Chapter 16

See J. B. J. Fourier’s “Éloge” inMémoires de l’acad. des sciences, t. iv.; Ch. Dupin,Revue encyclopédique, t. xvi. (1822);Biog. universelle, t. lxii. (C. L. Mathieu); Max. Marie,Hist. des sciences, x. 31; R. Grant,Hist. of Physical Astr.pp. 96, 142, 165; R. Wolf,Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 779, &c.

(A. M. C.)

DELAMERE(orDe la Mer),GEORGE BOOTH,1stBaron(1622-1684), son of William Booth, a member of an ancient family settled at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, and of Vere, daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Egerton, was born in August 1622. He took an active part in the Civil War with his grandfather, Sir George Booth, on the parliamentary side. He was returned for Cheshire to the Long Parliament in 1645 and to Cromwell’s parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In 1655 he was appointed military commissioner for Cheshire and treasurer at war. He was one of the excluded members who tried and failed to regain their seats after the fall of Richard Cromwell in 1659. He had for some time been regarded by the royalists as a well-wisher to their cause, and was described to the king in May 1659 as “very considerable in his country, a presbyterian in opinion, yet so moral a man.... I think your Majesty may safely [rely] on him and his promises which are considerable and hearty.”1He now became one of the chief leaders of the new “royalists” who at this time united with the cavaliers to effect the restoration. A rising was arranged for the 5th of August in several districts, and Booth took charge of operations in Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales. He got possession of Chester on the 19th, issued a proclamation declaring that arms had been taken up “in vindication of the freedom of parliament, of the known laws, liberty and property,” and marched towards York. The plot, however, was known to Thurloe. It had entirely failed in other parts of the country, and Lambert advancing with his forces defeated Booth’s men at Nantwich Bridge. Booth himself escaped disguised as a woman, but was discovered at Newport Pagnell on the 23rd in the act of shaving, and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was, however, soon liberated, took his seat in the parliament of 1659-1660, and was one of the twelve members deputed to carry the message of the Commons to Charles II. at the Hague. In July 1660 he received a grant of £10,000, having refused the larger sum of £20,000 at first offered to him, and on the 20th of April 1661, on the occasion of the coronation, he was created Baron Delamere, with a licence to create six new knights. The same year he was appointedcustos rotulorumof Cheshire. In later years he showed himself strongly antagonistic to the reactionary policy of the government. He died on the 8th of August 1684, and was buried at Bowdon. He married (1) Lady Catherine Clinton, daughter and co-heir of Theophilus, 4th earl of Lincoln, by whom he had one daughter; and (2) Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Henry, 1st earl of Stamford, by whom, besides five daughters, he had seven sons, the second of whom, Henry, succeeded him in the title and estates and was created earl of Warrington. The earldom became extinct on the death of the latter’s son, the 2nd earl, without male issue, in 1758, and the barony of Delamere terminated in the person of the 4th baron in 1770; the title was revived in 1821 in the Cholmondeley family.

1Clarendon,State Papers, iii. 472.

DE LAND,a town and the county-seat of Volusia county, Florida, U.S.A., 111 m. by rail S. of Jacksonville, 20 m. from the Atlantic coast and 4 m. from the St John’s river. Pop. (1900) 1449; (1910) 2812. De Land is served by the Atlantic Coast Line and by steamboats on the St John’s river. It has a fine winter climate, with an average temperature of 60° F., has sulphur springs, and is a health and winter resort. There is a starch factory here; and the surrounding country is devoted to fruit-growing. De Land is the seat of the John B. Stetson University (co-educational), an undenominational institution under Baptist control, founded in 1884, as an academy, by Henry A. De Land, a manufacturer of Fairport, New York, and in 1887 incorporated under the name of De Land University, which was changed in 1889 to the present name, in honour of John Batterson Stetson (1830-1906), a Philadelphia manufacturer of hats, who during his life gave nearly $500,000 to the institution. The university includes a college of liberal arts, a department of law, a school of technology, an academy, a normal school, a model school, a business college and a school of music. De Land was founded in 1876 by H. A. De Land, above mentioned, who built a public school here in 1877 and a high school in 1883.

DELANE, JOHN THADEUS(1817-1879), editor ofThe Times(London), was born on the 11th of October 1817 in London. He was the second son of Mr W. F. A. Delane, a barrister, of an old Irish family, who about 1832 was appointed by Mr Walter financial manager ofThe Times. While still a boy he attracted Mr Walter’s attention, and it was always intended that he should find work on the paper. He received a good general education at private schools and King’s College, London, and also at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; after taking his degree in 1840 he at once began work on the paper, though later he read for the bar, being called in 1847. In 1841 he succeeded Thomas Barnes as editor, a post which he occupied for thirty-six years. He from the first obtained the best introductions into society and the chief political circles, and had a position there such as no journalist had previously enjoyed, using his opportunities with a sure intuition for the way in which events would move. His staff included some of the most brilliant men of the day, who worked together with a common ideal. The result to the paper, which in those days had hardly any real competitor in English journalism, was an excellence of information which gave it great power. (SeeNewspapers.) Delane was a man of many interests and great judgment; capable of long application and concentrated attention, with power to seize always on the main point at issue, and rapidly master the essential facts in the most complicated affair. His general policy was to keep the paper a national organ of opinion above party, but with a tendency to sympathize with the Liberal movements of the day. He admired Palmerston and respected Lord Aberdeen, and was of considerable use to both; and it was Lord Aberdeen himself who, in 1845, told him of the impending repeal of the Corn Laws, an incident round which many incorrect stories have gathered. The history, however, of the events during the thirteen administrations, between 1841 and 1877, in whichThe Times, and therefore Delane, played an important part cannot here be recapitulated. In 1877 his health gave way, and he retired from the editorship; and on the 22nd of November 1879 he died at Ascot.

A biography by his nephew, Arthur Irwin Dasent, was published in 1908.

DELANY, MARY GRANVILLE(1700-1788), an Englishwoman of literary tastes, was born at Coulston, Wilts, on the 14th of May 1700. She was a niece of the 1st Lord Lansdowne. In 1717 or 1718 she was unhappily married to Alexander Pendarves, a rich old Cornish landowner, who died in 1724. During a visit to Ireland she met Dean Swift and his intimate friend, the Irish divine, Patrick Delany, whose second wife she became in 1743. After his death in 1768 she passed all her summers with her bosom friend the dowager duchess of Portland—Prior’s “Peggy”—and when the latter died George III. and Queen Charlotte, whose affection for their “dearest Mrs Delany” seems to have been most genuine, gave her a small house at Windsor and a pension of £300 a year. Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited her at her London home and at Windsor, and owed to her friendship her court appointment. At this time Mrs Delany was a charming and sweet old lady, with a reputation for cutting out and making the ingenious “paper mosaiks” now in the British Museum; she had known every one worth knowing in her day,had corresponded with Swift and Young, and left an interesting picture of the polite but commonplace English society of the 18th century in her six volumes ofAutobiography and Letters. Burke calls her “a real fine lady”—“the model of an accomplished woman of former times.” She died on the 15th of April 1788.

