Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 24.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

During his three terms in the House Clingman plunged into debate upon every question, sometimes with more zeal than discretion, and frequently made himself the subject of sarcasm at the hands of members who felt able to cope with him. Many times he narrowly escaped compulsory visits to the field of honor, though he rarely sought to provoke a resort to pistols. He was really a most gentle and lovable man, and preferred the pursuits of peace to the wrangles of the legislative hall. After his course in the University, where he showed a great aptitude for the acquirement of learning, he studied surveying and tramped the mountains of the old North State with the compass and sextant. He established the height of many of the most prominent peaks, and one in the Black Mountain is called Clingman's Peak, and one in Smoky Mountain will always be known as Clingman's Dome. He was also geologist, lapidary and botanist, and gave to the world valuable information of the existence in his State of gold, diamonds, rubies, platinum and mica.

When the first wave of Darwinism swept over the world Clingman took up the cudgels for the Hebraic view of the creation of man, one of the best of his many preserved papers in his exposition of the ‘Follies of Positive Philosophers.’ He lectured upon almost all subjects, and was as much at home in the domain of astronomy, as of gastronomy, a topic upon which he was fond of writing and talking.

His career in the Senate was brief and stormy. He took his seat by appointment in 1858, and was subsequently elected for a full term, which began only a short time before he passed from the body into the Confederate army. When Congress was called in extra session in July, 1861, to consider the question of preserving the Union, Clingman failed to put in an appearance. No notice of his resignation had been received. After a few days, his name, with the names of several others who had left the Senate long before the day when Clingman was last seen there, were embodied in a resolution of expulsion. James A. Bayard, father of the present Ambassador, with a number of others, attempted to amend the resolution that it should provide merely that the names of the members be stricken from the list of senators, and the vote for the expulsion of the recalcitrants showed ten negatives, the most prominent among them being Bayard, John C. Breckinridge, Jesse D. Bright and Andrew Johnson. Among those voting for the resolution were Zach Chandler,