tice in New England-worth, at a moderate estimate, eighteen thousand dollars a year. At the moment of his eaving for the scene of war, the list of cases in which he was retained numbered five hundred. Happily married at an early age to a lady, in whom are united the accomplishments which please, and the qualities that inspire esteem, blessed with three affectionate children,he enjoyed at his beautiful home, on the lofty banks of the tumbling Merrimac, a most enviable domestic felicity. At the age of forty, though he had lived liberally, he was in a condition to retire from business if he had so chosen.

Such particulars, in an ordinary sketch of a living man, would, perhaps, be out of place. In the present instance they constitute part of the case. I hold this opinion: that no man is fit to be entrusted with public affairs who has not successfully managed his own. And this other opinion: the fact that a man has conducted his own affairs with honorable success is a reason for believing that his management of public affairs has been just and wise.

Mr. Griffin well remarks that a lawyer in great practice as an advocate has peculiar opportunities of acquiring peculiar knowl edge. That famous scurvy case, for example, made him acquainted with the entire range of sanitary science. A great bank case opens all the mysteries of finance; a bridge case the whole art of bridge building; a railroad case the law and usages of all railroads. A few years ago when General Butler served as one of the examiners at West Point, he put a world of questions to the graduating class upon subjects connected with the military art, indicating unexpected specialities of knowledge in the questioner. "But how did you know anything about that?" his companions would ask. "Oh, I once had a case which obliged me to look into it." This answer was made so often that it became the jocular custom of the committee, when any knotty point arose in conversation, to ask General Butler whether he had not had a case involving it. The knowingness and direct manner of this Massachusetts lawyer left such an impression upon the mind of one of the class, (the lamented General George G. Strong,) that he sought service under him in the war five years after. This curious speciality of information, particularly his intimate knowledge of chips, banks, railroads, sanitary science, and engineering, was of the utmost value to him and to the country at a later day.

And now a few words upon the political career of General But ler in Massachusetts. Despite his enormous and incessant labors at the bar, he was a busy and eager politician. From his twentieth year he was wont to stump the neighboring towns at election time, and from the year 1844, never failed to attend the national conventions of his party. Upon all the questions, both of state and national politics, which have agitated Massachusetts during the last twenty years, his record is clear and ineffaceable. Right or wrong, there is not the slightest difficulty in knowing where he has stood or stands. He has, in perfection, what the French call "the courage of opinion;" which a man could not fail to have who has passed his whole life in a minority, generally a hopeless minority, but a minority always active, incisive, and inspired with the audacity which comes of having nothing to lose. I need not remind any American reader that during the last twenty-five years the democratic party in Massachusetts has seldom had even a plausible hope of carrying an election. If ever it has enjoyed a partial triumph, it has been through the operation of causes which disturbed the main issue, and enabled the party to combine with factions temporarily severed from a majority otherwise invincible.

The politics of an American citizen, for many years past, have been divided into two parts: 1. His position on the questions affected by slavery. 2. His position on questions not affected by slavery. Let us first glance at General Butler's course on the class of subjects last named.

As a state politician, then, the record of which lies before me in a heap of pamphlets, reports, speeches, and proceedings of deliberative bodies, I find his course to have been soundly democratic, a champion of fair play and equal rights. In that great struggle which resulted in the passage of the eleven-hour law, he was a candidate for the legislature, on the "ten-hour ticket," and fought the battle with all the vigor and tact which belonged to him. A few days before the election, as he was seated in his office at Lowell, a deputation of workingmen came to him, excited and alarmed, with the news, that a notice had been posted in the mills, to the effect, that any man who voted the Butler ten-hour ticket would be discharged.

"Get out a hand-bill," said the general, "announcing that I will address the workingmen to-morrow evening."

The hall was so crammed with people that the speaker had to be passed in over the heads of the multitude. He began his speech. with unwonted calmness, amid such breathless silence as falls upon an assembly when the question in debate concerns their dearest interests their honor, and their livelihood. He began by saying that he was no revolutionist. How could he be in Lowell, where were invested the earnings of his laborious life, and where the value of all property depended upon the peaceful labors of the men before him? Nor would he believe that the notice posted in the mills was authorized. Some underling had doubtless done it to propitiate distant masters, misjudging them, misjudging the workingmen of Lowell. The owners of the mills were men too wise, too just, or, at least, too prudent, to authorize a measure which absolutely extinguished government; which, at once, invited, justified, and necessitated anarchy. For tyranny less monstrous than this, men of Massachusetts had cast off their allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and plunged into the bloody chaos of revolution; and the directors of the Lowell mills must know that the sons stood ready, at any moment, to do as their sires had done before them. But this he would say: If it should prove that the notice was authorized; if men should be deprived of the means of earning their bread for having voted as their consciences directed. then, wOE TO LOWELL! "The place that knows it shall know it no more for ever. To my own house, I, with this hand, will first apply the torch. I ask but this: give me time to get out my wife and children. All I have in the world I consecrate to the flames!" Those who have heard General Butler speak can form an idea of the tremendous force with which he would utter words like these. He is a man capable of infinite wrath, and, on this occasion, he was stirred to the depths of his being. The audience were so powerfully moved, that a cry arose for the burning of the town that very night, and there was even the beginning of a movement toward the doors. But the speaker instantly relapsed into the tone and line of remark with which he had begun the speech, and concluded with a solemn appeal to every voter present to vote as his judgment and conscience directed, with a total disregard to personal consequences.

