Edward Effingham was a singularly just-minded man, and having succeeded at
an early age to his estate, he had lived many years in that intellectual
retirement which, by withdrawing him from the strifes of the world, had
left a cultivated sagacity to act freely on a natural disposition. At the
period when the entire republic was, in substance, exhibiting the
disgraceful picture of a nation torn by adverse factions, that had their
origin in interests alien to its own; when most were either Englishmen or
Frenchmen, he had remained what nature, the laws and reason intended him
to be, an American. Enjoying the _otium cum dignitate_ on his hereditary
estate, and in his hereditary abode, Edward Effingham, with little
pretensions to greatness, and with many claims to goodness, had hit the
line of truth which so many of the "god-likes" of the republic, under the
influence of their passions, and stimulated by the transient and
fluctuating interests of the day, entirely overlooked, or which, if
seeing, they recklessly disregarded. A less impracticable subject for
excitement,--the _primum mobile_ of all American patriotism and activity,
if we are to believe the theories of the times,--could not be found, than
this gentleman. Independence of situation had induced independence of
thought; study and investigation rendered him original and just, by
simply exempting him from the influence of the passions; and while
hundreds were keener, abler in the exposition of subtleties, or more
imposing with the mass, few were as often right, and none of less
selfishness, than this simple-minded and upright gentleman. He loved his
native land, while he saw and regretted its weaknesses; was its firm and
consistent advocate abroad, without becoming its interested or mawkish
flatterer at home, and at all times, and in all situations, manifested
that his heart was where it ought to be.

In many essentials, John Effingham was the converse of all this. Of an
intellect much more acute and vigorous than that of his cousin, he also