CHAPTER VI 



SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY 1864-1865 



ON the evening of New Year s Day, 1864, I arrived in 

 Albany to begin my duties in the State Senate, and 

 certainly, from a practical point of view, no member of the 

 legislature was more poorly equipped. I had, indeed, re 

 ceived a university education, such as it was, in those 

 days, at home and abroad, and had perhaps read more than 

 most college-bred men of my age, but all my education, 

 study, and reading were remote from the duties now as 

 signed me. To history, literature, and theoretical politics, 

 I had given considerable attention, but as regarded the 

 actual necessities of the State of New York, the rela 

 tions of the legislature to the boards of supervisors of 

 counties, to the municipal councils of cities, to the boards 

 of education, charity, and the like, indeed, to the whole 

 system throughout the Commonwealth, and to the 

 modes of conducting public and private business, my ig 

 norance was deplorable. Many a time have I envied some 

 plain farmer his term in a board of supervisors, or some 

 country schoolmaster his relations to a board of education, 

 or some alderman his experience in a common council, or 

 some pettifogger his acquaintance with justices courts. 

 My knowledge of law and the making of law was wretch 

 edly deficient, and my ignorance of the practical adminis 

 tration of law was disgraceful. I had hardly ever been 

 inside a court-house, and my main experience of legal pro 

 cedure was when one day I happened to step into court 

 at Syracuse, and some old friends of mine thought it a 

 good joke to put a university professor as a talesman upon 



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