“It is impossible to refrain from comparing the election of yesterday with Mr. Sumner’s previous election in the same place six years ago. _Now_ he receives nearly all the votes, on the first ballot, taken on the third day of the session, every member speaking aloud his vote. _Then_ he received only the exact number necessary for a choice,--one more than half the whole number; and the election was not effected until the twenty-sixth ballot, taken on the one hundred and fourteenth day of the session (April 24, 1851), and the votes were thrown in sealed envelopes. _Then_ he was the candidate of a party which threw 27,636 votes in the State, at the preceding popular election, or about one fifth of the whole number. _Now_ he is the candidate of a party which threw 108,190 votes in the State, at the last popular election, or about two thirds of the whole number. _Then_ he was chosen to a body where he could expect to find but two or three associates sympathizing with his sentiments. _Now_ he is a member of a party which has a majority in the lower House of Congress, and numbers a quarter of the members even of the Senate of the United States. Truly, _tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis_.” The _New York Tribune_ had the following comment. “We need not, in view of recent events, point out the change which has taken place in the public sentiment of Massachusetts. It is not too much to say that Mr. Sumner is at this moment the most popular man in the State, the opinions of which he so truly represents. Nor will it do to attribute this general love, honor, and sympathy entirely to the felonious assault made upon Mr. Sumner. Had he been less true to the cause committed to his keeping, had he trimmed and temporized, and spoken softly when he should have spoken sharply, he would have been safe from the bludgeon of the bully, and might have won the smiles instead of the expectorations of a certain servile Senator. The people of Massachusetts have estimated Mr. Sumner’s service in all its length and breadth; they have duly weighed all its incidents and indignities,--what he has suffered, what he has accomplished, and what he has failed to accomplish; and their verdict, expressed in yesterday’s almost unanimous vote in the House of Representatives, bestows upon him a crown of honor which may well assuage the hope deferred of a tardy convalescence. Few public men have had such large opportunities, few public men have so nobly improved them.”