e in the House, was now transferred to the
gubernatorial chair of his State.

Three new men of note entered from Pennsylvania--John M. Broomall, an
independent thinker and keen debater, inflexible in principle,
untiring in effort; Ulysses Mercur, whose learning as a lawyer and
whose worth as a man have since received their reward in a promotion
to the Supreme Bench of his State; George V. Lawrence, one of the best
known and most sagacious political leaders of Western Pennsylvania,
inheriting his capacity from his honored father, Joseph Lawrence, who
died during his membership of the Twenty-seventh Congress. John L.
Thomas, junior, entered as the representative of the city of Baltimore;
and the venerable Francis Thomas returned from his hermitage and his
weird life in the Alleghanies.

Ohio grew even stronger than before, and her delegation was again
recognized as the leading one of the House. Samuel Shellabarger, John
A. Bingham and Columbus Delano re-entered with reputation already
established by previous service in Congress. William Lawrence, a
conscientious legislator and careful lawyer, entered from the
Bellefontaine District. Martin Welker, since promoted to the bench
in his State, came from the Wooster District. One of the Cincinnati
districts was represented by Benjamin Eggleston, a man of great force
and energy; and the other, by a modest man, without experience in
legislation, but who had been a good and true soldier in the war for
the Union and was highly esteemed by his neighbors. He did not take
an active part in Congress, but was destined to a prominence of which
he little dreamed--Rutherford B. Hayes.

The Indiana delegation was strengthened on the Democratic side by the
return of William E. Niblack, who had made a good record in the
Thirty-seventh Congress, and by the entrance of Michael C. Kerr, who
served for a long period and ultimately became Speaker of the House.
Messrs. Julian, Orth, and Dumont were again elected. The last-named had
made a reputation in the preceding Congress as a keen and able man. The
Illinois delegation, which had contained a large majority of Democrats
in the Thirty-eighth Congress, now returned strongly Republican,--Mr.
Lincoln's victory of 1864 having, with three exceptions, carried with
it every Congressional district. Four men of marked characteristics
were among the new members of the delegation, one of whom was already
widely known: the three others were destin