with his very moderate ideas upon the subject of professional fees and compensation, he permitted it to be. He enjoyed the reputation of being a safe and wise counsellor and adviser, as well as that of being one of the most eloquent and persuasive advocates at the Maryland bar. His appearances were frequent at the bar of the Court of Appeals of the State and of the Supreme Court of the United States, in cases of importance. From being one of the favorite juniors and associates of the great leaders of the bar-Reverdy Johnson, John Nelson and others, he had won his own way to a place in the front rank of leadership.

Mr. Wallis's attitude in political matters, and his relation to party politics were always somewhat peculiar. He was by nature and temperament an ardent partisan. He espoused, with the same fervor that he did the cause of a client, the political cause and principles which commended themselves most strongly to the approval of his intellect and his conscience. He never surrendered, however, to any claims of partisanship, or, upon any plea of party discipline or expediency, his own personal independence and reserved right of individual freedom of action. His own interests or ambition had nothing to do with shaping his political convictions. He spoke and wrote and acted in politics, as he personally thought and felt that truth and justice required. Party success he regarded simply as a means to an end, that end being with him always the triumph of the right as he saw it and believed in it. Consequently, with all the warmth and intensity of his partisanship, Mr. Wallis was never regarded as a good "party man" in the usual acceptation of the term. He did not hesitate to withdraw from the support of a party organization with which he had previously co-operated, when he believed that the organization itself had departed from the principles which had originally won his allegiance. In his younger days he was an enthusiastic Whig. When the Whig Party began to disintegrate, one faction siding with the newlyformed American or "Know-Nothing" organization, and another drifting into the ranks of the "Free-Soilers," Mr. Wallis did not hesitate to identify himself with the Democratic Party. In that political faith and fellowship he continued, while reserving to

himself and exercising freely the same independence of thought and action which had characterized his whole previous political career. In 1857, he was offered the position of United States District Attorney by President Buchanan, but for personal reasons, declined it. He never sought political preferment, and never held political office except when its acceptance involved personal risk and suffering, and proved the passport to a prison.

In 1858, Mr. Wallis wrote the Reform Address to the citizens of Baltimore, which, appearing over his signature and that of a few other gentlemen, resulted in the Reform movement which culminated in the passage of the Election and Police Bills by the Legislature of 1860, and the election, in October of that year, of a Reform Mayor and City Council for the city of Baltimore. The constitutionality of the new Police Law being contested in the courts, Mr. Wallis who had taken an active part in drafting the bill, was one of the counsel who appeared for the newly constituted Board of Police Commissioners, and successfully argued their case before the Court of Appeals at Annapolis.

In 1861, the increasing estrangement between the North and the South, following upon the incessant agitation of the Slavery Question, and the election of President Lincoln, resulted in civil war. At the outset of the Secession movement in the South, the position of Maryland as a Border State, and with a population divided in its sympathies, was felt to be most critical. Mr. Wallis's position and actions during that eventful and perilous time, are best illustrated by his own speeches and writings. Without enlarging upon the facts of history, further than to explain those incidents in Mr. Wallis's personal experience, which would necessarily find a place in any sketch, however meagre, of his life, it is sufficient to say that he fully shared that feeling of personal sympathy with the South which was entertained by a large proportion, to say the least, of the cultivated and educated people of the State. This would seem to have been the natural consequence, to seek no farther for reasons, of Mr. Wallis's ancestry, education and personal tastes and associations. He felt as gentlemen of his class and position very generally felt in Maryland. Yet this feeling of sympathy with the people of his

own blood and section was not stronger than his attachment to the Union of the States, as formed and contemplated by the Federal Constitution. This attachment on Mr. Wallis's part was strong and sincere, and he cherished the hope until hope was no longer possible, that a way might be found to stay the tide of popular passion, both North and South, and to avert the horrible calamity of a disrupted Union and of an internecine war. On February 1st, 1861, a town-meeting was held in the hall of the Maryland Institute in Baltimore, which was addressed by Mr. Wallis, among others, on the condition of affairs, the position of the State of Maryland and the duty of her people. That address speaks his sentiments at the time.

The actual outbreak of civil war, the attack upon Fort Sumter, the President's proclamation calling for volunteers for the defence of the Capital, the hurried mustering of troops at the North, and their onward march to Washington in response to the President's call, the lamentable collision in the streets of Baltimore, on the 19th of April, 1861, between a Massachusetts regiment and an excited body of citizens who sought to obstruct its passage through the city, followed in quick succession. On Sunday, the 21st of April, Mr. Wallis was one of a committee of citizens, who with the Mayor, had an interview in Washington with President Lincoln, his cabinet and General Winfield Scott, and obtained an order from the President temporarily suspending the passage of troops through Baltimore, so as to avoid further bloodshed, in the then frenzied state of the public mind.

