilkes-Barre; stop there and fix up matters so that Judge Conyngham will take Susquehanna County, and go on to Harrisburg by the way of Northumberland, arriving there on Friday night, or some time on Saturday, and stop at Buehler's. Now you and Judge Wilber must come down; either come by way of Waverly and stay with us Thursday night, or else go down so as to be at Harrisburg on Saturday. We would like your company this way, and think Judge Wilber could talk smooth things to his old friend Conyngham.

I write at once, as soon as we have settled upon a course of action, so that you can be ready. There is to be no back out in this war-and if we act, we will not fail. Will you and the Judge go? And which way? You must go. Such a necessity for action will never arise again. I have neither time nor money to spare, but still I will attend to this business. By the way, I don't think we will need to stay there over three or four days. Come on! the prospect is fair.

Yours truly,

WM. ELWELL.

It is not necessary to let it be known where we are going or what our business.

It might be added at this point that they did not get the names of Parsons, Bullock or Lyman, and that Judge Conyng

ham, in spite of the "smooth things" that may have been talked to him, would have nothing to do with the scheme; also, that they had to stay there a good deal more than three or four days.

"At Harrisburg, it became necessary to give some good and substantial reasons why the change should be made. The 11th and 26th Judicial Districts were already large enough, and unless there could be shown some very cogent reasons why Bradford and Susquehanna should be annexed, the proposition would meet with no attention." The reasons offered, as explained by the Harrisburg correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, were "that Judge Wilmot frequently makes political speeches during Court week; that he is unfair to his political opponents in his political intercourse, and partial to his friends; that no active democrat can obtain a tavern license in Bradford or Susquehanna; and that in various ways 'the due administration of justice' is interfered with by the President Judge's partisan proclivities, although he is sufficiently careful to avoid impeachment."

The storm of indignant denial and remonstrance that came from the 13th district, from men of both political parties, seems to have startled the volunteer committee, but the thing was started and must go on. On February 23, a member of the lower house of the legislature introduced "An Act Relative to the Courts in Bradford and Susquehanna" which was read and referred to the judiciary committee. It provided simply that "from the first Monday in December next" the county of Bradford should be annexed to and form part of the twentysixth judicial district, and the county of Susquehanna annexed to and form part of the eleventh judicial district, with some slight changes in the times of holding terms of court. It was read and referred to the judiciary committee, which met the following day and heard five of the party who had made the rendezvous at Harrisburg as appointed in Elwell's letter. But, to follow the report of the proceedings as given in the Harrisburg correspondence of the Philadelphia North American, when asked by Col. A. K. McClure "whether they would say

as lawyers and men that they had ever known Judge Wilmot to be guilty of partiality in his judicial decisions on account of the political opinions of any man, they refused to answer the question categorically. In fact, not one of them would answer it any way save by long speeches, the inferential tenor of which was they thought so. When the question was put directly and so pointedly, a second time, that they could not escape from it, they hesitated and faltered, and at last some young lawyer-I think his name is Overton-declared that he believed so."

The following day a similar bill was introduced in the State senate, and similarly referred to its judiciary committee; but when the movers were asked by this committee to put their charges in writing, they declined to do so. The general allegations of the complaint were refuted by two members of the committee itself, and a motion to report the bill affirmatively was lost by a vote of 3 to 2. A motion to postpone consideration and inform Judge Wilmot of the charges was also voted down, and a motion to report the bill negatively was adopted; but at the request of Judge Wilmot's friends, the second motion was reconsidered, and it was ordered that the consideration of the bill should be postponed and Judge Wilmot informed.

In the interval before the date set for reassembly of the committee-March 10-Wilmot wrote to each of the signers of the petition asking for specific charges, but none of them replied. Intense feeling developed in the district, and the expressions of the local press were highly colored by partisan feeling; but the editorial utterances of the Sullivan County Democrat-a paper politically opposed to Wilmot-may be assumed to be free from overpartiality. It asked:

If Judge Wilmot has laid himself in any way liable in his proceedings while on the Bench, why are the charges not boldly made against him? Why is he not tried and punished for misdemean