DE LA REY, JACOBUS HERCULES(1847- ), Boer soldier, was born in the Lichtenburg district, and in his youth and early manhood saw much service in savage warfare. In 1893 he entered the Volksraad of the South African Republic, and was an active supporter of the policy of General Joubert. At the outbreak of the war with Great Britain in 1899 De La Rey was made a general, and he was engaged in the western campaign against Lord Methuen and Lord Roberts. He won his first great success at Nitral’s Nek on the 11th of July 1900, where he compelled the surrender of a strong English detachment. In the second or guerrilla stage of the war De La Rey became one of the most conspicuously successful of the Boer leaders. He was assistant to General Louis Botha and a member of the government, with charge of operations in the western Transvaal. The principal actions in which he was successful (see alsoTransvaal:History) were Nooitgedacht, Vlakfontein and the defeat and capture of Lord Methuen at Klerksdorp (March 7, 1902). The British general was severely wounded in the action, and De La Rey released him at once, being unable to afford him proper medical assistance. This humanity and courtesy marked De La Rey’s conduct throughout the war, and even more than his military skill and daring earned for him the esteem of his enemies. After the conclusion of peace De La Rey, who had borne a prominent part in the negotiations, visited Europe with the other generals, with the intention of raising funds to enable the Boers to resettle their country. In December 1903 he went on a mission to India, and induced the whole of the Boer prisoners of war detained at Ahmednagar to accept the new order of things and to take the oath of allegiance. In February 1907 General De La Rey was returned unopposed as member for Ventersdorp in the legislative assembly of the first Transvaal parliament under self-government.

DE LA RIVE, AUGUSTE ARTHUR(1801-1873), Swiss physicist, was born at Geneva on the 9th of October 1801. He was the son of Charles Gaspard de la Rive (1770-1834), who studied medicine at Edinburgh, and after practising for a few years in London, became professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the academy of Geneva in 1802 and rector in 1823. After a brilliant career as a student, he was appointed at the age of twenty-two to the chair of natural philosophy in the academy of Geneva. For some years after his appointment he devoted himself specially, with François Marcet (1803-1883), to the investigation of the specific heat of gases, and to observations for determining the temperature of the earth’s crust. Electrical studies, however, engaged most of his attention, especially in connexion with the theory of the voltaic cell and the electric discharge in rarefied gases. His researches on the last-mentioned subject led him to form a new theory of the aurora borealis. In 1840 he described a process for the electro-gilding of silver and brass, for which in the following year he received a prize of 3000 francs from the French Academy of Sciences. Between 1854 and 1858 he published aTraité de l’électricité théorique et appliquée, which was translated into several languages. De la Rive’s birth and fortune gave him considerable social and political influence. He was distinguished for his hospitality to literary and scientific men, and for his interest in the welfare and independence of his native country. In 1860, when the annexation of Savoy and Nice had led the Genevese to fear French aggression, de la Rive was sent by his fellow-citizens on a special embassy to England, and succeeded in securing a declaration from the English government, which was communicated privately to that of France, that any attack upon Geneva would be regarded as acasus belli. On the occasion of this visit the university of Oxford conferred upon de la Rive the honorary degree of D.C.L. When on his way to pass the winter at Cannes he died suddenly at Marseilles on the 27th of November 1873.

His son,Lucien de la Rive, born at Geneva on the 3rd of April 1834, published papers on various mathematical and physical subjects, and with Édouard Sarasin carried out investigations on the propagation of electric waves.

DELAROCHE, HIPPOLYTE,commonly known asPaul(1797-1856), French painter, was born in Paris on the 17th of July 1797. His father was an expert who had made a fortune, to some extent, by negotiating and cataloguing, buying and selling. He was proud of his son’s talent, and able to forward his artistic education. The master selected was Gros, then painting life-size histories, and surrounded by many pupils. In no haste to make an appearance in the Salon, his first exhibited picture was a large one, “Josabeth saving Joas” (1822). This picture led to his acquaintance with Géricault and Delacroix, with whom he remained on the most friendly terms, the three forming the central group of a numerous body of historical painters, such as perhaps never before lived in one locality and at one time.

From 1822 the record of his life is to be found in the successive works coming from his hand. He visited Italy in 1838 and 1843, when his father-in-law, Horace Vernet, was director of the French Academy. His studio in Paris was in the rue Mazarine, where he never spent a day without some good result, his hand being sure and his knowledge great. His subjects, definitely expressed and popular in their manner of treatment, illustrating certain views of history dear to partisans, yet romantic in their general interest, were painted with a firm, solid, smooth surface, which gave an appearance of the highest finish. This solidity, found also on the canvas of Vernet, Scheffer, Leopold Robert and Ingres, was the manner of the day. It repudiates the technical charm of texture and variety of handling which the English school inherited as a tradition from the time of Reynolds; but it is more easily understood by the world at large, since a picture so executed depends for its interest rather on the history, scene in nature or object depicted, than on the executive skill, which may or may not be critically appreciated. We may add that his point of view of the historical characters which he treated is not always just. “Cromwell lifting the Coffin-lid and looking at the Body of Charles” is an incident only to be excused by an improbable tradition; but “The King in the Guard-Room,” with villainous roundhead soldiers blowing tobacco smoke in his patient face, is a libel on the Puritans; and “Queen Elizabeth dying on the Ground,” like a she-dragon no one dares to touch, is sensational; while the “Execution of Lady Jane Grey” is represented as taking place in a dungeon. Nothing can be more incorrect than this last as a reading of English history, yet we forget the inaccuracy in admiration of the treatment which represents Lady Jane, with bandaged sight, feeling for the block, her maids covering their faces, and none with their eyes visible among the many figures. On the other hand, “Strafford led to Execution,” when Laud stretches his lawn-covered arms out of the small high window of his cell to give him a blessing as he passes along the corridor, is perfect; and the splendid scene of Richelieu in his gorgeous barge, preceding the boat containing Cinq-Mars and De Thou carried to execution by their guards, is perhaps the most dramatic semi-historical work ever done. “The Princes in the Tower” must also be mentioned as a very complete creation; and the “Young female Martyr floating dead on the Tiber” is so pathetic that criticism feels hard-hearted and ashamed before it. As a realization of a page of authentic history, again, no picture can surpass the “Assassination of the duc de Guise at Blois.” The expression of the murdered man stretched out by the side of the bed, the conspirators all massed together towards the door and far from the body, show exact study as well as insight into human nature. This work was exhibited in his meridian time, 1835; and in the same year he exhibited the “Head of an Angel,” a study from Horace Vernet’s young daughter Louise, his love for whom was the absorbing passion of his life, and from the shock of whose death, in 1845, it is said he never quite recovered. By far his finest productions after her death are of the most serious character, a sequence of small elaborate pictures of incidents in the Passion. Two of these, the Virgin and the other Maries, with the apostles Peter and John, within a nearly dark apartment,hearing the crowd as it passes haling Christ to Calvary, and St John conducting the Virgin home again after all is over, are beyond all praise as exhibiting the divine story from a simply human point of view. They are pure and elevated, and also dramatic and painful. Delaroche was not troubled by ideals, and had no affectation of them. His sound but hard execution allowed no mystery to intervene between him and hismotif, which was always intelligible to the million, so that he escaped all the waste of energy that painters who try to be poets on canvas suffer. Thus it is that essentially the same treatment was applied by him to the characters of distant historical times, the founders of the Christian religion, and the real people of his own day, such as “Napoleon at Fontainebleau,” or “Napoleon at St Helena,” or “Marie Antoinette leaving the Convention” after her sentence.

