“The Republicans of the Fourth District have, in the nomination of Mr. P. T. Barnum for Congress, selected a man of world-wide reputation. Unfortunately his widest reputation _is not his best_. Mr. Barnum is called a ‘humbug,’ and he accepts the title, under his own definition of the term. He believes in carrying on the ‘show business’ in the humbug manner, and frankly avows his course and justifies it. _We_ cannot regard it _as he does_. We cannot agree that it is right to _paint a common dove_ and then exhibit it as a _rare and singular variety of that bird_.” The tenor of the other comments in the circular was the same. Barnum was denounced as a candidate for Congress because he was the self-confessed Prince of Humbugs, and no other congressman had ever before admitted the charge. It is unfortunate for the story of his life that Barnum was never admitted to Congress. His speeches, which in his own small district of Connecticut were “full of patriotism” and “spiced with humor,” would have been uncontrolled in the national assembly. In introducing General Oglesby, Governor of Illinois, at a political meeting in Bridgeport a few years after his defeat for Congress, Barnum referred to the distinguished guest as “a veritable Sucker,” an allusion to the popular nickname for early Illinois settlers, who drew their drinking water through long reeds to purify it. “This Sucker,” said Barnum, the political chairman, “of fifty-five has lately gone and married a young wife. I cannot blame him for that; if he can afford such a luxury, it is nobody’s business.”[18] Though he would not have added dignity to the House of Representatives, Barnum’s speeches could not have been anything but distinctive, if it is permissible to judge from the few political orations he delivered during his short political career. His speeches in Congress would have amused the nation, if they did not contribute to its political philosophy, and on the strength of his originality and notoriety he might have become a senator and a candidate for President of the United States, but the sudden check to his political activities forced him to confine his talents for oratory to the show business. He was urged at one time to be the candidate for President of the United States on the Prohibition ticket, but he refused that honorary position.