SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY-1S65-1867 127 



Union at the close of the war was then the most impor- 

 tant subject before the country, and as it seemed to me 

 best to strike while the iron was hot, my subject was 

 "The Greatest Foe of Republics." The fundamental 

 idea was that the greatest foe of modern states, and es- 

 pecially of republics, is a political caste supported by 

 rights and privileges. The treatment was mainly histori- 

 cal, one of the main illustrations being drawn from the 

 mistake made by Richelieu in France, who, when he had 

 completely broken down such a caste, failed tq_destroy its 

 privileges, and so left a body whose oppressions and as- 

 sumptions finally brought on the French Revolution. 

 Though I did not draw the inference, I presume that my 

 auditors drew it easily : it was simply that now, when the 

 slave power in the Union was broken down, it should not 

 be allowed to retain the power which had cost the country 

 so dear. 



The address was well received, and two days later there 

 came to me what, under other circumstances, I would have 

 most gladly accepted, the election to a professorship at 

 Yale, which embraced the history of art and the direction 

 of the newly founded Street School of Art. The thought 

 of me for the place no doubt grew out of the fact that, 

 during my stay in college, I had shown an interest in art, 

 and especially in architecture, and that after my return 

 from Europe I had delivered in the Yale chapel an ad- 

 dress on "Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors" 

 which was widely quoted. - 



It was with a pang that I turned from this offer. To all 

 appearance, then and now, my life would have been far 

 happier in such a professorship, but to accept it was 

 clearly impossible. The manner in which it was tendered 

 me seemed to me almost a greater honor than the profes- 

 sorship itself. I was called upon by a committee of the 

 governing body of the university, composed of the man 

 whom of all in New Haven I most revered, Dr. Bacon, 

 and the governor of the State, my old friend Joseph R. 

 Hawley, who read to me the resolution of the governing 



