"'Oh, yes. At home we use him to a degree, as a sort of political Black Bogey, to scare naughty children who like to play at Radicalism.' "'Well, Amos Blackstone is a specimen of the Political Boss.' "'Indeed? You surprise me,' gasped Sir Hugh. 'Don't mistake me; they are not all like him. He is a lion among jackals; the best political organizer in the State. But he is getting crowded out by younger men. We soon turn our war-horses out to pasture, in this country,' explained Montaigne." No man among his contemporaries in Massachusetts had a larger number of devoted friends than Adin Thayer. Many people who were not counted among his acquaintances were attached to him by sympathy of political opinions and by gratitude for his important service to the Commonwealth. He did a thousand things for the benefit of the city, for the benefit of the State. Many bad men found that somehow their ambitions were nipped in the bud by a process they could hardly understand, and many good men were called into the public service in obedience to a summons from a hand the influence of which they never discovered. But there were four things he largely helped to do which were important and conspicuous in our history; I will not say things that he did, but they were things which would not have been done, in my judgment, if the power and influence of Adin Thayer had been subtracted; things accomplished with difficulty and with doubt. He stood by Charles Sumner when that great and dangerous attempt was made to banish him from public life in the year 1862. It was a time when Charles Sumner, as he told me himself, could not visit the college where he was graduated, and be sure of a respectful reception, when a very important Republican paper, the most important and influential Republican paper in Massachusetts, declared that Charles Sumner could not address a popular audience in New York with personal safety; when, under the lead of the United States District Attorney, one of the most successful managers of a political meeting who ever existed in Massachusetts, an attempt was made to defeat a resolution of confidence in him, in the Republican State Convention (when the whole of the House of Representatives, or of the Caucus, or of the Convention, was on one side and Richard H. Dana was on the other, it was about an even chance which came out ahead), Thayer stood by Mr. Sumner in that memorable State Convention, and helped save his great career to the country and to liberty. He was a devoted supporter of John A. Andrew. Andrew had been Governor the traditional three years, and there were men eager to supplant him. When Adin heard of a formidable meeting called for that purpose, he exclaimed--I remember very well the indignation with which he said it--"They shall not lay their hands on the Lord's Anointed." He sent a message to the meeting that he would fight their candidate in every school district in Massachusetts. The scheme was abandoned.