Mr. Collins read law with his father, and was admitted to practice in the courts of New York, at Rochester, in September, 1813. In October, 1843, he formed a copartnership with his father, under the firm name of E. & W. Collins. They continued in active and successful practice until the death of his father, in 1849. Immediately after Mr. Collins' admission to the Bar, he was elected, as the successor of his father, public prosecutor. This office he held until 1846, when he resigned, having been elected, by the Democratic party, in November, 1846, at the age of twenty-seven, a member of the House of Representatives, in the Thirtieth Congress. The district represented by him was composed of Lewis and St. Lawrence counties. He was in Congress in the years 1847-8-9, during the first agitation of the question of extending slavery to the free territories. Mr. Collins opposed the proposed extension with much zeal and ability. Among his speeches will be found one delivered July 28, 1848, on the "Bill to establish the territorial government of Oregon," advocating the Wilmot Proviso. Apart from its merit as a brilliant literary production, it contains many passages that will be read with much interest by the general reader, as showing the beginning of the end at which we have arrived. Slavery itself having now become a matter of history, we think it will be of interest to introduce the following extracts from the Congressional Globe of July, 1848: I shall assume, then, sir, that the institution does not exist in our late Mexican acquisitions, but that it has been effectually prohibited. The real question, then, is shall the laws securing _freedom_ in these Territories be abolished, and _slavery_ established? This is indeed, sir, a question of the gravest magnitude. To millions of the oppressed and degraded children of Africa, it is an issue upon which depends all that is dear to them in life--all that is bitter in the hour of death. It seems to me, sir, that they are even now stretching forth their dark hands, and beseeching us, in the name of the God of liberty whom our fathers worshipped, to remove from them the poisoned cup of bondage--to forge for them no more chains. The termination of this question also involves the dearest interests of every person in this country who desires to sustain himself by honorable labor. It intimately concerns our national honor, reputation, and progress in the great family of nations. The two hundred and fifty thousand immigrants who annually land upon our shores are in pursuit of 'free soil and free labor.' Can we pronounce in favor of slavery, without danger to our experiment at self-government? If we thus decide, what will become of the cherished hopes of the friends of civilization, Christianity, and human progress?