He went off with the Know-nothings in 1855, and was
elected by them to the State Senate, and was called to preside over
their State Convention. He hastened back to his old party associates,
and at the first convention that met in his county on his return from
the Legislature, he rose and told them how lonesome he had felt while
astray from the old fold, how glad he was to get back, and how humble he
felt, concluding by advising all his late supporters to do as he had
done by taking "a straight chute" for the old party. He ended amid a
storm of applause, was reinstated at once, and was made President of the
next Democratic State Convention. There he was in his glory. His tact
and good humor were infinite, and he held those hundreds of excitable
and explosive men in the hollow of his hand. He would dismiss a
dangerous motion with a witticism so apt that the mover himself would
join in the laugh, and give it up. His broad face in repose was that of
a Quaker, at other times that of a Bacchus. There was a religious streak
in this jolly partisan, and he published several poems that breathed the
sweetest and loftiest religious sentiment. The newspapers were a little
disposed to make a joke of these ebullitions of devotional feeling, but
they now make the light that casts a gleam of brightness upon the
background of his life.
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