"As a member of the legislature, he opposed the organization of the Court of Errors, believing that the judiciary as established was the best in the world, and that the change would only multiply difficulties, without gaining any additional certainty to the administration of the law; the bill was not passed while Mr. Stephens was in the legislature. "In 1842, he went to the State Senate, opposed the Central Bank, and took an active part in the questions of internal improvements and districting the State, which then divided parties. "In 1843, he was nominated for Congress, on a general ticket, and commenced the canvass with a majority of two thousand votes against him, and came out of the contest with thirty-five hundred majority; and as he discussed on the stump matters entirely relating to local interests, his eloquence and power undoubtedly carried the State. His entry into Congress was signalized by extraordinary circumstances; his right to a seat was denied. Stephens, in the discussion that ensued, made a speech in favor of the power of Congress to district the States, though he was elected in defiance of the law on a general ticket, and then left the House to decide upon his claims. He was permitted to take his seat. "Up to this time Mr. Stephens was a prominent Whig, having been bred in that school of States' rights men of the South who sustained Harrison in 1840; but upon the question of the annexation of Texas coming up, he favored that bill, and for the first time affiliated with the Democracy. In the contest between Taylor and Cass, he supported Taylor. On the compromises of 1850, he was willing to support any measure that did away with Congressional restriction, leaving the territories to come into the Union with or without slavery. In the Mexican war, he stood beside Mr. Calhoun, and held that the troops should not be advanced; but after the war commenced, he sustained it with vigor. "The guaranty that four slave States should be carved out of the territory of Texas was secured mainly by Mr. Stephens' untiring labor and foresight. In 1854, he advocated the Kansas bill, which declared null and void the Missouri restriction, for the purpose of carrying out the principle of 1850, advanced in the Utah and New Mexican bills. The year 1855 was the most interesting and critical period of his life, which he spent fighting the Know Nothing organization, in the commencement of which he found all his early friends and associates for the first time opposed to him. In the month of May, of this year, he wrote his celebrated letter against the order, addressed to Col. Thos. W. Thomas. The effect of it was overwhelming, not only in his own State, but in Virginia and the adjoining States. His position was sustained, and commencing with three thousand majority against him in his own district, he came out of the contest with nearly three thousand majority.