I was never absent a single day from my seat in the House in 1852, and was absent only one day from my seat in the Senate, in 1857, when I had to attend to an important law suit.

It so happened that there was a severe snow storm that day, which blocked up the railroads, so that there was no quorum in the Senate.

I could not myself have got to the State House, if I had tried.

I suppose I may say without arrogance that I was the leader of the Free Soil Party in each House when I was a member of it.

In 1852 I prepared, with the help of Horace Gray, afterward Judge, who was not a member of the Legislature, the Practice Act of 1852, which abolished the common law system of pleading, and has been in principle that on which the Massachusetts courts have acted in civil cases ever since.