first colonial governor of Maryland; while her grandfather, Thomas Stone, enjoyed the proud distinction of being one of the signatories of the famous Declaration of Independence. These were matters of some moment in a State where slavery was an institution, and "mean whites" were treated with contempt.
Supported by troops of affluent friends and kinsmen, Conway's path in life seemed at its commencement nowise steep or arduous. As a politician he might hope to climb the ladder of power and dignity in the republic easily and rapidly; but the lion of slavery crouched in the way. His father was, unfortunately, a large slave-owner,—a humane man, it is time, but still, like his neighbors, an owner of scores of human chattels. "Few," says Mr. Conway in his "Testimonies concerning Slavery," "are the really peaceful days that I remember having smiled on in my old Virginian home. The outbreaks of the negroes among themselves; the disobediences which the necessary discipline can never suffer to be overlooked; the terrors of devoted parents at the opportunities for the display of evil tempers and the inception of nameless vices among their sons,—I remember as the demons haunting those days. I have often heard my parents say that the care of slaves had made them prematurely old."
Conway's early education was the best that the neighborhood afforded. As a child he attended several private schools, and subsequently he became a pupil of the Classical and Mathematical Academy in Fredricksburg. Here he made rapid progress, and in due course was entered as an undergraduate of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1849. The students were mostly from Maryland and Virginia, with
