of “the most energetic war measure” adopted in the country.[158] As a member of the Constitutional Convention of New York, dealing with the extension of suffrage, when Chancellor Kent, giving free rein to his aristocratic tendencies, was opposing the extension, and mere demagogues were advocating the immediate letting down of the bars to all, it is significant, both of his Americanism and [Illustration: MARTIN VAN BUREN] [Illustration: THOMAS HART BENTON] his wisdom, that Van Buren scorned both the rôle of reactionary and demagogue, and proposed the plan for the gradual extension of suffrage in a speech couched in the language of seasoned statesmanship. Thus, at the time he entered National life, there was nothing in his career to justify the conventional estimate of his public character. With the inauguration of Adams, soon after he had entered the United States Senate, Van Buren became the recognized leader of the Opposition, and he set himself the task of organizing and militantizing a party to fight the Federalistic trend of the President. There were various elements on which he could draw. With his genius for organization and direction, he made it his work to seek a common ground upon which all could stand together in harmony. He fought the principles and policies of the Administration in dignified fashion, without recourse to scurrility; but he capitalized every mistake and gave it fullest publicity through the circulation of carefully prepared speeches, after the fashion of the present day. Careful to discriminate, even in his attacks, between personal and political wrongdoing, he treated Adams with the utmost courtesy. With a party formed, he drilled it as carefully as was ever done by the Albany Regency. He instilled into it the party spirit. He mobilized an army. With this he fought the Administration on the floor. But he was one of the first, if not the first, to take the people outside the halls of Congress into consideration. To create a party without as well as within the Congress, he arranged for the circulation of carefully prepared senatorial speeches for the moulding of public opinion in the highways and the byways. Thus he was probably responsible for the delivery of the first congressional speeches intended solely for campaign use.