I must confess that the doctrine seems to me now rather dangerous, but at that time I welcomed it as a very serviceable piece of casuistry, and felt that there was indeed, as Mr. Seward had declared, a ``higher law'' than the iniquitous enactment which allowed the taking of a peaceful citizen back into slavery, without any of the safeguards which had been developed under Anglo-Saxon liberty. Though my political feelings throughout the senior year grew more and more intense, there was no chance for their expression either in competition for the Clarke Essay Prize or for the De Forest Oration Gold Medal, the subjects of both being assigned by the faculty; and though I afterward had the satisfaction of taking both these, my exultation was greatly alloyed by the thought that the ideas I most cherished could find little, if any, expression in them. But on Commencement Day my chance came. Then I chose my own theme, and on the subject of ``Modern Oracles'' poured forth my views to a church full of people; many evidently disgusted, but a few as evidently pleased. I dwelt especially upon sundry utterances of John Quincy Adams, who had died not long before, and who had been, during all his later years, a most earnest opponent of slavery, and I argued that these, with the declarations of other statesmen of like tendencies, were the oracles to which the nation should listen. Curiously enough this commencement speech secured for me the friendship of a man who was opposed to my ideas, but seemed to like my presenting them then and there--the governor of the State, Colonel Thomas Seymour. He had served with distinction in the Mexican War, had been elected and re<e:>lected, again and again, governor of Connecticut, was devotedly pro-slavery, in the interest, as he thought, of preserving the Union; but he remembered my speech, and afterward, when he was made minister to Russia, invited me to go with him, attached me to his Legation, and became one of the dearest friends I have ever had. Of the diplomatic phase of my life into which he initiated me, I shall speak in another chapter; but, as regards my political life, he influenced me decidedly, for his conversation and the reading he suggested led me to study closely the writings of Jefferson. The impulse thus given my mind was not spent until the Civil War, which, betraying the ultimate results of sundry Jeffersonian ideas, led me to revise my opinions somewhat and to moderate my admiration for the founder of American ``Democracy,'' though I have ever since retained a strong interest in his teaching.