And no political party in history was ever so great in the accomplishment for liberty, progress and law.
I breathed a pure and bracing atmosphere in those days.

It was a time of plain living and high thinking.

It was a pretty good education, better than that of any university, to be a young Free Soiler in Massachusetts.

I had pretty good company, not in the least due to any merit or standing of my own, but only because the men who were enlisted for the war in the great political battle against slavery were bound to each other by a tie to which no freemasonry could be compared.
Samuel G.Howe used, when his duties brought him to Worcester on his monthly visit, to spend an hour or two of an afternoon in my office.

I was always welcome to an hour's converse with Charles Allen, the man who gave the signal at Philadelphia for breaking away from the Whig Party.