Nothing is better calculated to encourage humility in young men about to enter upon a political career than a study of the roster of Congress for years only lightly veiled in “the pathos of distance.” Among United States senators from the Middle West in 1863-9 were Lyman Trumbull, Richard J. Oglesby, and Richard Yates, of Illinois; Henry S. Lane, Oliver P. Morton, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana; James Harlan and Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa; Samuel C. Pomeroy and James H. Lane, of Kansas; Zachariah Chandler and Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan; Alexander Ramsey and Daniel S. Norton, of Minnesota; Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio. In the lower house sat Elihu B. Washburne, Owen Lovejoy, and William R. Morrison, of Illinois; Schuyler Colfax, George W. Julian, Daniel W. Voorhees, William S. Holman, and Godlove S. Orth, of Indiana; William B. Allison, Josiah B. Grinnell, John A. Kasson, and James F. Wilson, of Iowa; James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio. In the same group of States in the ’80’s we find David Davis, John A. Logan, Joseph E. McDonald, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas W. Ferry, Henry P. Baldwin, William Windom, Samuel J. R. McMillan, Algernon S. Paddock, Alvin Saunders, M. H. Carpenter, John J. Ingalls, and Preston B. Plumb, all senators in Congress. In this same period the Ohio delegation in the lower house included Benjamin Butterworth, A. J. Warner, Thomas Ewing, Charles Foster, Frank H. Hurd, J. Warren Keifer, and William McKinley. How many students in the high schools and colleges of these States would recognize any considerable number of these names or have any idea of the nature of the public service these men performed? To be sure, three representatives in Congress from Ohio in the years indicated, and one senator from Indiana, reached the White House; but at least two-thirds of the others enjoyed a wide reputation, either as politicians or statesmen or as both. In the years preceding the Civil War the West certainly did not lack leadership, nor did all who rendered valuable service attain conspicuous place. For example, George W. Julian, an ardent foe of slavery, a member of Congress, and in 1852 a candidate for Vice-President on the Free Soil ticket, was a political idealist, independent and courageous, and with the ability to express his opinions tersely and effectively.