The next morning the notice was no more seen. The election passed peacefully away, and the ten-hour ticket was elected. Two

priceless hours were thus rescued from the day of toil, and added to those which rest and civilize.

The possibility of high civilization to the whole community-the mere possibility-depends upon these two things: an evening of leisure, and a Sunday without exhaustion. These two, well improved during a whole lifetime, will put any one of fair capacity in possession of the best results of civilization, social, moral, inter lectual, esthetic. And this is the meaning and aim of democracy— to secure to all honest people a fair chance to acquire a share of those things, which give to life its value, its dignity, and its joy. Justly, therefore, may we class measures which tend to give the laborer a free evening as democratic.

In the legislature, to which General Butler was twice elected, once to the assembly, and once to the senate, he led the opposition to the old banking system, and advocated that which gives perfect security to the New York bill-holder, and which is often styled the New York system, recently adopted as a national measure. He had the courage, too, to report a bill for compensating the proprietors of the Ursuline convent of Charlestown, destroyed, twenty years ago, by a mob, and standing now a blackened ruin, reproaching the commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is said, that he would have succeeded in getting his bill passed, had not an intervening Sunday given the Calvinistic clergy an opportunity to bring their artillery to bear upon it. He represented Lowell in the convention to revise the constitution of Massachusetts, a few years ago, and took a leading part in its proceedings. With these exceptions, though he has run for office a hundred times, he has figured only in the forlorn hope of the minority, climbing toward the breach in every contest, with as much zeal as though he expected to reach the citadel.

"But why so long in the minority? why could he and Massachusetts never get into accord ?" This leads us to consider his position in national politics.

Gentlemen of General Butler's way of thinking upon the one national question of the last twenty years have been styled "proslavery democrats." This expression, as applied to General Butler, is calumnious. I can find no utterance of his which justifies it; bur on the contrary, in his speeches, there is an evidently purposed avoidance of expressions that could be construed into an approba

tion of slavery. The nearest approach to anything like an apology for the "institution" which appears in his speeches, is the expression of an opinion, that sudden abolition would be ruin to the master, and a doubtful good to the slave. On the other hand, there is no word in condemnation of slavery. There is even an assumption that with the moral and philanthropic aspects of slavery, we of the north had nothing to do. He avowed the opinion, that we were bound to stand by the compromises of the constitution, not in the letter merely, but in the spirit, and that the spirit of those compromises bound the government to give slavery a chance in the territories.

I have been curious to inquire of Hunker Democrats in Massa. chusetts how this subject presented itself to their minds in former years, so as to lead them to an opinion violently opposed to the moral feeling of the communities in which they lived. This is the more puzzling, from the fact that many of the ablest of them had not the slightest expectation or desire of political position, but maintained their ground for half a lifetime from the purest conviction. I have read to some of these gentlemen the conversation, published a year or two since, between Commodore Stuart and Mr. Calhoun in 1812, of which the following is the material portion:

Mr. Calhoun: "I admit your conclusion in respect to us Southrons. That we are essentially aristocratic, I cannot deny, but we can and do yield much to democracy. This is our sectional policy; we are, from necessity, thrown upon, and solemnly wedded to that party, however it may occasionally clash with our feelings for the conservation of our interests. It is through our affiliation with that party in the middle and western states that we hold power; but when we cease thus to control this nation, through a disjointed democracy, or any material obstacle in that party which shall tend to throw us out of that rule and control, we shall then resort to the dissolution of the Union. The compromises in the constitution, under the circumstances, were sufficient for our fathers, but under the altered condition of our country from that period, leave to the South no resource but dissolution; for no amendments to the constitution can be reached through a convention of the people under their three-fourths rule."

Commodore Stuart (laughing incredulously), "Well, Mr. Calhoun, ere such can take place, you and I will have been so long non est, that we can now laugh at its possibility, and leave it with com