In 1837 Delaroche received the commission for the great picture, 27 mètres long, in the hemicycle of the lecture theatre of the École des Beaux Arts. This represents the great artists of the modern ages assembled in groups on either hand of a central elevation of white marble steps, on the topmost of which are three thrones filled by the architects and sculptors of the Parthenon. To supply the female element in this vast composition he introduced the genii or muses, who symbolize or reign over the arts, leaning against the balustrade of the steps, beautiful and queenly figures with a certain antique perfection of form, but not informed by any wonderful or profound expression. The portrait figures are nearly all unexceptionable and admirable. This great and successful work is on the wall itself, an inner wall however, and is executed in oil. It was finished in 1841, and considerably injured by a fire which occurred in 1855, which injury he immediately set himself to remedy (finished by Robert-Fleury); but he died before he had well begun, on the 4th of November 1856.

Personally Delaroche exercised even a greater influence than by his works. Though short and not powerfully made, he impressed every one as rather tall than otherwise; his physiognomy was accentuated and firm, and his fine forehead gave him the air of a minister of state.

See Rees,Delaroche(London, 1880).

(W. B. Sc.)

DELARUE, GERVAIS(1751-1835), French historical investigator, formerly regarded as one of the chief authorities on Norman and Anglo-Norman literature, was a native of Caen. He received his education at the university of that town, and was ultimately raised to the rank of professor. His first historical enterprise was interrupted by the French Revolution, which forced him to take refuge in England, where he took the opportunity of examining a vast mass of original documents in the Tower and elsewhere, and received much encouragement, from Sir Walter Scott among others. From England he passed over to Holland, still in prosecution of his favourite task; and there he remained till in 1798 he returned to France. The rest of his life was spent in his native town, where he was chosen principal of his university. While in England he had been elected a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries; and in his own country he was made a corresponding member of the Institute, and was enrolled in the Legion of Honour. Besides numerous articles in theMemoirs of the Royal Society of London, theMémoires de l’Institut, theMémoires de la Société d’Agriculture de Caen, and in other periodical collections, he published separatelyEssais historiques sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, et les Trouvères normands et anglo-normands(3 vols., 1834), andRecherches historiques sur la Prairie de Caen(1837); and after his death appearedMémoires historiques sur le palinod de Caen(1841),Recherches sur la tapisserie de Bayeux(1841), andNouveaux Essais historiques sur la ville de Caen(1842). In all his writings he displays a strong partiality for everything Norman, and rates the Norman influence on French and English literature as of the very highest moment.

DE LA RUE, WARREN(1815-1889), British astronomer and chemist, son of Thomas De la Rue, the founder of the large firm of stationers of that name in London, was born in Guernsey on the 18th of January 1815. Having completed his education in Paris, he entered his father’s business, but devoted his leisure hours to chemical and electrical researches, and between 1836 and 1848 published several papers on these subjects. Attracted to astronomy by the influence of James Nasmyth, he constructed in 1850 a 13-in. reflecting telescope, mounted first at Canonbury, later at Cranford, Middlesex, and with its aid executed many drawings of the celestial bodies of singular beauty and fidelity. His chief title to fame, however, is his pioneering work in the application of the art of photography to astronomical research. In 1851 his attention was drawn to a daguerreotype of the moon by G. P. Bond, shown at the great exhibition of that year. Excited to emulation and employing the more rapid wet-collodion process, he succeeded before long in obtaining exquisitely defined lunar pictures, which remained unsurpassed until the appearance of the Rutherfurd photographs in 1865. In 1854 he turned his attention to solar physics, and for the purpose of obtaining a daily photographic representation of the state of the solar surface he devised the photo-heliograph, described in his report to the British Association, “On Celestial Photography in England” (1859), and in his Bakerian Lecture (Phil. Trans.vol. clii. pp. 333-416). Regular work with this instrument, inaugurated at Kew by De la Rue in 1858, was carried on there for fourteen years; and was continued at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1873 to 1882. The results obtained in the years 1862-1866 were discussed in two memoirs, entitled “Researches on Solar Physics,” published by De la Rue, in conjunction with Professor Balfour Stewart and Mr B. Loewy, in thePhil. Trans.(vol. clix. pp. 1-110, and vol. clx. pp. 389-496). In 1860 De la Rue took the photo-heliograph to Spain for the purpose of photographing the total solar eclipse which occurred on the 18th of July of that year. This expedition formed the subject of the Bakerian Lecture already referred to. The photographs obtained on that occasion proved beyond doubt the solar character of the prominences or red flames, seen around the limb of the moon during a solar eclipse. In 1873 De la Rue gave up active work in astronomy, and presented most of his astronomical instruments to the university observatory, Oxford. Subsequently, in the year 1887, he provided the same observatory with a 13-in. refractor to enable it to take part in the International Photographic Survey of the Heavens. With Dr Hugo Müller as his collaborator he published several papers of a chemical character between the years 1856 and 1862, and investigated, 1868-1883, the discharge of electricity through gases by means of a battery of 14,600 chloride of silver cells. He was twice president of the Chemical Society, and also of the Royal Astronomical Society (1864-1866). In 1862 he received the gold medal of the latter society, and in 1864 a Royal medal from the Royal Society, for his observations on the total eclipse of the sun in 1860, and for his improvements in astronomical photography. He died in London on the 19th of April 1889.

