against Mr. Flournay, an able, popular, and respected candidate of the Whig party, reenforced as it was at that time by the KnowNothing party, which had been formed through terror of the power of foreign immi gration. Wise travelled over three thou sand miles, speaking constantly through five months of the year, and the vote of the people was given for him as the Democratic standard-bearer. It was during the administration of Henry A. Wise as Governor of Virginia, in October, 1859, that John Brown and his followers made the attempt to seize Harper's Ferry to effect the abolition of slavery. Whatever may be thought of the integrity of the man, no reasonable person can approve of his methods. That he was sincerely antislavery, courageous, and self-sacrificing, may be al lowed, with gratitude that the mischief which might have been wrought to innocent women and children in such an uprising as he planned was averted by the failure of means unfitted for their purpose. Multitudes of letters were sent to change his sentence to imprisonment as a monomaniac, but there seemed to no one who saw him any evidence of insanity, and his execution took place in December, 1859. It is a proof of the candor of Governor Wise that, six years after this event, John Brown was men tioned in his presence, and he eagerly exexclaimed, " John Brown was a great man, a great man, sir! " He could distinguish between a disinterested purpose wrought out with personal courage, and the mistake respecting the question of judgment and means. It is possible that, to an organi zation like his, there was an attraction in the rash adventure, singularity, and daring of John Brown, which a broader, wiser re former would not have had for him. In 1861, Mr. Wise was a member of the State convention at Richmond to consider the relations of Virginia to the Federal gov ernment. At first his report, after empha sizing State rights, a partition of territories
among the two slavery and anti-slavery in terests, counselled a peaceful adjustment of difficulties. He was opposed to secession, and advocated fighting for the Union. But when Virginia seceded, he entered heartily into the war, and was appointed a brigadieroke general. IslandSubsequently
- and a son of
he his, was Captain sent to RoanO. J. Vise, was lost in an attack on the island by General Burnside. General Wise was ill of pneumonia at the time, and felt that Provi dence had doubly afflicted him in the loss of his brave son and in his own enforced inactivity. He had the affection of his soldiers, as he had experienced the attachment of men in other walks in life, and he was very much touched by their insisting on sharing with him the contents of any boxes or other tokens from home. Between General Wise and Jefferson Davis there was not personal friendship, as the general disapproved of the civil administration of the Confederacy, and was unsparing in his criticism of it. This did not lead Davis to give him any military advantage, and he was intentionally kept with his troops in garrison positions rather than in prominent combinations. Still he saw active service for four years. He had said, when he left the allegiance to the Union, with tears in his eyes, "I shall always love the dear old Union "; but General Lee said of him that his uncon querable spirit shone forth as conspicuously at the last, as at the first, of his military ca reer. When his house in the eastern part of the State had been taken by the United States authorities, a school for colored chil dren was kept in it, the daughter of John Brown teaching in it, with her father's por trait hanging on the wall! After the war, Mr. Wise, in his sixtieth year, resumed the practice of law in Rich mond. He had given up the best years of his life to politics; but he was well grounded in the principles Of law, and he threw his old earnestness and such knowledge as he
