ling to travel
on Sunday, he went ashore. After attending service at church, he asked
the privilege of playing on the organ. A few minutes later, he found a
large audience listening with apparent pleasure.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The time had now come for the formation of a new political party, and
in this Carleton had a hand, being at the first meeting and making the
acquaintance of the leading men, Henry Wilson, Anson Burlingame,
George S. Boutwell, N. P. Banks, Charles Sumner, and others. His
connection with the press brought him into personal contact with men
of all parties. He found Edward Everett more sensitive to criticism
than any other public man.

In 1856 Carleton was offered a position on the _Atlas_, which had been
the leading Whig paper in Massachusetts. He attended the first great
Republican gathering ever held in Maine, at Portland, at which
Hannibal Hamlin, Benjamin Wade, and N. P. Banks were speakers. On the
night of the Maine election, which was held in August, as the returns,
which gave the first great victory of the Republican party in the
Fremont campaign, thrilled the young editor, he wrote a head-line
which was copied all over the country,--"Behold How Brightly Breaks
the Morning."

In Malden, where he was then residing, a Fremont Club was formed.
Carleton wrote a song, to the melody "Suoni La Tromba," from one of
the operas then much admired, which was sung by the glee men in the
club. Political enthusiasm rose to fever heat. In the columns of the
_Atlas_ are many editorials which came seething hot from Carleton's
brain, during the campaign which elevated Mr. James Buchanan to the
presidency.

When the storm of politics had subsided, Carleton wrote a series of
articles for an educational periodical, _The Student and Schoolmate_.
Inspired by his attendance on the meetings of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, he penned a series of astronomical
articles for _The Congregationalist_. He also attended the opening of
the Grand Trunk railroad from Montreal to Toronto, celebrated by a
grand jubilee at Montreal. During the winter, when Elihu Burritt, the
learned blacksmith, failed to appear on the lecture platform,
Carleton was called upon at short notice to give his lecture entitled
"The Savage and the Citizen."

He was welcomed with applause, which he half suspected was in
derision. At the end, he received ten dollars and a vote of