a vastly greater power than heretofore over the minds with which he came
in contact. This progressive growth has continued to be one of his
remarkable characteristics. Of most men you early know the mental gauge
and measurement, and do not subsequently have much occasion to change it.
Not so with Pierce: his tendency was not merely high, but towards a point
which rose higher and higher as the aspirant tended upward. Since we
parted, studious days had educated him; life, too, and his own exertions
in it, and his native habit of close and accurate observation, had
likewise begun to educate him.

The town of Hillsborough, in 1829, gave Franklin Pierce his first public
honor, by electing him its representative in the legislature of the
state. His whole service in that body comprised four years, in the two
latter of which he was elected Speaker by a vote of one hundred and
fifty-five against fifty-eight for other candidates. This overpowering
majority evinced the confidence which his character inspired, and which,
during his whole career, it has invariably commanded, in advance of what
might be termed positive proof, although the result has never failed to
justify it. I still recollect his description of the feelings with which
he entered on his arduous duties--the feverish night that preceded his
taking the chair--the doubt, the struggle with himself--all ending in
perfect calmness, full self-possession, and free power of action when the
crisis actually came.

He had all the natural gifts that adapted him for the post; courtesy,
firmness, quickness and accuracy of judgment, and a clearness of mental
perception that brought its own regularity into the scene of confused and
entangled debate; and to these qualities he added whatever was to be
attained by laborious study of parliamentary rules. His merit as a
presiding officer was universally acknowledged. It is rare that a man