Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1886 — Fessenden and Clifford. [ARTICLE]

Fessenden and Clifford.

An elderly citizen of Portland, Maine, remembers an interesting hearing in the Municipal Court in the year 1855, when Neal .Dow was prosecuted for violating the Maine Liquor law. Some of Mr. Dow’s tenants had been selling liquors, and he was prosecuted for letting his buildings to them. Henry Carter was the ffudge who heard the complaint. Nathan Clifford, afterward Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appeared for the prosecution and William Pitt Fessen len for the defense. It was claimed in defense that the prosecution was malicious, and Mr. Fessenden worried his antagonist unmercifully. The situation was the more interesting because .Fessenden had just been elected to the United States Senate over Clifford. “I suppose,” said Clifford, witheringly, after one of Fessenden’s tart rejoinders—“l suppose these are Senatorial manners.” “At any rate,” answered Fessenden, “they are better than would-be Senatorial manners.”