SeeMonthly Notices Roy. Astr. Soc.l. 155;Journ. Chem. Soc.lvii. 441;Nature, xl. 26;The Times(April 22, 1889); Royal Society,Catalogue of Scientific Papers.

DELATOR,in Roman history, properly one who gave notice (deferre) to the treasury officials of moneys that had become due to the imperial fisc. This special meaning was extended to those who lodged information as to punishable offences, and further, to those who brought a public accusation (whether true or not) against any person (especially with the object of getting money). Although the worddelatoritself, for “common informer,” is confined to imperial times, the right of public accusation had long been in existence. When exercised from patriotic and disinterested motives, its effects were beneficial; but the moment the principle of reward was introduced, this was no longer the case. Sometimes the accuser was rewarded with the rights of citizenship, a place in the senate, or a share of the property of the accused. At the end of the republican period, Cicero (De Officiis, ii. 14) expresses his opinion that such accusations should be undertaken only in the interests of the state or for other urgent reasons. Under the empire the system degenerated into an abuse, which reached its height during the reign of Tiberius, although the delators continued to exercise their activity till the reign of Theodosius. They were drawn from all classes of society,—patricians,knights, freedmen, slaves, philosophers, literary men, and, above all, lawyers. The objects of their attacks were the wealthy, all possible rivals of the emperor, and those whose conduct implied a reproach against the imperial mode of life. Special opportunities were afforded by the law of majestas, which (originally directed against attacks on the ruler by word or deed) came to include all kinds of accusations with which it really had nothing to do; indeed, according to Tacitus, a charge of treason was regularly added to all criminal charges. The chief motive for these accusations was no doubt the desire of amassing wealth,1since by the law of majestas one-fourth of the goods of the accused, even if he committed suicide in order to avoid confiscation (which was always carried out in the case of those condemned to capital punishment), was assured to the accuser (who was hence calledquadruplator). Pliny and Martial mention instances of enormous fortunes amassed by those who carried on this hateful calling. But it was not without its dangers. If the delator lost his case or refused to carry it through, he was liable to the same penalties as the accused; he was exposed to the risk of vengeance at the hands of the proscribed in the event of their return, or of their relatives; while emperors like Tiberius would have no scruples about banishing or putting out of the way those of his creatures for whom he had no further use, and who might have proved dangerous to himself. Under the better emperors a reaction set in, and the severest penalties were inflicted upon the delators. Titus drove into exile or reduced to slavery those who had served Nero, after they had first been flogged in the amphitheatre. The abuse naturally reappeared under a man like Domitian; the delators, with whom Vespasian had not interfered, although he had abolished trials for majestas, were again banished by Trajan, and threatened with capital punishment in an edict of Constantine; but, as has been said, the evil, which was an almost necessary accompaniment of autocracy, lasted till the end of the 4th century.

See Mayor’s note on Juvenal iv. 48 for ancient authorities; C. Merivale,Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, chap. 44; W. Rein,Criminalrecht der Römer(1842); T. Mommsen,Römisches Strafrecht(1899); Kleinfeller in Pauly-Wissowa’sRealencyclopädie.

1“Delatores, genus hominum publico exitio repertum ... per praemia eliciebantur” (Tacitus,Annals, iv. 30).

DELAUNAY, ELIE(1828-1891), French painter, was born at Nantes and studied under Flandrin and at the École des Beaux Arts. He worked in the classicist manner of Ingres until, after winning the Prix de Rome, he went to Italy in 1856, and abandoned the ideal of Raphaelesque perfection for the sincerity and severity of the quattrocentists. As a pure and firm draughtsman he stands second only to Ingres. After his return from Rome he was entrusted with many important commissions for decorative paintings, such as the frescoes in the church of St Nicholas at Nantes; the three panels of “Apollo,” “Orpheus” and “Amphion” at the Paris opera-house; and twelve paintings for the great hall of the council of state in the Palais Royal. His “Scenes from the Life of St Geneviève,” which he designed for the Pantheon, remained unfinished at his death. The Luxembourg Museum has his famous “Plague in Rome” and a nude figure of “Diana”; and the Nantes Museum, the “Lesson on the Flute.” In the last decade of his life he achieved great popularity as a portrait painter.

DELAUNAY, LOUIS ARSÈNE(1826-1903), French actor, was born in Paris, the son of a wine-seller. He studied at the Conservatoire, and made his first formal appearance on the stage in 1845, inTartuffeat the Odéon. After three years at this house he made his début at the Comédie Française as Dorante in Corneille’sLe Menteur, and began a long and brilliant career in young lover parts. He continued to act asjeune premieruntil he was sixty, his grace, marvellous diction and passion enchanting his audiences. It was especially in the plays of Alfred de Musset that his gifts found their happiest expression. In the thirty-seven years during which he was a member of the Comédie Française, Delaunay took or created nearly two hundred parts. He retired in 1887, having been made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1883.

DELAVIGNE, JEAN FRANÇOIS CASIMIR(1793-1843), French poet and dramatist, was born on the 4th of April 1793 at Havre. His father sent him at an early age to Paris, there to be educated at the Lycée Napoléon. Constitutionally of an ardent and sympathetic temperament, he enlarged his outlook by extensive miscellaneous reading. On the 20th of March 1811 the empress Marie Louise gave birth to a son, named in his very cradle king of Rome. This event was celebrated by Delavigne in aDithyrambe sur la naissance du roi de Rome, which secured for him a sinecure in the revenue office.

About this time he competed twice for an academy prize, but without success. Delavigne, inspired by the catastrophe of 1815, wrote two impassioned poems, the first entitled Waterloo, the second,Dévastation du musée, both written in the heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and teeming with popular political allusions. A third, but of inferior merit,Sur le besoin de s’unir après le départ des étrangers, was afterwards added. These stirring pieces, termed by himMesséniennes, sounded a keynote which found an echo in the hearts of all. Twenty-five thousand copies were sold; Delavigne was famous. He was appointed to an honorary librarianship, with no duties to discharge. In 1819 his playLes vêpres Sicilienneswas performed at the Odéon, then just rebuilt; it had previously been refused for the Théâtre Français. On the night of the first representation, which was warmly received, Picard, the manager, threw himself into the arms of his elated friend, exclaiming, “You have saved us! You are the founder of the second French Theatre.” This success was followed up by the production of theComédiens(1820), a poor play, with little plot, and theParia(1821), with still less, but containing some well-written choruses. The latter piece obtained a longer lease of life than its intrinsic literary merits warranted, on account of the popularity of the political opinions freely expressed in it—so freely expressed, indeed, that the displeasure of the king was incurred, and Delavigne lost his post. But Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, willing to gain the people’s good wishes by complimenting their favourite, wrote to him as follows: “The thunder has descended on your house; I offer you an apartment in mine.” Accordingly Delavigne became librarian at the Palais Royal, a position retained during the remainder of his life. It was here that he wrote theÉcole des vieillards(1823), his best comedy, which gained his election to the Academy in 1825. To this period also belongLa Princesse Aurélie(1828), andMarino Faliero(1829), a drama in the romantic style.

