UDGE WILLIAM LAWRENCE, A. M., LL. D. (by PHILIP G. MOSES).-In the history of the United States few events of a national character have been of more vital importance or more productive of beneficial results to this country than the organization of the Republican party. Coming as it did, at a time when the fate of slavery in the northern states hung in the balance, it was the joint product of the Whig and Free-soil parties, and was utilized as an instrument to defeat the radical principles advocated by Democracy. In Ohio it found immediate support, and one of the most powerful allies was Judge William Lawrence, who, as will be seen in the following pages, has been an important factor in its history and who may well be called the father of the Republican party in Ohio. Few citizens of the Buckeye state can look back upon such a record in political history as he who, undaunted by the many difficulties that beset his path and supported by his faith in the principles of the new organization, persevered in his efforts and lives to-day to see the glorious fruits of his early struggles. His labors in behalf of the party throughout a long and vigorous life-time have gained for him the honorable position he at present occupies among his fellow-men, and he is now as firm an adherent of Republican policies as he was two-score years ago. His memoir will stand as an everlasting monument to his loyalty, courage and fidelity, and his name will descend to posterity associated with one of the most remarkable and important phases in American history.

He was born on the 26th of June, 1819, at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and after completing a course in the common schools of his native county he entered Franklin College, at which he was graduated in 1838, having the honor of being valedictorian of his class. He then attended the Cincinnati Law School, receiving his diploma from that institution in March, 1840, and in November of the same year he was admitted to practice at the bar.

After attaining his majority he became interested in politics and joined what is now known as the oldline Whig party, on which ticket he was an elector in 1852, when General Scott was the nominee for president, and in 1854 he took his seat in the Ohio senate. About that time the Kansas-Nebraska bill was being argued in that body, and he was one of the Whigs who believed in the construction put upon the constitution by Chief Justice Marshall, as opposed to the staterights theory of Jefferson, namely: That congress had not the power under the constitution to establish slavery in the territories. The bill to admit Kansas and Nebraska as states with a constitution allowing slavery to be established by vote of the people, under the "squatter-sovereignty" doctrine, was then pending in the senate of the United States, and Stephen A. Douglas, its chief advocate, was chairman of the committee on territories. The pro-slavery members were not satisfied with the bill as it had passed the house, and Douglas put in a proviso declaring that the purpose of the bill was not to legislate slavery into or