astonished that such meager mention has been made of the man who was really the main factor in the accomplishment of the work of the Convention, and who was consulted and advised with before any important steps were taken."

Mr. Lamb frankly avowed himself against the New State measure at the time it was brought forward, deeming the time and circumstances inopportune; but with equal frankness and the sincerity characteristic of him, he declared that if the Convention chose a different course, he should "join heartily, fairly and honestly in carrying out their wishes." And that is exactly what he did. But if the reorganization of Virginia had not been laid on the unassailable foundations of legal and constitutional regularity prepared by him, the procedure for the New State must have fallen to the ground, for it did not lack enemies lying in wait to overthrow it at every stage.

All familiar with the work of those years in the conventions and in the Legislature of the New State, wherever Mr. Lamb took a hand, know what an indefatigable and admirable draftsman he was. He was the Madison of that time and the comparison is quite as much to the credit of Mr. Madison as of Mr. Lamb. His mastery of every subject he touched was surprising; his facility in the execution of work unequalled. Every document he drew, down to the smallest detail, seemed to have been shaped in his mind before he began to put it on paper; and in writing, each detail fell into place with the ease and precisions of well-trained battalions. Besides the ordinances of the earlier conventions, much of Mr. Lamb's work went into the constitution. Here Mr. Van Winkle was a very

able second, fitted both by his abilities and by his studies in connection with the Virginia Convention of 1850-51 for such work. In the first West Virginia House of Delegates, which sat in continuous session five or six months after the inauguration of the State, remodeling old statutes and making new ones to fit the new constitution, the bulk of this work was put upon Mr. Lamb, who performed it cheerfully and faultlessly. Every morning at the opening he would come into the House with a budget of bills, written in his dainty chirography-faultless in punctuation, paragraphing and arrangement; the lines written just a little above the ruling so that they looked as if faintly underscored-and the wonder all felt was not only as Goldsmith puts it, how one head could contain it all, but where he ever found the time and strength to perform the labor. The type-writer was yet unknown. The work was done so quietly that his associates scarcely realized or appreciated the magnitude of the labor, the quality of the work turned out or the unselfish sacrifice of him by whom it was done. No committee chairman who rose to explain his measures could put his explanation into so few, so terse, so clear and convincing sentences. Mr. Lamb made not the least pretence at oratory. He spoke quietly, earnestly, with little gesture or inflection, seeking only to express his thoughts; and these he stated with the same lucidity and precision as he did on paper. There was nothing redundant, nothing for captandum. He was in all things, speaking or writing, the same plain, sincere, unpretending yet wise and able counsellor.

CAMPBELL, THE PIONEER.

The one man who exercised a powerful and enduring influence on the fortunes of Northwestern Virginia-who went beyond any other in moulding public opinion towards the result a free and separate State-but who does not appear among the professional artificers of the structure, nor among those who enjoyed the honors and emoluments of success, was Archibald W. Campbell, editor of the Wheeling Intelligencer. Like Peirpoint, with whom he was always in close touch, Mr. Campbell was a poor politician. Both were too earnest and single minded to give themselves to self-seeking. Peirpoint accepted a post and duty surrounded with danger and rather shunned than sought by his contemporaries; and having served the public ends in this difficult place, in a most trying time, with scanty thanks from those he most directly served-without trying to promote his own personal fortunes-he went back when his thankless task was finished, and he had been made the victim of a legislative Frankenstein at Richmond, to his modest home by the Monongahela and sat down again to earn his bread and butter as an attorney. Impelled by a kindred sincerity and devotedness of purpose, Mr. Campbell gave himself without reserve to the work of educating and preparing the people of Northwestern Virginia for the high destiny he had faith to believe awaited them. When the time of fruition came-as it did in an unexpected way-he left it to others more adroit, less deserving-less scrupulous possibly-to reap the harvest he had sown.

Mr. Campbell came of good stock, and combined in his make-up a fine quality of brains with an even finer probity-the "invincible probity" which Emerson attributes to Montaigne. In his paternal ancestry there was blended the sturdy, conscientious Scotch-Irish with a strain of French Huguenot—a heredity likely to tell for force and brilliancy; which may explain the traits that in Mr. Campbell's career were best known to his contemporaries. On his mother's side, he came of an old New England ancestry of genuine Puritan breeding.

At Bethany College Mr. Campbell laid the foundation for the liberal education to which every year of his busy and studious life made additions. A term at a law school where he sat at the feet of that Gamaliel of free-soil, William H. Seward, probably helped give to his political thought a direction in consonance with his innate principles. He began newspaper work in 1856 on the Intelligencer and later in the same year joined John F. McDermot, then printing Bishop Campbell's "Millenial Harbinger," at Bethany, in the purchase of the Intelligencer. At that time it being understood the new proprietors expected to make a Republican paper, it was predicted that within six months their press would be in the Ohio River. The five years that followed were years of struggle for existence; but it was a case of the survival of the fittest. The young editor, wiser than his years, laid out a programme of deliberate, cautious, steadfast advocacy of free-soil principles. He took the highest ground on the Republican side of American politics-then just beginning to stir profoundly the moral consciousness of the North-and maintained it with a dignity and ability that commanded the