was encountered by a like appeal.
It was the year of what was called the Tidal Wave which swept
the Republicans from power in the House of Representatives.
It was very doubtful whether they could carry the Worcester
District. The Democrats elected a majority of the Massachusetts
delegation in the National House of Representatives. I was
elected by a few hundred only, although I was elected by several
thousand on former occasions. I could not very well refuse
to accept the nomination at a time of great political peril.
So I continued once more. At the end of that time I wrote
another peremptory refusal, and my successor was nominated
and elected.

I have been often charged with a blind and zealous attachment
to party. The charge is sometimes made by persons who consider
that I desire to do right, but think that my understanding
and intellectual faculties are guided and blinded by that
emotion. Others are not so charitable. One very self-satisfied
critic, Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, sometimes in prose and
sometimes,

A screechin' out prosaic verse
An' like to bust,

says that I differ from my honorable colleague, Mr. Lodge,
in that Mr. Lodge has no conscience, while I have a conscience
but never obey it. If any man be disposed to accept these
estimates, it is not likely that I can convince him to the
contrary by my own certificate. But I will say two things:

1. I have never in my life cast a vote or done an act in
legislation that I did not at the time believe to be right, and
that I am not now willing to avow and to defend and debate
with any champion, of sufficient importance, who desires to
attack it at any time and in any presence.

2. Whether I am right or wrong in my opinion as to the duty
of acting with and adherence to party, it is the result not
of emotion or attachment or excitement, but of as cool, calculating,
sober and deliberate reflection as I am able to give to any
question of conduct or duty. Many of the things I have done
in this world which have been approved by other men, or have
tended to give me any place in the respect of my countrymen,
have been done in opposition, at the time, to the party to
which I belonged. But I have made that opposition without
leaving the party. In every single instance, unless the question
of the Philippine Islands shall prove an exception, and that
is not a settled question yet, the party has come round, in
the end, to my way of thinking. I h