But the flame of liberty could not be smothered by friends or blown out by enemies; it was kept alive by vigorous counterblasts in the press, and especially fed by the lecture system, which was then at the height of its efficiency. Among the most powerful of lecturers was John Parker Hale, senator of the United States from New Hampshire, his subject being, ``The Last Gladiatorial Combat at Rome.'' Taking from Gibbon the story of the monk Telemachus, who ended the combats in the arena by throwing himself into them and sacrificing his life, Hale suggested to his large audiences an argument that if men wished to get rid of slavery in our country they must be ready to sacrifice themselves if need be. His words sank deep into my mind, and I have sometimes thought that they may have had something to do in leading John Brown to make his desperate attempt on slavery at Harper's Ferry. How blind we all were! Henry Clay, a Kentucky slave- holder, would have saved us. Infinitely better than the violent solutions proposed to us was his large statesman- like plan of purchasing the slave children as they were born and setting them free. Without bloodshed, and at cost of the merest nothing as compared to the cost of the Civil War, he would thus have solved the problem; but it was not so to be. The guilt of the nation was not to be so cheaply atoned for. Fanatics, North and South, opposed him and, as a youth, I yielded to their arguments. Four years later, in 1848, came a very different sort of election. General Zachary Taylor, who had shown ster- ling qualities in the Mexican War, was now the candidate of the Whigs, and against him was nominated Mr. Cass, a general of the War of 1812, afterward governor of the Northwestern Territory, and senator from Michigan. As a youth of sixteen, who by that time had become earnestly interested in politics, I was especially struck by one event in this campaign. The Democrats of course realized that General Taylor, with the prestige gained in the Mexican War, was a very formidable opponent. Still, if they could keep their party together, they had hopes of beating him. But a very large element in their party had opposed the annexation of Texas and strongly disliked the extension of slavery;--this wing of the party in New York being known as the ``Barn Burners,'' because it was asserted that they ``believed in burning the barn to drive the rats out.'' The question was what these radical gentlemen would do. That question was answered when a convention, controlled largely by the anti-slavery Democrats of New York and other States, met at Buffalo and nominated Martin Van Buren to the Presidency. For a time it was doubtful whether he would accept the nomination. On one side it was argued that he could not afford to do so, since he had no chance of an election, and would thereby forever lose his hold upon the Democratic party; but, on the other hand, it was said that he