enunciation and modulation with a voice that was full and musical. Unlike McDuffie, he was incapable of tearing a passion to tatters. Never noisy, even in moments of great excitement, he was always graceful and easy in his manner. He spoke the language that Addison and Swift wrote. He addressed the House with the same scrupulous care and the same lofty dignity with which he would have addressed John Marshall on the Supreme Bench, or conversed with Mrs. Livingston in her drawing-room. In social relationships, his innate refinement could not be marred by the free-and-easy manners of the cloak-room; his suavity could not be disturbed by the ferocity of attack; his dignity could withstand any circumstance. Such was the Bank’s most perfect champion in its greatest crisis. He left his profession to serve its cause, and that cause defeated, he gladly bade farewell to public life and returned to his profession and his habitual peace of mind. As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the burden of the battle for the Administration fell on James K. Polk. History has settled on the verdict that he was a man of mediocre ability, with nothing to commend him to the admiration, and little to the respect, of posterity. But he managed the fight for the Administration with consummate parliamentary skill. Beset on all sides by tremendous onslaughts, he remained cool, courteous, and fair throughout, and won the open commendation of McDuffie for the manliness of his methods. It is impossible to turn the yellowing pages of the “Congressional Globe,” recording the day-by-day story of the fight, without a growing feeling of admiration for Polk. He was never diverted from the question, never excited by attacks, patient, and yet always pressing courteously for action. In the midst of the frenzied partisans, he looms large.