Unfortunately it was remembered, and in a quarter which brought upon Judge Folger one of the worst disappointments of his life. For, in the course of the following summer, the Constitutional Convention of the State was to hold its session and its presidency was justly considered a great honor. Two candidates were named, one being Judge Folger and the other Mr. William A. Wheeler, then a member of Congress and afterward Vice-President of the United States. The result of the canvas by the friends of both these gentlemen seemed doubtful, when one morning there appeared in the ``New York Tribune,'' the most powerful organ of the Republican party, one of Horace Greeley's most trenchant articles. It dwelt on the importance of the convention in the history of the State, on the responsibility of its members, on the characteristics which should mark its presiding officer, and, as to this latter point, wound up pungently by saying that it would be best to have a president who, when he disagreed with members, did not throw his gavel at them. This shot took effect; it ran through the State; people asked the meaning of it; various exaggerated legends became current, one of them being that he had thrown the gavel at me personally;--and Mr. Wheeler became president of the convention. But before the close of the session another matter had come up which cooled still more the relations between Judge Folger and myself. For many sessions, year after year, there had been before the legislature a bill for establishing a canal connecting the interior lake system of the State with Lake Ontario. This was known as the Sodus Canal Bill, and its main champion was a public-spirited man from Judge Folger's own district. In favor of the canal various arguments were urged, one of them being that it would enable the United States, while keeping within its treaty obligations with Great Britain, to build ships on these smaller lakes, which, in case of need, could be passed through the canal into the great chain of lakes extending from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior. To this it was replied that such an evasion of the treaty was not especially creditable to those suggesting it, and that the main purpose of the bill really was to create a vast water power which should enure to the benefit of sundry gentlemen in Judge Folger's district.