The politician hastens to agree with the majority--insists that their prejudice is patriotism, that their ignorance is wisdom;--not that he loves them, but because he loves himself. The statesman, the real reformer, points out the mistakes of the multitude, attacks the prejudices of his countrymen, laughs at their follies, denounces their cruelties, enlightens and enlarges their minds and educates the conscience--not because he loves himself, but because he loves and serves the right and wishes to make his country great and free. With him defeat is but a spur to further effort. He who refuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by the promise of success, or the fear of failure--who walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only victor. Nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling,--position by cringing. When real history shall be written by the truthful and the wise, these men, these kneelers at the shrines of chance and fraud, these brazen idols worshiped once as gods, will be the very food of scorn, while those who bore the burden of defeat, who earned and kept their self-respect, who would not bow to man or men for place or power, will wear upon their brows the laurel mingled with the oak. Roscoe Conkling was a man of superb courage. He not only acted without fear, but he had that fortitude of soul that bears the consequences of the course pursued without complaint. He was charged with being proud. The charge was true--he was proud. His knees were as inflexible as the "unwedgeable and gnarled oak," but he was not vain. Vanity rests on the opinion of others--pride, on our own. The source of vanity is from without--of pride, from within. Vanity is a vane that turns, a willow that bends, with every breeze--pride is the oak that defies the storm. One is cloud--the other rock. One is weakness--the other strength. This imperious man entered public life in the dawn of the reformation--at a time when the country needed men of pride, of principle and courage. The institution of slavery had poisoned all the springs of power. Before this crime ambition fell upon its knees,--politicians, judges, clergymen, and merchant-princes bowed low and humbly, with their hats in their hands. The real friend of man was denounced as the enemy of his country--the real enemy of the human race was called a statesman and a patriot. Slavery was the bond and pledge of peace, of union, and national greatness. The temple of American liberty was finished--the auction-block was the corner-stone. It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable Declaration of Independence with the Fugitive Slave Law.