mily of nine as the woman said, who had been sold and taken
away from her. As I was leaving I said: "Who is your master?" She
answered: "Mr. Blair, of the _Globe_." In the fourteen years of my
manhood, that I acted with the Democratic party, I never said anything
in favor of the system of slavery. If otherwise I might have done so,
the interview with that old woman would have restrained me.

VIII
FIRST EXPERIENCE IN POLITICS

At the spring election of Groton in 1839, I was chosen a member of the
school committee. The other members had been in the service in
previous years. They were the Rev. Charles Robinson, the Rev. Mr.
Kittredge, Dr. Joshua Green, and Dr. George Stearns. In the early
Colonial period the "minister" was often the schoolmaster also.
Naturally he took an interest in the education of the children, and
previous to the time when school committees were required by statute,
he was the self-constituted guide of the teachers and schools. Indeed,
the schools were parochial. Whenever the minister visited a school he
made a prayer, and the morning exercise in reading was in the New
Testament Scriptures--two verses by each pupil. In 1840 the entire
board was rejected, and a board composed of school teachers and non-
professional men was chosen.

In 1838 the Massachusetts Legislature passed what was known as the
Fifteen-Gallon Law. The statute prohibited the sale of distilled
spirits in "less quantity than fifteen gallons." It did not take
effect immediately and the election of that year was not seriously
disturbed, but before the autumn of 1839 the State was thoroughly
aroused. A cry was raised that it was a law to oppress the poor who
could not command means to purchase the quantity named, while the rich
would enjoy the use of liquor notwithstanding the statute. The town of
Groton was entitled to two members in the house of representatives.
Both parties nominated candidates who favored the repeal of the
Fifteen-Gallon Law. The temperance voters put a ticket in the field,
the Rev. Amasa Sanderson, the minister of the Baptist Society, then a
new organization, and feeble in numbers and wealth, and myself. At
that time my associations were largely with Whigs, but I was opposed to
a national bank, and in favor of free trade. With those views it was
not possible for me to act with the Whig Party on national questions
or in national contests. Mr. Sanderson and I received about seventy-
six votes