radical ideas of the Abolitionists, he was ardent in his anti-slavery
ideas and did not hesitate to espouse the unpopular doctrines of the
Free-Soil party of 1848, or to labor for the freedom of those Boston
negroes, who, under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, were in danger
of deportation to the South.

His activity in the latter direction resulted in pecuniary loss,
social ostracism and worse; for upon one occasion he was set upon
and nearly killed by a pair of thugs. But Dana was not a man to be
swerved from his purpose by considerations of policy or of personal
safety. He met his problems as they came to him, took the course
which he believed to be right and then stuck to it with indomitable
tenacity. Yet, curiously enough, with none of the characteristics
of the politician, he longed for political preferment. At the hands
of the people this came to him in smallest measure only. Though at
one time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, he was defeated
as candidate for the lower house of Congress, and in 1876 suffered
the bitterest disappointment of his life, when the libellous attacks
of enemies prevented the ratification of his nomination as Minister
to England.

Previous to this he had served his country as United States
District Attorney during the Civil War, a time when the office
demanded the highest type of ability and uprightness. That the
government appreciated this was shown in 1867 by its choice of
Dana as one of its counsel in the prosecution of Jefferson Davis
for treason. The position of legal representative before the
Halifax tribunal of 1877, which met to discuss fishery questions
at issue between the United States and Canada, was given him no
doubt in part because of his eminent fitness, in part as balm for