By natural re-action the receive, in consequence, less credit than is their due.
Except in a few marked instances the House has always been led by men whose reputation has been acquired in its service.

Entering unheralded, free from the requirements which expectation imposes, a clever man is sure to receive more credit than is really his due when his is so fortunate as to arrest the attention of members in his first speech.

Thenceforward, if he be discreet enough to move slowly and modestly, he acquires a secure standing and may reach the highest honors with the House can confer.
If, ambitious of a career, Mr.Raymond had been elected to Congress when he was chosen to the New-York Legislature at twenty-nine years of age, or five years later when he was made Lieutenant-governor of his State, he might have attained a great parliamentary fame.

It has long been a tradition of the House that no man becomes its leader who does not enter it before he is forty.

Like most sweeping affirmations this has its exceptions, but the list of young men who have been advanced to prominent positions in the body is so large that it may well be assumed as the rule of promotion.