the great honor conferred upon
him. We are met to-night for the purpose of greeting the Senator
elected to-day, and to listen to his words of thanks for the great
honor conferred upon him. This gentleman has been in public life
twenty-six years. For six years he served as a Member of Congress
from the Mansfield district, with credit and with distinction.
Thrice elected a United States Senator before, for sixteen years
he occupied the position of United States Senator, ever in the
front rank of the intellectual giants composing that body. Called
hence to be Secretary of the Treasury, this distinguished gentleman
has filled that place with honor. He has been at all times the
friend of resumption and of the prosperity of the people. To him,
perhaps, more than to any other one man, is due the resumption of
specie payments and the prosperity of this people to-day. As a
great financier he stands as a peer with Hamilton, with Chase.
Gentlemen, you have selected wisely and well. I now have the
pleasure of presenting John Sherman, Senator-elect from the State
of Ohio."

To this I responded, in part, as follows:

"Gentlemen, Senators, Members of the General Assembly:--My first
duty is to return to you my grateful thanks for the high honor you
have conferred upon me in selecting me for the fourth time a Member
of the Senate of the United States. Four years ago I assumed a
somewhat different office. And now, having been honored by you by
being transferred to the position formerly occupied by me, I feel
very much like a traveler who has made a long journey into a far
distant country and who is returning home in safety and honor.
The place I now occupy has been one of great embarrassment and
difficulty. I have been away from the people of my native state,
with but scarce a few fleeting, short visits, and have lost the
acquaintances I have had with so many of you, and have not been
able to form new acquaintances among you. I find among the members
of the general assembly but comparatively few of those whom I knew
in the olden times.

"I assumed the duties of the office of which I speak under
circumstances of great embarrassment. I was held up before the
public for a long time as one who was pursuing a policy that brought
woes unnumbered--greater than befell the Greeks between Achilles
and Agamemnon. All the evils that fell upon society in the United
States during the period, all the grave distress, was simply
attri