For his success as a writer Delavigne was in no small measure indebted to the stirring nature of the times in which he lived. TheMesséniennes, which first introduced him to universal notice, had their origin in the excitement consequent on the occupation of France by the allies in 1815. Another crisis in his life and in the history of his country, the revolution of 1830, stimulated him to the production of a second masterpiece,La Parisienne. This song, set to music by Auber, was on the lips of every Frenchman, and rivalled in popularity theMarseillaise. A companion piece,La Varsovienne, was written for the Poles, by whom it was sung on the march to battle. Other works of Delavigne followed each other in rapid succession—Louis XI(1832),Les Enfants d’Édouard(1833),Don Juan d’Autriche(1835),Une Famille au temps du Luther(1836),La Popularité(1838),La Fille du Cid(1839),Le Conseiller rapporteur(1840), andCharles VI(1843), an opera partly written by his brother. In 1843 he quitted Paris to seek in Italy the health his labours had cost him. At Lyons his strength altogether gave way, and he died on the 11th of December.

By many of his own time Delavigne was looked upon as unsurpassed and unsurpassable. Every one bought and read his works. But the applause of the moment was gained at the sacrifice of lasting fame. As a writer he had many excellences. He expressed himself in a terse and vigorous style. The poet of reason rather than of imagination, he recognized his own province, and was rarely tempted to flights of fancy beyond his powers. He wrote always as he would have spoken, from sincere conviction. In private life he was in every way estimable,—upright, amiable, devoid of all jealousy, and generous to a fault.

HisPoésiesand hisThéâtrewere published in 1863. HisŒuvres complètes(new edition, 1855) contains a biographical notice by his brother, Germain Delavigne, who is best known as a librettist in opera. See also Sainte-Beuve,Portraits littéraires, vol. v.; A. Favrot,Étude sur Casimir Delavigne(1894); and F. Vuacheux,Casimir Delavigne(1893).

DELAWARE,a South Atlantic state of the United States of America, one of the thirteen original states, situated between 38° 27′ and 39° 50′ N. lat. and between 75° 2′ and 75° 47′ W. long. (For map seeMaryland.) It is bounded N. and N.W. by Pennsylvania, E. by the Delaware river and Delaware Bay, which separate it from New Jersey, and by the Atlantic Ocean; S. and W. by Maryland. With the exception of Rhode Island it is the smallest state in the Union, its area being 2370 sq. m., of which 405 sq. m. are water surface.

Physical Features.—Delaware lies on the Atlantic coastal plain, and is for the most part level and relatively low, its average elevation above the sea being about 50 ft. It is situated in the eastern part of the peninsula formed by Chesapeake Bay and the estuary of the Delaware river. In the extreme N. the country is rolling, with moderately high hills, moderately deep valleys and rapid streams. West of Wilmington there rises a ridge which crosses the state in a north-westerly direction and forms a watershed between Christiana and Brandywine creeks, its highest elevation above sea-level being 280 ft. South of the Christiana there begins another elevation, sandy and marshy, which extends almost the entire length of the state from N.W. to S.E., and forms a second water-parting. The streams that drain the state are small and insignificant. Those of the N. flow into Brandywine and Christiana creeks, whose estuary into Delaware river forms Wilmington harbour; those of the S.W. have a common outlet in the Nanticoke river of Maryland; those of the E. empty into Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The principal harbours are those of Wilmington, New Castle and Lewes. The shore of the bay is marshy, that of the Atlantic is sandy. In Kent county there are more than 60,000 acres of tidal marshland, some of which has been reclaimed by means of dykes; Cypress Swamp in the extreme S. has an area of 50,000 acres. The soils of the N. are clays, sometimes mixed with loam; those of the central part are mainly loams; while those of the S. are sands.

Minerals are found only in the N. part of the state. Those of economic value are kaolin, mined chiefly in the vicinity of Hockessin, New Castle county, the static kaolin product being exceeded in 1903 only by that of Pennsylvania among the states of the United States; granite, used for road-making and rough construction work, found near Wilmington; and brick and tile clays; but the value of their total product in 1902 was less than $500,000. In 1906 the total mineral product was valued at $814,126, of which $237,768 represented clay products and $146,346 stone. In 1902 only 2.2% of the wage-earners were engaged in mining.

The forests, which once afforded excellent timber, including white oak for shipbuilding, have been greatly reduced by constant cutting; in 1900 it was estimated that 700 sq. m. were wooded, but practically none of this stand was of commercial importance. The fisheries, chiefly oyster, sturgeon and shad, yield an annual product valued at about $250,000.

The proximity of the Delaware and Chesapeake bays help to give Delaware a mild and temperate climate. The mean annual temperature is approximately 55° F., ranging from 52° in the S. to 56° in the N., and the extremes of heat and cold are 103° in the summer and -17° in the winter. The annual rainfall, greater on the coast than inland, ranges from 40 to 45 in.

Industry and Trade.—Delaware is pre-eminently an agricultural state. In 1900 85% of its total land surface was enclosed in farms—a slight decline since 1880. Seven-tenths of this was improved land, and the expenditure per farm for fertilizers, greater in 1890 than the average of the Atlantic states, approximated $55 per farm in 1900. In 1899 Delaware spent more per acre for fertilizers than any of the other states except New Jersey, Rhode Island and Maryland. The average size of farms, as in the other states, has declined, falling from 124.6 acres in 1880 to 110.1 acres in 1900. A large proportion of farms (49.7%) were operated by the owners, and the prevailing form of tenantry was the share system by which 42.5% of the farms were cultivated, while 8.24% of the farms were operated by negroes; these represented less than 4% of the total value of farm property, the average value of farms operated by negroes being $17 per acre, that of farms operated by whites, $23 per acre. The total value of farm products in 1900 was $9,190,777, an increase of 30% over that of 1890, while the cultivation of cereals suffered on account of the competition of the western states. Indian corn and wheat form the two largest crops, their product in 1900 being respectively 24% and 52% greater than in 1890; but these crops when compared with those of other states are relatively unimportant. In 1906 the acreage of Indian corn was 196,472 acres with a yield of 5,894,160 bushels valued at $2,475,547, and the acreage of wheat was 121,745 acres with a yield of 1,947,920 bushels valued at $1,383,023. The value of the fruit crop, for which Delaware has long been noted, also increased during the same decade, but disease and frost caused a marked decline in the production of peaches, a loss balanced by an increased production of apples, pears and other orchard fruits. Large quantities of small fruits, particularly of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, are produced, the southern portion of Sussex county being particularly favourable for strawberry culture. The vicissitudes of fruit raising have also caused increasing attention to be paid to market gardening, dairying and stock raising, particularly to market gardening, an industry which is favoured by the proximity of large cities. The same influence also explains, partly at least, the decrease (of 13%) in the value of farm property between 1890 and 1900.

