(who had then served five years as United States Minister at The Hague) became the Assistant Secretary of that department. Of the same period of Mr. Chandler's life this characteristic anecdote is told: John Sumner, one of his Jackson customers, passed Sunday as his guest in Detroit, and at church listened with him to a sermon of pro-slavery flavor, followed by a prayer by a visiting clergyman in which the Divine blessing was earnestly invoked upon the down-trodden and the oppressed. At the conclusion of the services Mr. Chandler stepped to the foot of the pulpit, sought an introduction to the utterer of the prayer, and said: "Thank you for that prayer! It was all that I have heard this morning that was worth hearing." Throughout the days of Mr. Chandler's earnest attachment to the Whig party, his anti-slavery feeling was pronounced. In 1848 Mr. Chandler fleshed his political broadsword with one or more speeches in behalf of General Taylor. He had been an occasional participant in the debates of the Young Men's Society, the training-school for not a few of Detroit's eminent men, but in that year for the first time he addressed a miscellaneous audience on public questions. His earlier speeches showed the strength of the man, and despite some ruggedness were effective. In the State election of 1849 Mr. Chandler took no active part. In 1850 he was one of the Wayne county delegates to the Whig State convention, which met at Jackson on the 18th of September, and nominated a ticket headed by George Martin, of Kent, for Secretary of State; the following campaign was a local one, arousing but little interest, and in it Mr. Chandler did not prominently share. On February 19, 1851, the Whigs of Detroit held a convention to select a city ticket for the charter election in March, and after one informal ballot Mr. Chandler was unanimously nominated by them for Mayor. This event marks the commencement of his career as a popular, shrewd, and successful political leader. The Democratic candidate for the Mayoralty was Gen. John R. Williams, a native and one of the foremost citizens of Detroit, the president of the Michigan constitutional convention of 1835, and the senior officer of the State militia. He had been the first Mayor of the city, and had held that place for six terms, and was a man of practical ability, the owner of a large estate, and popular with the people. His personal strength made him a formidable candidate, and his defeat not easy of accomplishment. Mr. Chandler's answer to the delegation who waited upon him with the question, "Will you run on the Whig ticket against John R. Williams?" was, "I will and I will beat him too," and he put all his energy into the campaign which followed. The Whig convention by resolution presented his name to the people of Detroit as that of "a man identified with its improvements, prominent in its welfare, and interested in its prosperity," and in the Whig journals he was warmly