SEVENTH GENERATION 161 
     
    
   
   
    
     Pleas of Washington County, and from 1835 to 1841, he was Chief Justice of 
     
     the same County. He was also one of the State Bank Commissioners from 1838 
     
     to 184.1. In 1828—29—30-3 1—32, he was Sheriff of Washington County, elected 
     
     by the Legislature, according to the law at that time. About 1839, he was ap— 
     
     pointed by the State of Rhode Island one of the Commissioners (his associates 
     
     being the late Judge Elisha R. Potter of South Kingstown, and Judge George 
     
     D. Cross of Westerly, together with Moses B. Lockwood of Providence) as sur— 
     
     veyors, to meet a like Commission from Connecticut, to survey and adjust the 
     
     boundary line between the two States, which had been in dispute for a number 
     
     of years. In 1844., he was elected a member of the State Legislature, and was 
     
     chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, to which were referred the resolu— 
     
     tions passed by that honorable body, in opposition to the annexation of Texas. 
     
     ‘ In 1835, he was appointed by Governor William Hoppin, a commissioner “to 
     
     superintend the organization of the Richmond Bank." 
     
     He was strongly opposed to slavery and believed in the free public discussion of 
     
     that question; hence his house was the refuge of the most radical abolitionists, 
     
     and he often defended in public their right to the freedom of speech; sometimes 
     
     at the risk of personal safety, for in those days to harbor or entertain at one’s 
     
     house an abolitionist, subjected the offender to social ostracism and public in— 
     
     dignity, even in liberty—loving New England. But Judge Peckham was strictly 
     
     a “Law and Order,” man; he believed in the peaceful, political attainment of 
     
     good wholesome laws, and their rigid enforcement by public oflicials supported 
     
     by all good citizens. 
     
     He was associated politically with such congenial friends as Nathan F. Dixon, 
     
     Lemuel H. Arnold, Tristam Burgess, Nehemiah R. Knight, Asher Robbins, 
     
     James F. Simmons, Henry Y. and Robert B. Cranston, and a number of other 
     
     men who figured conspicuously in Rhode Island’s political history at that time. 
     
     His association with these men strongly confirmed him in that native sturdiness 
     
     and independence which was a striking characteristic of the representative men 
     
     of those days. When the change in the organic law of the State, from the Old 
     
     Charter, granted by Charles II, in 1663, under which Rhode Island came into 
     
     the Union as a State, and which she continued to recognize as her fundamental 
     
     law until 184.2, was agitated, he was a strong advocate of the change. He also 
     
     advocated a more equal apportionment of representatives in the Legislature, and 
     
     a liberal extension of suffrage. He was once indeed a candidate for Governor on 
     
     the “ Free Suffrage” ticket; but when Thomas W. Dorr and the more radical 
     
     friends of the movement purposed to resort to forcible means to attain the end 
     
     desired, he promptly notified Mr. Dorr and his adherents that, “while he re— 
     
     cognized the necessity of the change for which they contended, and was ready to 
     
     resort to all peaceful and lawful means to secure it, he‘was not ready to take arms 
     
     against the existing government to redress a wrong which he believed could be 
     
     accomplished under recognized lawful authority.” In pursuance of that resolu— 
     
     tion, when the Governor called for volunteers to support the state authority he 
     
     appeared