On April 24th, a special election was held in Baltimore for delegates to represent the city in the State Legislature, which, in consequence of the critical condition of affairs, was called by the Governor to meet in extra session in the city of Frederick on April 26th. The special election was rendered necessary by the unseating of the entire city delegation, at the previous regular session, in consequence of gross fraud and violence held to have characterized their election on November 2d, 1859. Frederick was designated as the place of meeting in consequence of the State capital, Annapolis, being in military possession of the Federal troops. On the day of election there was but one ticket nominated

and voted for, Mr. Wallis being one of the delegates elected. Upon the assembling of the Legislature, he was made chairman of the House Committee on Federal Relations; and on the 29th of April, three days after the Legislature met, the House of Delegates, by a vote of 53 to 12, approved a report and resolutions from the committee, drafted by Mr. Wallis, declaring that the General Assembly of the State of Maryland had no power to pass an ordinance of secession. On the 2d day of May the Committee on Federal Relations presented a further report and resolutions, also drawn by Mr. Wallis, for the appointment of Commissioners to visit Washington and confer with the President in regard to reopening and restoring communication between Baltimore and the North, which had been interrupted since the 19th of April. The report and resolutions were approved by both Houses of the Legislature. On the 10th of May the same committee submitted a report and resolutions, also prepared by Mr. Wallis, reviewing the actual condition of affairs, and the relation of the State of Maryland to the Federal Government, and declaring that it was inexpedient to call a Sovereign Convention of the people of the State to consider the question of secession. The report and resolutions were adopted, and on the 14th the Legislature adjourned to meet again at Frederick on the 4th of June.

On the day that the Legislature adjourned, Mr. Ross Winans, one of the delegates from Baltimore, was arrested while returning from Frederick to his home, without legal warrant, by a military force, acting under orders from Major-General B. F. Butler, and taken to Fort McHenry, whence he was afterwards transferred to Fortress Monroe. Other military arrests followed rapidly. On the 27th of June, while the Legislature was again in session, having reassembled at Frederick, pursuant to adjournment, the Marshal of Police of Baltimore, was arrested at his home, at three o'clock in the morning, by a military force, and confined in Fort McHenry. On the 1st of July, the arrest of the entire Board of Police Commissioners of Baltimore city followed, the Commissioners being apprehended at their respective homes, between the hours of three and five in the morning, and conveyed under guard to the fort. The spirited memorial addressed

by the Commissioners to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, upon the subject of their arbitrary arrest and imprisonment was from the pen of Mr. Wallis. On the 5th of August, both Houses of the Legislature of Maryland adopted a report and resolutions submitted by a joint committee of which Mr. Wallis was chairman upon the same subject. To a copy of this report, among Mr. Wallis's papers, the following note in his handwriting is appended. "If my participation," is the language of the note, "in the events of these times should be the subject, hereafter, of remembrance or consideration, I am willing that my reputation for personal and political rectitude and for fidelity to the institutions of my State and the Union, shall depend upon the judgment which may be passed on this Report." -(signed) "S. T. Wallis, May 24th, 1863."

On the night of the 12th of September, 1861, Mr. Wallis was arrested at his dwelling in St. Paul street, Baltimore, by order of Major-General John A. Dix, commanding at Fort McHenry. The order addressed to the Provost Marshal of Baltimore, directed the "arrest without an hour's delay" of the Mayor of the city, George William Brown, Esq., the members of the Legislature from Baltimore city, and of several other persons therein named. Other arrests took place the same night in pursuance of direct orders from Washington, including that of the Hon. Henry May, a member of Congress at the time, from Maryland. The prisoners were taken under guard to Fort McHenry, and on the afternoon of the following day, conveyed by boat to Fortress Monroe, and about two weeks later transported by sea to Fort Lafayette, in New York Harbor. In November, they were again removed to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, where they remained without trial until the latter part of November, 1862, when Mr. Wallis and thirteen others, all but one of whom were from Maryland, and all of whom had been prisoners for a period varying from fourteen to seventeen months, were unconditionally released by order of the Secretary of War, and allowed to return to their homes.

Naturally of a delicate constitution, and frequently an invalid, Mr. Wallis suffered keenly from the physical privations incident to his imprisonment. The cold and bleak climate of the New