[9] Of this speech the New York _Courier and Enquirer_ said: "The speech of Mr. Chandler on the 12th places him among the first debaters of the country. No more unanswerable exposition of the usurpation in Kansas has been made." The Chicago _Tribune_ said: "Mr. Chandler made his first formal speech in the Senate to-day. That body paid him the compliment of unwavering attention through the whole of his able and effective speech. The passage in which he described the murder of Brown, Barbour and Gay ... excited the sympathies and passions of his audience to a pitch rarely observed in parliamentary debate." [10] The Hon. James M. Edmunds, for many years Commissioner of the Land Office, and afterward postmaster of the Senate and of Washington City. [11] The Springfield _Journal_ of October 18 said: "Senator Chandler, of Michigan, made yesterday one of the best speeches to which our citizens have had the pleasure of listening during the campaign.... The meeting was a magnificent one and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed." CHAPTER IX. SERVICES TO THE CAUSE OF THE PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRY. Zachariah Chandler as a Republican Senator was a thorough Whig in both his advocacy of an enlightened national system of Internal Improvements and his constant and efficient championship of the cause of the Protection of American Industries. It has been justly said that "the Great West of to-day owes its unequaled growth and progress, its population, productiveness and wealth, primarily, to the framers of the federal constitution, by which its development was rendered possible, but more immediately and palpably to the sagacity and statesmanship of Jefferson, the purchaser of Louisiana; to the genius of Fitch and Fulton, the projector and achiever, respectively, of steam navigation; to De Witt Clinton, the early, unswerving and successful champion of artificial inland navigation; and to Henry Clay, the eminent, eloquent, and effective champion of the diversification of our national industry through the Protection of Home Manufactures." No man knew better or acknowledged more fully the truth of this analysis than Mr. Chandler. His own State abounded with evidences of its justice, and his firm faith in the protective principle was also strengthened by the teachings of his practical mercantile experience and by his general commercial sagacity. No State presents to-day more abundant proofs of the beneficence of "the American system" than Michigan, and no personal contributions to the protection of its interests and the diversification of its industries equaled those given on every possible occasion by Mr. Chandler throughout his prolonged Senatorial service.