The development of manufacturing in Delaware has not been so extensive as its favourable situation relative to the other states, the facilities for water and railway transportation, and the proximity of the coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania, would seem to warrant. In 1905 the wage-earners engaged in manufacturing (under the factory system) numbered 18,475, and the total capital invested in manufacturing was $50,925,630; the gross value of products was $41,160,276; the net value (deducting the value of material purchased in partly manufactured form) was $16,276,470. The principal industry was the manufacture of iron and steel products, which, including steel and rolling mills, car, foundry and machine shops, and shipyards, represented more than 30% of the total capital, and approximately 25% of the total gross product of the manufactures in the state. The tanning, currying and finishing of leather ranks second in importance, with a gross product ($10,250,842) 9% greater than that of 1900, and constituting about one-fourth of the gross factory product of the state in 1905; and the manufacture of food products ranked third, the value of the products of the fruit canning and preserving industry having more than doubled in the decade 1890-1900, but falling off a little more than 7% in 1900-1905. The manufacture of paper and wood pulp showed an increased product in 1905 19.1% greater than in 1900; and flour and grist mill products were valued in 1905 43.6% higher than in 1900. In the grand total of manufactured products, however, the state showed in 1905 a decrease of 4% from 1900. The great manufacturing centre is Wilmington, where in 1905 almost two-thirds of the capital was invested, and nearly three-fourths of the product was turned out. There is much manufacturing also at New Castle.

Delaware has good facilities for transportation. Its railway mileage in January 1907 was 333.6 m; the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington (Pennsylvania system), the Baltimore & Philadelphia (Baltimore & Ohio system), and the Wilmington & Northern (Philadelphia & Reading system) cross the northern part of the state, while the Delaware railway (leased by the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington) runs the length of the state below Wilmington, and another line, the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia (controlled by the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic railway, which is related to the Pennsylvania system), connects Lewes, Del., with Love Point, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. There is no state railway commission, and the farmers of southern Delaware have suffered from excessive freight rates.The Delaware & Chesapeake Canal (13½ m. long, 66 ft. wide and 10 ft. deep) crosses the N. part of the state, connecting Delaware river and Chesapeake Bay, and thus affords transportation by water from Baltimore to Philadelphia. The canal was completed in 1829; in 1907 a commission appointed by the president to report on a route for a waterway between Chesapeake and Delaware bays selected the route of this canal. The states of Maryland and Delaware aided in its construction, and in 1828 the national government also made an appropriation. Wilmington is a customs district in which New Castle and Lewes are included; but its trade is largely coastwise. Rehoboth and Indian River bays are navigable for vessels of less than 6 ft. draft. Opposite Lewes is the Delaware Breakwater (begun in 1818 and completed in 1869, at a cost of more than $2,000,000), which forms a harbour 16 ft. deep. In 1897-1901 the United States government constructed a harbour of refuge, formed by a second breakwater 2¼ m. N. of the existing one; its protected anchorage is 552 acres and the cost was more than $2,090,000. The harbour is about equidistant from New York, Philadelphia, and the capes of Chesapeake Bay, and is used chiefly by vessels awaiting orders to ports for discharge or landing. The national government also made appropriations for opening an inland waterway from Lewes to Chincoteague Bay, Virginia, for improving Wilmington harbour, and for making navigable several of the larger streams of the state.

Population.—The population in 1880 was 146,608; in 1890, 168,493, an increase of 14.9%; in 1900, 184,735, a further increase of 9.6%; in 1910, 202,322. The rate of increase before 1850 was considerably smaller than the rate after that date. Of the population in 1900, 92.5% was native born and 7.5% was foreign-born. The negro population was 30,697, or 16.6% of the total. In Indian River Hundred, Sussex county, there formerly lived a community of people,—many of whom are of the fair Caucasian type,—called “Indians” or “Moors”; they are now quite generally dispersed throughout the state, especially in Kent and Sussex counties. Their origin is unknown, but according to local tradition they are the descendants of some Moorish sailors who were cast ashore many years ago in a shipwreck; their own tradition is that they are descended from the children of an Irish mother and a negro father, these children having intermarried with Indians of the Nanticoke tribe. They have, where practicable, separate churches and schools, the latter receiving state aid. The urban population of Delaware (i.e.of Wilmington, the only city having more than 5000 inhabitants) was, in 1900, 41.4% of the state’s population. There were thirty-five incorporated cities and towns. The largest of these was the city of Wilmington, with 76,508 inhabitants. The city next in size, New Castle, had a population of 3380, while the largest town, Dover, the capital of the state, had 3329. The total number of communicants of all denominations in 1906 was 71,251,—32,402 Methodists, 24,228 Roman Catholics, 5200 Presbyterians, 3796 Protestant Episcopalians, and 2921 Baptists.

