It suddenly occurred to the committee that it would be a good thing to call a young recruit from a well-known Democratic family and publicly commit him. First came the invitation, then the shouting, and when I arose they cried "platform," and I was escorted to the platform, but had no idea of making a speech. My experience for years at college and at home had saturated me with the questions at issue in all their aspects. From a full heart, and a sore one, I poured out a confession of faith. I thought I had spoken only a few minutes, but found afterwards that it was over an hour. The local committee wrote to the State committee about the meeting, and in a few days I received a letter from the chairman of the State committee inviting me to fill a series of engagements covering the whole State of New York. The campaign of 1856 differed from all others in memory of men then living. The issues between the parties appealed on the Republican side to the young. There had grown up among the young voters an intense hostility to slavery. The moral force of the arguments against the institution captured them. They had no hostility to the South, nor to the Southern slaveholders; they regarded their position as an inheritance, and were willing to help on the lines of Mr. Lincoln's original idea of purchasing the slaves and freeing them. But the suggestion had no friends among the slaveholders. These young men believed that any extension or strengthening of the institution would be disastrous to the country. The threatened dissolution of the Union, secession, or rebellion did not frighten them. Political conventions are the most interesting of popular gatherings. The members have been delegated by their fellow citizens to represent them, and they are above the average in intelligence, political information of conditions in the State and nation, as the convention represents the State or the republic. The belief that they are generally boss-governed is a mistake. The party leader, sometimes designated as boss, invariably consults with the strongest men there are in the convention before he arrives at a decision. He is generally successful, because he has so well prepared the way, and his own judgment is always modified and frequently changed in these conferences.