The Thirty-first Congress was not alone remarkable for the great questions it confronted and its shameless recreancy to humanity and justice; it was equally remarkable for its able and eminent men. In the Senate, the great triumvirate of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, appeared in public life for the last time. With them were associated Benton, Cass, Douglas, Seward, Chase, Bell, Berrien, Soule, Davis of Mississippi, Dayton, Hale, Ewing, Corwin, Hamlin, Butler, Houston, and Mason. In the House were Thaddeus Stevens, Winthrop, Ashmun, Allen, Cobb of Georgia, McDowell, Giddings, Preston King, Horace Mann, Marshall, Orr, Schenck, Stanley, Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Vinton. If mere talent could have supplemented the lack of conscience, the slave power might have been overborne in 1850, and the current of American history turned into the channels of liberty and peace. But the better days of the Republic, when high integrity and unselfish devotion to the country inspired our statesmen, were past, and we had entered upon the era of mean ambitions and huckstering politics. "The bulk of the nation," as Harriet Martineau said, a little later, "was below its institutions," and our fathers "had laid down a loftier program than their successors were able to fulfill." It was not strange, therefore, that the little band of Free Soilers in this Congress encountered popular obloquy and social outlawry at the Capital. Their position was offensive, because it rebuked the ruling influences of the times, and summoned the real manhood of the country to its rescue. They were treated as pestilent fanatics because they bravely held up the ideal of the Republic, and sought to make it real. But they pressed forward along the path of their aspirations. They found a solace for their social ostracism in delightful gatherings which assembled weekly at the residence of Dr. Bailey, where they met philanthropists, reformers, and literary notables. They had the courage of their opinions, and the genuine satisfaction which accompanies manliness of character; and they lived to see their principles vindicated, and the political and social tables turned upon the men who had honored them by their scorn and contempt. The anti-slavery revolt of 1848, which they represented, saved Oregon from slavery, made California a free State, and launched the policy of free homes on the public domain which finally prevailed in 1862; and it was the prophecy and parent of the larger movement which rallied under Fremont in 1856, elected Lincoln in 1860, and played its grand part in saving the nation from destruction by the armed insurgents whom it had vanquished at the ballot-box. This will be the sure award of history; but history will find another parentage for the party despotism and political corruption which have since disgraced the administration of the Government.