Government.—The constitution by which Delaware is governed was adopted in 1897. Like the previous constitutions of 1776, 1792 and 1831, it was promulgated by a constitutional convention without submission to the people for ratification, and amendments may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of each house in two consecutive legislatures. Its character is distinctly democratic. The property qualification of state senators and the restriction of suffrage to those who have paid county or poll taxes are abolished; but suffrage is limited to male adults who can read the state constitution in English, and can write their names, unless physically disqualified, and who have registered. In 1907 an amendment to the constitution was adopted, which struck out from the instrument the clause requiring the payment of a registration fee of one dollar by each elector. Important innovations in the constitution of 1897 are the office of lieutenant-governor, and the veto power of the governor which may extend to parts and clauses of appropriation bills, but a bill may be passed over his veto by a three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature, and a bill becomes a law if not returned to the legislature within ten days after its reception by the governor, unless the session of the legislature shall have expired in the meantime. The governor’s regular term in office is four years, and he is ineligible for a third term. All his appointments to offices where the salary is more than $500 must be confirmed by the senate; all pardons must be approved by a board of pardons. Representation in the legislature is according to districts, members of the lower house being chosen for two, and members of the upper house for four years. Members of the lower house must be at least twenty-four years of age, members of the senate at least twenty-seven; members of both houses must at the time of their election have been citizens of the state for at least three years. In November 1906 the people of the state voted (17,248 for; 2162 against) in favour of the provision of a system of advisory initiative and advisory referendum; and in March 1907 the general assembly passed an act providing initiative and referendum in the municipal affairs in the city of Wilmington. The organization of the judiciary is similar to that under the old English system. Six judges—a chancellor, a chief justice, and four associate justices—of whom there shall be at least one resident in each of the three counties, and not more than three shall belong to the same political party, are appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate, for a term of twelve years. A certain number of them hold courts of chancery, general sessions, oyer and terminer, and an orphans’ court; the six together constitute the supreme court, but the judge from whose decision appeal is made may not hear the appealed case unless the appeal is made at his own instance. Bribery may be punished by fine, imprisonment and disfranchisement for ten years. Corporations cannot be created by a special act of the legislature, and no corporation may issue stock except for an equivalent value of money, labour or property. In order to attract capital to the state, the legislature has reduced the taxes on corporations, has forbidden the repeal of charters, and has given permission for the organization of corporations with both the power and name of trust companies. Legislative divorces are forbidden by the constitution, and a statute of 1901 subjects wife-beaters to corporal punishment. Although punishment by whipping and by standing in the pillory was prohibited by an act of Congress in 1839, in so far as the Federal government had jurisdiction, both these forms of punishment were retained in Delaware, and standing in the pillory was prescribed by statute as a punishment for a number of offences, including various kinds of larceny and forgery, highway robbery, and even pretending “to exercise the art of witchcraft, fortune-telling or dealing with spirits,” at least until 1893. In 1905, by a law approved on the 20th of March, the pillory was abolished. The whipping-post was in 1908 still maintained in Delaware, and whipping continued to be prescribed as a punishment for a variety of offences, although in 1889 a law was passed which prescribed that “hereafter no female convicted of any crime in this state shall be whipped or made to stand in the pillory,” and a law passed in 1883 prescribed that “in case of conviction of larceny, when the prisoner is of tender years, or is charged for the first time (being shown to have before had a good character), the court may in its discretion omit from the sentence the infliction of lashes.” An old law still on the statute-books when the edition of the revised statutes was issued in 1893, prescribes that “the punishment of whipping shall be inflicted publicly by strokes on the bare back, well laid on.”

The unit of local government is the “hundred,” which corresponds to the township of Pennsylvania. The employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories is forbidden by statute. Divorces are granted for adultery, desertion for three years, habitual drunkenness, impotence at the time of marriage, fraud, lack of marriageable age (eighteen for males, sixteen for females), and failure of husband to provide for his wife during three consecutive years. The marriages of whites with negroes and of insane persons are null; but the children of the married insane are legitimate.

In 1908 the state debt was $816,785, and the assets in bonds, railway mortgages and bank stocks exceeded the liabilities by $717,779. Besides the income from interest and dividendson investments, the state revenues are derived from taxes on licences, on commissions to public officers, on railway, telegraph and telephone, express, and banking companies, and to a slight extent from taxes on collateral inheritance.

Education.—The charitable and penal administration of Delaware is not well developed. There is a state hospital for the insane at Farnhurst. Other dependent citizens are cared for in the institutions of other states at public expense. In 1899 a county workhouse was established in New Castle county, in which persons under sentence must labour eight hours a day, pay being allowed for extra hours, and a diminution of sentence for good behaviour. At Wilmington is the Ferris industrial school for boys, a private reformatory institution to which New Castle county gives $146 for each boy; and the Delaware industrial school for girls, also at Wilmington, receives financial support from both county and state.

The educational system of the state has been considerably improved within recent years. The maintenance of a system of public schools is rendered compulsory by the state constitution, and a new compulsory school law came into effect in 1907. The first public school law, passed in 1829, was based largely on the principle of “local option,” each school district being left free to determine the character of its own school or even to decide, if it wished, against having any school at all. The system thus established proved to be very unsatisfactory, and a new school law in 1875 brought about a greater degree of uniformity and centralization through its provisions for the appointment of a state superintendent of free schools and a state board of education. In 1888, however, the state superintendency was abolished, and county superintendencies were created instead, the legislature thus returning, in a measure, to the old system of local control. Centralization was again secured, in 1898, by the passage of a law reorganizing and increasing the powers of the state board of education. The state school fund, ranging from about $150,000 to $160,000 a year, is apportioned among the school districts, according to the number of teachers employed, and is used exclusively for teachers’ salaries and the supplying of free text-books. This fund is supplemented by local taxation. No discrimination is allowed on account of race or colour; but separate schools are provided for white and coloured children. Delaware College (non-sectarian) at Newark, founded in 1833 as Newark College and rechartered, after suspension from 1859 to 1870, under the present name, as a state institution, derives most of its financial support from the United States Land Grant of 1862 and the supplementary appropriation of 1890, and is the seat of an agricultural experiment station, established in 1888 under the so-called “Hatch Bill” of 1887. In 1906-1907 Delaware College had 20 instructors and 130 students. The college is a part of the free school system of Delaware, and tuition is free to all students from the state. There is an agricultural college for negroes at Dover; this college receives one-fifth of the appropriation made by the so-called “new Morrill Bill” of 1890.

History.—Delaware river and bay were first explored on behalf of the Dutch by Henry Hudson in 1609, and more thoroughly in 1615-1616 by Cornelius Hendrikson, whose reports did much to cause the incorporation of the Dutch West India Company. The first settlement on Delaware soil was made under the auspices of members of this company in 1631 near the site of the present Lewes. The leaders, one of whom was Captain David P. de Vries, wished “to plant a colony for the cultivation of grain and tobacco as well as to carry on the whale fishery in that region.” The settlement, however, was soon completely destroyed by the Indians. (SeeLewes.) A more successful effort at colonization was made under the auspices of the South Company of Sweden, a corporation organized in 1624 as the “Australian Company,” by William Usselinx, who had also been the chief organizer of the Dutch West India Company, and now secured a charter ormanifestfrom Gustavus Adolphus. The privileges of the company were extended to Germans in 1633, and about 1640 the Dutch members were bought out. In 1638 Peter Minuit on behalf of this company established a settlement at what is now Wilmington, naming it, in honour of the infant queen Christina, Christinaham, and naming the entire territory, bought by Minuit from the Minquas Indians and extending indefinitely westward from the Delaware river between Bombay Hook and the mouth of the Schuylkill river, “New Sweden.” This territory was subsequently considerably enlarged. In 1642 mature plans for colonization were adopted. A new company, officially known as the West India, American, or New Sweden Company, but like its predecessor popularly known as the South Company, was chartered, and a governor, Johan Printz (c.1600-1663) was sent out by the crown. He arrived early in 1643 and subsequently established settlements on the island of Tinicum, near the present Chester, Pennsylvania, at the mouth of Salem Creek, New Jersey, and near the mouth of the Schuylkill river. Friction had soon arisen with New Netherland, although, owing to their common dislike of the English, the Swedes and the Dutch had maintained a formal friendship. In 1651, however, Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, and more aggressive than his predecessors, built Fort Casimir, near what is now New Castle. In 1654 Printz’s successor, Johan Claudius Rising, who had arrived from Sweden with a large number of colonists, expelled the Dutch from Fort Casimir. In retaliation, Stuyvesant, in 1655, with seven vessels and as many hundred men, recaptured the fort and also captured Fort Christina (Wilmington). New Sweden thus passed into the control of the Dutch, and became a dependency of New Netherland. In 1656, however, the Dutch West India Company sold part of what had been New Sweden to the city of Amsterdam, which in the following year established a settlement called “New Amstel” at Fort Casimir (New Castle). This settlement was badly administered and made little progress.

