ly belonged by birth and education. He had to
encounter the bitter resistance in his own set of the "conscienceless
respectability of wealth," but the great body of the New England people
were with him, as were the voters of his own district. He was an old
man, with the physical infirmities of age. His eyes were weak and
streaming; his hands were trembling; his voice cracked in moments of
excitement; yet in that age of oratory, in the days of Webster and Clay,
he was known as the "old man eloquent." It was what he said, more than
the way he said it, which told. His vigorous mind never worked more
surely and clearly than when he stood alone in the midst of an angry
House, the target of their hatred and abuse. His arguments were strong,
and his large knowledge and wide experience supplied him with every
weapon for defense and attack. Beneath the lash of his invective and his
sarcasm the hottest of the slaveholders cowered away. He set his back
against a great principle. He never retreated an inch, he never yielded,
he never conciliated, he was always an assailant, and no man and no
body of men had the power to turn him. He had his dark hours, he felt
bitterly the isolation of his position, but he never swerved. He had
good right to set down in his diary, when the gag rule was repealed,
"Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God."

FRANCIS PARKMAN

(1822-1893)

He told the red man's story; far and wide
He searched the unwritten annals of his race;
He sat a listener at the Sachem's side,
He tracked the hunter through his wild-wood chase.

High o'er his head the soaring eagle screamed;
The wolfs long howl rang nightly; through the vale
Tramped the lone bear; the panther's eyeballs gleamed;
The bison's gallop thundered on the gale.

Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife,
Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize:
Which swarming host should mould a nation's life;
Which royal banner flout the western skies.

Long raged the conflict; on the crimson sod
Native and alien joined their hosts in vain;
The lilies withered where the lion trod,
Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged plain.

A nobler task was theirs who strove to win
The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold;
To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of sin;
These labors, too, with loving grace he told.

Halting with f