Mr. Barton's legislative experience began in 1863, that intensely feverish period of the rebellion. The Democratic party was represented by its ablest orators and most skillful parliamentarians. They were artful, bitter, and desperate. The majority could not afford to waste or misapply its resources. Competent leadership was essential to the utilization of the Republican strength. Fortunately this was found. It came from the ranks of the "raw recruits." Wary and watchful, alert and forcible, Mr. Barton promptly and successfully met the assaults of the opposition, and sometimes "carried the war into Africa." The house soon acknowledged his leadership,--a leadership which he maintained at the subsequent sessions. The soldiers will never forget his fearless advocacy of the measure allowing them to vote in the field. This cost him his re-appointment as solicitor; but he was not the man to sacrifice so sacred a principle for the loaves and fishes of office. In 1875 and 1876 he occupied the responsible position of chairman of the Republican legislative caucus. In the sessions of 1876 and 1877, the Manchester _Mirror_, _Independent Stateman_, and other papers spoke in the highest terms of his service, giving him the credit of punctual attendance, praiseworthy diligence, and of ably championing the best measures that were enacted, and pointing him out as a probable candidate for the national congress. His long and able legislative experience has never been stained by political corruption, or by the betrayal of any moral question. John Cooper, Esq., in the _Granite Monthly_ of May, 1879, has truthfully said: "Through all these years of political life he presents a record without a blemish." Mr. Barton is a man of well proportioned, commanding physique, and is well preserved by temperate living and total abstinence from all intoxicants and narcotics. He is also a man of fluent and agreeable speech, of fine conversational powers, and is the inspiration of every social circle which he enters. At home as well as abroad, in private as well as in public life, he is the invariable advocate of every moral and social reform. He is an honor to the Masonic fraternity, whose principles he worthily represents. He is the warm and helpful friend of the Methodist Episcopal church, to which he belongs; but he has an unaffected contempt for all sectarian narrowness. His sense of justice is intuitive, his sympathy quick, and in its exercise he regards neither state nor condition. The destitute and forsaken always find in him a true friend. From boyhood he has been an avowed and uncompromising opposer of slavery, and of whatever oppresses the masses, whether white or black. If he sometimes asserts and maintains his opinions with earnestness and warmth, he never does so with malice. In the advocacy of what he deems to be just, he is never turned aside by motives of self-interest.