CHAPTER XXIII.

WISCONSIN'S REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS.

The first delegation in Congress from the State of Wisconsin consisted of William Pitt Lynde, of Milwaukee, and Dr. Mason C. Darling, of Fond du Lac. Both of them were Democrats. Mr. Lynde was graduated from Yale College in 1838, and later he studied law in the Harvard Law School. He was an excellent scholar, a good linguist and an orator of fine natural and acquired accomplishments. He came to Milwaukee in 1841, and formed a law co-partnership with the late Asahel Finch, which soon was recognized as one of the strongest in the State. Mr. Lynde was Attorney-General of the territory of Wisconsin and United States District Attorney. He served in both branches of the State Legislature and one term as mayor of Milwaukee. He was first elected to Congress in 1848, again in 1874 and again in 1876. As a lawyer he ranked high in the estimation of his contemporaries, and in Congress he always took a leading part. He was one of the prosecutors in the impeachment trial of Secretary of War Belknap, and he took great interest in the Electoral Commission in 1876 which was to determine the presidential contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. It was thought by many discreet men who were in Washington at the time that the findng of that Electoral Commission averted another civil war. Mr. Lynde was warmly in favor of raising that commission, but he vigorously opposed its final decision.

Mr. Lynde became a candidate for Congress in 1874, twentysix years after his first service, under somewhat peculiar circumstances. The Democratic Congressional Convention for the Milwaukee district had been packed by Sam Rindskopf, who had manipulated the caucuses and secured the delegates for himself. Up to that date Mr. Rindskopf was a sort of local Democratic boss,