men in favor of organizing a great party of freedom. Some of his political friends doubted the wisdom of his policy, as they did in 1850 the wisdom of the coalition with the Democrats; but that coalition placed Rantoul and Sumner in the Senate of the United States, and this union largely contributed to the influence of anti-slavery men, enabling them to choose a delegation to Congress, of true men, a majority of whom were free-soilers, and to elect the most radical anti-slavery legislature ever chosen in America. In the elections of 1854, the Americans had in the free States coöperated with men of other parties in opposition to the pro-slavery policy of the Administration. But in November of that year, a national council assembled at Cincinnati, and through the management of southern men, anxious to win local power, and corrupt and weak politicians from the North, hungry for place, the American organization was placed in an equivocal attitude on the slavery question. The work of treachery to freedom commenced, and men who had labored to combine the opponents of slavery in one organization, as Gen. Wilson had done, were marked for swift destruction, and men who were ready to compromise away the cause of freedom, were to be the trusted leaders of the now nationalized American party. The legislature of Massachusetts, which assembled in January, 1855, had to choose a United States senator in place of Mr. Everett, who had resigned and whose term expired on the 3d of March, 1859. General Wilson had publicly and privately declared that the slavery question was with him the paramount question, and in the spring and summer of 1854, while a member of the American organization, he had at all times openly labored to unite men of all parties for freedom. He had taken this position, and his declared opinions and acts were well known in and out of his State, and the men who were ready to sacrifice the anti-slavery cause, to adhere to the compromising policy of the past, were bitterly hostile to his elevation to the Senate. But the anti-slavery men in and out of the State were enthusiastic in his support. He was nominated in the caucus of the members of the legislature, by more than one hundred majority on the first ballot. While the election was pending, several gentlemen representing that portion of the party who wished to nationalize the organization, called upon him, and urged him to write something to modify his recorded opinions, and thus give the men who claimed to be national men, an opportunity to assent to his elevation. In answer to this request, he said he had not travelled a single mile, expended a single dollar, nor conversed with a single member to secure votes for his election;--that his opinions upon the slavery questions were the matured convictions of his life, and that he would not qualify them to win the loftiest position on earth. If elected, he should carry these opinions with him into the Senate, and if the party with which he