Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1871 — Hon. Robert C. Schenck. [ARTICLE]

Hon. Robert C. Schenck.

Hon. Robert C. Schenck, United States Minister to England, is a gentleman whose eminent fitness for this high position is generally acknowledged, even by his political opponents. During the thirty years past he has occupied prominent positions in the public service; and none who have followed his course with any care can. doubt that in him the United States will have an able and energetic representative at the Court of St. James. He was bom in Franklin, Warren Co., Ohio, October 4,1801) (graduated with high honors at the Miami University in 1827, where he remained two years as a tutor ,• was admitted to the bar in 1831, and. settled in Dayton where he has since resided. In 1840 he was elected to the Ohio Legislature, was re-elected in 1842, and was a representative in Congress from Ohio from 1843 to 1851, serving on many important committees, and during the Thirtieth Congress as Chairman of the Committee on Roads and Canals. On his retirement from Congress he was appointed by President Fillmore Minister to Brazil, where he negotiated a number of treaties. In 1861 he Served as Brigadier, and was promoted Major General of the Union army for his conduct at the second battle of Bull Run, in which he was severely wounded; and in 1862 was elected to the Thirty-eighth Congress, serving as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. He was re-elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress ; and in 1865 he was appointed by the President a mftnber of the Board of Visitors to the West Point Academy, and was President of the Board. He served on the Committee on the Death of President Lincoln, and'again at the head of the Committee on Military Affairs; was a member of the National Committee appointed to accompany the remains of President Lincoln to Illinois; also of the Committee, on Retrenchment, and was one of the representatives of the House designated to attend the funeral off General Scott in 1866; he was also a delegate to the Philadelphia “Loyalist Convention ”of 1866, and to the Soldiers’ Convention, held at Pittsburgh. Ho was re-elected to the Fortieth Congress, serving as Chairman of the Committee on Ordnance, and again of that on Military Affairs. He was re-elect-ed to the Forty-first Congress, in which he served as Chairman of the Committee on *Ways and Means. Throughout his whole Congressional career Mr. Schenck approved himself a statesman of enlarged and liberal views, an able, debater, and a skillful political manager. The important positions he has held on committees show the high estimation placed on his abilities by the party to which he belongs. It is claimed that he was legally elected to the Forty-second Congress, though the certificate was given to his Democratic competitor, and had he not accepted the jx>sition of Minister to England, the election would probably have been contested. — Harper's Weekly.