mangling the fragments which we might offer to the reader. As we have
already remarked, he seems, as a debater, to revive the old type of the
Revolutionary Congress, or to bring back the noble days of the Long
Parliament of England, before eloquence had become what it is now, a
knack, and a thing valued for itself. Like those strenuous orators, he
speaks with the earnestness of honest conviction, and out of the fervor
of his heart, and because the occasion and his deep sense of it constrain
him.

By the defeat of Mr. Van Buren, in the presidential election of 1840, the
administration of government was transferred, for the first time in
twelve years, to the Whigs. An extra session of Congress was summoned to
assemble in June, 1841, by President Harrison, who, however, died before
it came together. At this extra session, it was the purpose of the whig
party, under the leadership of Henry Clay, to overthrow all the great
measures which the successive democratic administrations had established.
The sub-treasury was to be demolished; a national bank was to be
incorporated; a high tariff of duties was to be imposed, for purposes of
protection and abundant revenue. The whig administration possessed a
majority, both in the Senate and the House. It was a dark period for the
Democracy, so long unaccustomed to defeat, and now beholding all that
they had won for the cause of national progress, after the arduous
struggle of so many years, apparently about to be swept away.

The sterling influence which Franklin Pierce now exercised is well
described in the following remarks of the Hon. A. O. P. Nicholson:--

"The power of an organized minority was never more clearly exhibited than
in this contest. The democratic senators acted in strict concert,
meeting night after night for consultation, arranging their plan of