member of the House for eight years, having been
chosen directly after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He
came from good Revolutionary stock in New Jersey, but had been
reared in the West; had learned the trade of a printer, and had
edited a successful journal at South Bend. He was a paragon of
industry, with keen, quick, bright intellect. He mingled freely
and creditably in the debates. With a wisdom in which many able
members seem deficient, he had given studious attention to the
Rules of the House, and was master of their complexities. Kindly
and cordial by nature it was easy for him to cultivate the art of
popularity, which he did with tact and constancy. He came to the
Chair with absolute good will from both sides of the House, and as
a presiding officer proved himself able, prompt, fair-minded, and
just in all his rulings.

The political re-action of 1862 had seriously affected the membership
of the House. Many of those most conspicuous and influential in
the preceding Congress had either been defeated or had prudently
declined a renomination. E. G. Spaulding, Charles B. Sedgwick,
Roscoe Conkling, and A. B. Olin did not return from New York; John
A. Bingham and Samuel Shellabarger were defeated in Ohio; Galusha
A. Grow was not re-elected in Pennsylvania, and lost in consequence
a second term as Speaker; Albert G. Porter and McKee Dunn gave way
to Democratic successors in Indiana. In the delegations of all
the large States radical changes were visible, and the narrow escape
of the Administration from total defeat in the preceding year was
demonstrated afresh by the roll-call of the House.

MEMBERS OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

But the loss of prominent members was counterbalanced by the
character and ability of some of the new accessions. Henry Winter
Davis took his seat as representative from one of the districts of
the city of Baltimore. He had been originally elected to the House
as a member of the American party in 1854, and had been re-elected
in 1856 and 1858. He had not co-operated with the Republican party
before the war, and had supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency in
1860. He was always opposed to the Democratic party, and was under
all circumstances a devoted friend of the Union, an arch-enemy of
the Secessionists. Born a Southern man, he spoke for the South,--
for its duty to the Federal Government, for its best and highest
destiny. To hi