68 POLITICAL LIFE -II 



essay prizes during my sophomore and junior years, my 

 name was naturally mentioned in connection with the elec 

 tion of editors for the Yale Literary Magazine. At this 

 a very considerable body of Southern students and their 

 Northern adherents declared against me. I neither said 

 nor did anything in the premises, but two of my most 

 conservative friends wrought valiantly in my behalf. 

 One was my dear old chum, Davies, the present Bishop 

 of Michigan, at the very antipodes from myself on every 

 possible question ; and the other my life-long friend, Ran 

 dall Lee Gibson of Kentucky, himself a large slaveholder, 

 afterward a general in the Confederate service, and 

 finally, at his lamented death a few years since, United 

 States senator from Louisiana. Both these friends cham 

 pioned my cause, with the result that they saved -me by a 

 small majority. 



As editor of the &quot;Yale Literary Magazine,&quot; through 

 my senior year, I could publish nothing in behalf of my 

 cherished anti-slavery ideas, since a decided majority 

 of my fellow-editors would have certainly refused ad 

 mission to any obnoxious article, and I therefore confined 

 myself, in my editorial capacity, to literary and abstract 

 matters; but with my college exercises it was different. 

 Professor Larned, who was charged with the criticism 

 of our essays and speeches, though a very quiet man, was 

 at heart deeply anti-slavery, and therefore it was that in 

 sundry class-room essays, as well as in speeches at the 

 junior exhibition and at commencement, I was able to 

 pour forth my ideas against what was stigmatized as the 

 &quot;sum of human villainies.&quot; 



I was not free from temptation to an opposite course. 

 My experience at the college election had more than once 

 suggested to my mind the idea that possibly I might be 

 wrong, after all ; that perhaps the voice of the people was 

 really the voice of God; that if one wishes to accomplish 

 anything he must work in harmony with the popular will ; 

 and that perhaps the best way would be to conform to 

 the general opinion. To do so seemed, certainly, the only 



