r, caused his exclusion. It was a sore disappointment, from which
he never fully recovered. Eight years later, with the advent of General
Taylor and the defeated aspirations of the Whig leaders, who had caused
his exclusion from Harrison's Cabinet, he sought and obtained an
election to the thirty-first Congress from the Lancaster district. In
1856 he strove with all his power to secure the Presidential nomination
for John McLane of the Supreme Court, who had or professed to have had
anti-Masonic tendencies. His ill success was another disappointment; but
in 1859 he was again elected to Congress, and thereafter until his death
he represented the Lancaster district.

Disappointments had made him splenetic, but he was not, as represented
by his opponents on the two extremes, either a charlatan or a miscreant,
though possibly not wholly exempt from charges against him in either
respect. In many of his ultra radical and it may be truly said
revolutionary views--revolutionary because they changed the structure of
the Government--he coincided with Senator Sumner, who was perhaps the
leading spirit in the Senate on the subject of reconstruction, but he
did not, like the Massachusetts Senator, make any pretence that his
project to subjugate the Southern people and reduce their States to the
condition of provinces was constitutional, or by authority of the
Declaration of Independence. President Lincoln well understood the
characteristics of both these men, and, though differing from each on
the subject of restoration and reconstruction, he managed to preserve
friendly personal relations with both--retained their confidence, and
while he lived secured their general support of his Administration.
Herein President Lincoln exhibited those peculiar qualities and
attributes of mind which made him a leader and manager of men, and
enabled him in a quiet and unostentatious way to exercise his executive
ability in administering the Government during the most troublesome
period of our national history.

GIDEON WELLES.

ART'S LIMITATIONS.

This rich, rank Age--does it breed giants now--
Dantes or Michaels, Raphaels, Shakespeares? Nay!
Its culture is of other sort to-day.
From the stanch stem (too ready to allow
Growths that divide the strength that should endow
The one tall trunk) who firmly lops away,
With wise reserve, such shoots as lead astray
The wasted sap to some co