WILLIAM GRASON 131 boy received his elementary education in the neighboring schools on the Eastern Shore, but later was sent to Annapolis, where he entered St. John's College. His intimacy with the sea during boyhood had developed in the youth an inclination for the life of a sailor, and after completing his course at St. John's, Mr. Grason entered the United States navy as a midshipman. His connection with the navy, however, did not continue for long, and he soon returned to his home, with his back forever turned upon the career of a sailor. In 1812 Mr. Grason was married to Miss Susan Orrick Sulivane, daughter of James Bennett Sulivane, of Cambridge, and the young couple settled near the Dorchester county home of the bride. After two or three years, however, Mr. and Mrs. Grason returned to the native county of the future governor, and here were spent the remaining years of his life, except when his gubernatorial or legislative duties carried him to Annapolis. Mr. Grason was very much of a home man. Although he filled a number of public offices and showed a disposition to fill more, he nevertheless was happiest when amid home surroundings. He followed the rather unpretentious calling of a farmer; but in manners and in intellectual development he was as far from the common conception of the old-time farmer as "Log-cabin and Hard-cider" Harrison was from the things which were associated with his name in his presidential campaign. In early years Mr. Grason had been a member of the federalist party, and in later years one of the arguments used against him as democratic candidate was the fact that he had been with the federalists in their opposition to the war of 1812-15. But the charge, although partly admitted, did not accomplish his defeat. Indeed, his ardent advocacy of the chief doctrines of President Jackson was able to overcome all doubts as to his right to appear under a democratic standard. The two legislative tickets in Queen Anne's in 1828 were made up of Jackson and antiJackson candidates respectively. Upon the former was included the name of William Grason, and in the election this candidate received the greatest number of ballots of any of the members chosen to the lower house of the general assembly. In the following year he was again nominated, and once more outdistanced his fellow candidates. Mr. Grason was chosen an elector of state senators in 1831, and two years later he appeared as a candidate for nomination for congressman. When the democratic delegates of the several counties met to nominate a candidate, the Queen Anne's members were for Mr. Grason; but the other delegates gave preference to John T. Reese, of Kent, and the latter was named. Before the election, however, Dr. Reese, died, and another convention had to be called. Queen Anne's delegation had now deserted Mr. Grason, for Richard B. Carmichael, who was nominated and elected. Mr. Grason was the nominee for congress of the Jacksonian party in 1835, but was defeated by the whig candidate, James A. Pearce, who was elected by a majority of 123 ballots. Nothing daunted by his failure first to get the congressional nomination and then to win the election, Mr. Grason appeared in 1837 as a candidate for the state legislature, and received the greatest number of votes of the four successful candidates in his county. The state constitution as amended by the reform act, provided that the governor should be chosen by the people instead of the legislature, after 1838; and the term was to be for three years, which had come to be the customary time in office of most governors elected under the one-year term provision. The state was divided into three gubernatorial districts: the Eastern Shore; Baltimore city and the southern counties; and Harford, Baltimore and the western WILLIAM GRASON 133 counties; and each of these districts was to have a turn in naming the candidates. In the spring of 1838 the democrats nominated William Grason for governor, while the whigs named John Nevett Steele, of Dorchester county, thus making the first popular gubernatorial candidates representatives of the Eastern Shore district. The contest was one of excessive bitterness and vilification, and throughout the campaign charges of dishonesty and fraud and corruption were lodged against anybody and everybody who chanced to get into the contest. Mr. Grason was elected by a scant majority of 311 votes in the entire state, and was inaugurated on January 7, 1839. But the legislature was slightly whiggish in complexion. From inauguration day until his term expired, Governor Grason's voice gave expression to one endless jeremiad. First of all, the people of Maryland had engaged recklessly in appropriating public funds, which had to be raised by loans, for internal improvements, and they had never for a moment considered that there would come a time when both interest and principal would have to be paid. The people had known. only a light taxation for the current expenses of the government, and the mere suggestion of imposing a tax for the purpose of taking care of the obligations thus unwisely incurred. aroused the masses to a state of bitter opposition. As his initial greeting to the legislature Governor Grason took up what he said would be the problem demanding the general assembly's most earnest thought--Maryland's pecuniary embarrassment. He pointed out how the public debt had been increased, and how it promised to continue to grow unless a radical change of policy was made, and he called attention to the necessity of guarding against "an increase of existing evils, and of providing, if possible, for the gradual redemption of the public debt." He combated the arguments of those who favored repudiation rather than tax an unwilling people, by declaring that the debt had "been contracted, and confirmed by successive legislatures sanctioned by the people themselves, in the continued reëlection of representatives who were most prominent in creating it, and the obligations of the state are in the hands of men who relied upon good faith, and whose borrowed money has been expended on her works. It is impossible to question the validity of the debt, and unreasonable to plead inability without first making an effort to discharge it." There was no more unpleasant truth that Governor Grason could have uttered to the people of Maryland, who were seeking to devise some means by which to escape the large public debt which had been accumulated. When the people suggested that the national government turn over certain moneys obtained from public lands, he showed how unreasonable and unconstitutional such a course would be and advised that, instead of planning to escape their obligations, the people of Maryland should meet them bravely and promptly. In his message of December, 1840, Governor Grason sets forth in some detail the way in which the financial troubles then oppressing the state had been brought about, and also how they might in his opinion be removed. And finally, while the words in praise of the amended constitution, uttered by Governor Veazey, were still echoing through the state, Governor Grason made the rather melancholy observation that "No one can tell what the constitution is, or where it is to be found." He repeatedly arraigned the whigs for the burden they had brought upon Maryland, and the fact that the legislature was whiggish never suggested to him the need of concealing his displeasure at the blunders of his political opponents. After his retirement on January 3, 1842, Mr. Grason returned to his Queen Anne's farm. In 1850, he was nomi |