In 1663 the whole of the Delaware country came under the jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam, but in the following year this territory, with New Netherland, was seized by the English. For a brief interval, in 1673-1674, the Dutch were again in control, but in the latter year, by the treaty of Westminster, the “three counties on the Delaware” again became part of the English possessions in America held by the duke of York, later James II. His formal grant from Charles II. was not received until March 1683. In order that no other settlements should encroach upon his centre of government, New Castle, the northern boundary was determined by drawing an arc of a circle, 12 m. in radius, and with New Castle as the centre. This accounts for the present curved boundary line between Delaware and Pennsylvania. Previously, however, in August 1680, the duke of York had leased this territory for 10,000 years to William Penn, to whom he conveyed it by a deed of feoffment in August 1682; but differences in race and religion, economic rivalry between New Castle and the Pennsylvania towns, and petty political quarrels over representation and office holding, similar to those in the other American colonies, were so intense that Penn in 1691 appointed a special deputy governor for the “lower counties.” Although reunited with the “province” of Pennsylvania in 1693, the so-called “territories” or “lower counties” secured a separate legislature in 1704, and a separate executive council in 1710; the governor of Pennsylvania, however, was the chief executive until 1776. A protracted boundary dispute with Maryland, which colony at first claimed the whole of Delaware under Lord Baltimore’s charter, was not settled until 1767, when the present line separating Delaware and Maryland was adopted. In the War of Independence Delaware furnished only one regiment to the American army, but that was one of the best in the service. One of its companies carried a number of gamecocks said to have been the brood of a blue hen; hence the soldiers, and later the people of the state, have been popularly known as the “Blue Hen’s Chickens.”

In 1776 a state government was organized, representative of the Delaware state, the term “State of Delaware” being first adopted in the constitution of 1792. One of the peculiarities of the government was that in addition to the regular executive, legislative and judicial departments there was a privy council without whose approval the governor’s power was little more than nominal. In 1786 Delaware was one of the five stateswhose delegates attended the Annapolis Convention (seeAnnapolis, Maryland), and it was the first (on the 7th of December 1787) to ratify the Federal constitution. From then until 1850 it was controlled by the Federalist or Whig parties. In 1850 the Democrats, who had before then elected a few governors and United States senators, secured control of the entire administration—a control unarrested, except in 1863, until the last decade of the 19th century. Although it was a slave state, the majority of the people of Delaware opposed secession in 1861, and the legislature promptly answered President Lincoln’s call to arms; yet, while 14,000 of the 40,000 males between the ages of fourteen and sixty served in the Union army, there were many sympathizers with the Confederacy in the southern part of the state.

In 1866, 1867 and 1869, respectively, the legislature refused to ratify the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Federal constitution. The provision of the state constitution that restricted suffrage to those who had paid county or poll taxes and made the tax lists the basis for the lists of qualified voters, opened the way for the disfranchisement of many negroes by fraudulent means. Consequently the levy court of New Castle county was indicted in the United States circuit court in 1872, and one of its members was convicted. Again in 1880 the circuit court, by virtue of the Federal statute of 1872 on elections, appointed supervisors of elections in Delaware. The negro vote has steadily increased in importance, and in 1900 was approximately one-fifth of the total vote of the state. In 1901 the legislature ratified the three amendments rejected in former years. Another political problem has been that of representation. According to the constitution of 1831 the unit of representation in the legislature was the county; inasmuch as the population of New Castle county has exceeded after 1870 that of both Kent and Sussex, the inequality became a cause of discontent. This is partly eradicated by the new constitution of 1897, which reapportioned representation according to electoral districts, so that New Castle has seven senators and fifteen representatives, while each of the other counties has seven senators and ten representatives.

In 1889 the Republicans for the first time since the Civil War secured a majority in the legislature, and elected Anthony J. Higgins to the United States Senate. In that year a capitalist and promoter, J. Edward Addicks (b. 1841, in Pennsylvania), became a citizen of the state, and after securing for himself the control of the Wilmington gas supply, systematically set about building up a personal “machine” that would secure his election to the national Senate as a Republican. His purpose was thwarted in 1893, when a Democratic majority chose, for a second term, George Gray (b. 1840), who from 1879 to 1885 had been the attorney-general of the state and subsequently was a member of the Spanish-American Peace Commission at Paris in 1898 and became a judge of the United States circuit court, third judicial circuit, in 1899. Mr Addicks was an avowed candidate in 1895, but the opposition of the Regular Republicans, who accused him of corruption and who held the balance of power, prevented an election. In 1897, the legislature being again Democratic, Richard R. Kenney (b. 1856) was chosen to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the unexpired term. Meanwhile the two Republican factions continued to oppose one another, and both sent delegates to the national party convention in 1896, the “regular” delegation being seated. The expiration of Senator Gray’s term in 1899 left a vacancy, but although the Republicans again had a clear majority the resolution of the Regulars prevented the Union Republicans, as the supporters of Addicks called themselves, from seating their patron. Both the Regular and Union factions sent delegations to the national party convention in 1900, where the refusal of the Regulars to compromise led to the recognition of the Union delegates. Despite this apparent abandonment of their cause by the national organization, the Regulars continued their opposition, the state being wholly without representation in the Senate from the expiration of Senator Kenney’s term in 1901 until 1903, when a compromise was effected whereby two Republicans, one of each faction, were chosen, one condition being that Addicks should not be the candidate of the Union Republicans. Both factions were recognized by the national convention of 1904, but the legislature of 1905 adjourned without being able to fill a vacancy in the Senate which had again occurred. The deadlock, however, was broken at the special session of the legislature called in 1906, and in June of that year Henry A. Du Pont was elected senator.

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