He had made a good reply to Mr.Stevens, had indeed gained much credit by it, and when he returned home for the holidays he had reason to believe that he had made a brilliant beginning in the parliamentary field.

But the speech of Mr.Shellabarger had destroyed his argument, and had given a rallying-point for the Republicans, so incontestably strong as to hold the entire party in allegiance to principle rather than in allegiance to the Administration.

If any thing had been needed to complete Mr.Raymond's discomfiture after the speech of Mr.Shellabarger, it was supplied in the speech of Mr.
Voorhees.

He had been ranked among the most virulent opponents of Mr.Lincoln's Administration, had been bitterly denunciatory of the war policy of the Government, and was regarded as a leader of that section of the Democratic party to which the most odious epithets of disloyalty had been popularly applied.

Mr.Raymond, in speaking of the defeat, always said that he could have effected a serious division in the ranks of Republican members if he could have had the benefit of the hostility of Mr.Voorhees and other anti-war Democrats.
Three weeks after Mr.Shellabarger's reply Mr.Raymond made a rejoinder.