the Union when
compared with what he might have lost by neglect of duty in the days of
nullification. Washington had gained much by demonstrating his
capacity for civil affairs, by the legacy of his farewell address,
and by the shaping of the new government under the Constitution in a
manner calculated to strengthen the quality of perpetuity. At the end,
I claimed that the other occupants of the Presidential office had not
gained appreciably by their promotion.

In two important particulars, Samuel Adams and Charles Sumner are
parallel characters in American history. Mr. Adams was a leader in
the contest that the colonies carried on against Great Britain. Our
legal standing in the controversy with the mother country has never
elsewhere been presented as forcibly and logically as it was stated by
Mr. Adams in his letters to the royal governors in the name of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives, between the years 1764 and
1775. When the contest of words and of arms was over he was not
only not an aid in the organization of the new Government, but he was
an obstacle to its success. He accepted the Constitution with
hesitation and under constraint. After the overthrow of slavery and
the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Mr.
Sumner gave no wise aid to the work of reconstructing the government
upon the basis of the new conditions that had been created by the war
and by the abolition of slavery. As every guarantee for freedom
contains some element of enslavement over or against some who are not
within the guarantee, men sometimes hesitate as to the wisdom of
accepting guarantees of rights in one direction which work a limitation
of rights or privileges in other directions. The Constitution of the
United States, while it gave power to the body of States and guaranteed
security to each yet deprived the individual States of many of the
privileges and powers that they had enjoyed as colonies. Every
amendment to the Constitution, from the first to the last, has limited
the application of the doctrine of home rule in government.

Upon the election of Mr. Wilson to the office of Vice-President, I was
chosen by the Legislature of Massachusetts as his successor in the
Senate. I left the Treasury and General Grant's Cabinet with
reluctance, but my experience in both branches of the government had
led me to prefer the legislative branch, where there is at least more
freedom of action than c