70 POLITICAL LIFE-II 



safeguards which had been developed under Anglo-Saxon 

 liberty. 



Though my political feelings throughout the senior 

 year grew more and more intense, there was no chance 

 for their expression either in competition for the Clarke 

 Essay Prize or for the De Forest Oration Gold Medal, 

 the subjects of both being assigned by the faculty; and 

 though I afterward had the satisfaction of taking both 

 these, my exultation was greatly alloyed by the thought 

 that the ideas I most cherished could find little, if any, 

 expression in them. 



But on Commencement Day my chance came. Then I 

 chose my own theme, and on the subject of &quot;Modern 

 Oracles&quot; poured forth my views to a church full of peo 

 ple; many evidently disgusted, but a few as evidently 

 pleased. I dwelt especially upon sundry utterances of 

 John Quincy Adams, who had died not long before, and 

 who had been, during all his later years, a most earnest op 

 ponent of slavery, and I argued that these, with the dec 

 larations of other statesmen of like tendencies, were the 

 oracles to which the nation should listen. 



Curiously enough this commencement speech secured 

 for me the friendship of a man who was opposed to my 

 ideas, but seemed to like my presenting them then and 

 there the governor of the State, Colonel Thomas Sey 

 mour. He had served with distinction in the Mexican 

 War, had been elected and reflected, again and again, 

 governor of Connecticut, was devotedly pro-slavery, in 

 the interest, as he thought, of preserving the Union ; but 

 he remembered my speech, and afterward, when he was 

 made minister to Russia, invited me to go with him, at 

 tached me to his Legation, and became one of the dearest 

 friends I have ever had. 



Of the diplomatic phase of my life into which he in 

 itiated me, I shall speak in another chapter; but, as re 

 gards my political life, he influenced me decidedly, for 

 his conversation and the reading he suggested led me to 

 study closely the writings of Jefferson. The impulse 



