been distinguished for
steady adherence to party. He was elected to Congress in 1834, as
representative from the Essex district in Massachusetts. He was
at that time a zealous member of the Whig party, and was active on
the Northern or anti-slavery side in the discussions relating to
the "right of petition." He served in the House for eight years.
After the triumph of Harrison in 1840, Mr. Cushing evidently aspired
to be a party leader. In the quarrel which ensued between President
Tyler and Mr. Clay, he saw an opportunity to gratify his ambition
by adhering to the administration. This brought him into very
close relations with Mr. Webster, who remained in Tyler's Cabinet
after his colleagues retired, and threw him at the same time into
rank antagonism with Mr. Clay, to whose political fortunes he had
previously been devoted. In view of the retirement of Mr. Webster
from the State Department in 1843, President Tyler nominated Mr.
Cushing for Secretary of the Treasury, but the Whig senators,
appreciating his power and influence in that important position,
procured his rejection. Some Democratic votes from the South were
secured against him because of his course in the House of
Representatives. The President then nominated him as Commissioner
to China, and he was promptly confirmed. Oriental diplomatists
never encountered a minister better fitted to meet them with their
own weapons.

Upon his return home, Mr. Cushing found that Mr. Webster had resumed
his place as the leader of the Northern Whigs. Mr. Clay had
meanwhile been defeated for the Presidency, his followers were
discouraged, the administration of Mr. Polk was in power. Mr.
Cushing at once joined the Democracy, and was made a Brigadier-
General in the army raised for the war with Mexico. From that time
onward he became a partisan of the extreme State-rights school of
the Southern Democracy, and was appropriately selected for Attorney-
General by President Pierce in 1853. In conjunction with Jefferson
Davis, he was considered to be the guiding and controlling force
in the administration. His thorough education, his remarkable
attainments, his eminence in the law, his ability as an advocate,
rendered his active co-operation of great value to the pro-slavery
Democrats of the South. He was naturally selected for the important
and difficult duty of presiding over the convention whose deliberations
were to affect the interests of the Government, and po