At one time during the campaign it seemed as if there were real danger of this candidate of the "reflecting men of the State" actually falling into the ways and wiles of politicians. "I often addressed the people in churches, in courthouses, and in the open air, myself occupying literally the stump of a large tree; _at times also in a grocery."_ The fiery and abusive hand-bills against his competitor he did not attempt to restrain his friends from circulating, "as they had a right to exercise their own judgment"; but he declares he did not circulate one himself. He moreover felicitates himself upon the fact that his conciliatory course gained him votes. This noted contest lasted eighteen months, as Reynolds says, and, the State being sparsely populated, he enjoyed the personal acquaintance of almost every voter. The fact, as he further states, that his opponent was a clergyman, was a great drawback to him, and almost all the Christian sects, except his own--the anti-missionary Baptists-- opposed him. With a candor that does him credit, the Judge admits "the support of the religious people was not so much _for me,_ but _against him."_ No national issues were discussed, but one point urged by Kinney against the proposed Michigan canal was, "that it would flood the country with Yankees." It would be a great mistake to suppose that Reynolds himself wholly escaped vituperation. On the contrary, he claims the credit of being "the best abused man in the State." He relates that one of the stories told on him was, "that I saw a scarecrow, the effigy of a man in a corn-field, just at dusk, and that I said, 'How are you, my friend? Won't you take some of my hand bills to distribute?'" Some light is shed on the politics of the good old days of our fathers by the following: "The party rancor in the campaign raged so high that neighborhoods fell out with one another, and the angry and bitter feelings entered into the common transactions of life." If the contest had lasted a year or two longer it is not improbably that our candidate would have fallen from his high "reflecting" state to the low level of artful politician. "It was the universal custom of the times to treat with liquor. We both did it; but he was condemned for it more than myself by the religious community, _he being a preacher of the Gospel."_ Some atonement, however, is made for the bad whiskey our model candidate dispensed by the noble sentiment with which he closes this chapter of his contest: "I was, and am yet, one of the people, and every pulsation of our hearts beats in unison." Having been elected by a considerable majority as he modestly remarks, our Governor-elect falls into something of a philosophical train of thought, and horror of politicians and their wiles and ways again possessed him. He says: