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 worthy of their steel, and equally determined to rule the destinies of the infant commonwealth, the rivalries were fierce, the animosities bitter, the struggle intense. Politics ran high, and conflicting ambitions led to a degree of personal virulence in writing and in speech surpassing anything that we have to-day. When these young men first met, fire flashed as when flint and steel are struck together, and in the territorial days their quarrels were too often solved by the duel. After the admission of the State in 1836 affairs became more tranquil. The strong men gradually learned to dwell together in peace; but their rivalries, though less bloody, were not less strenuous.

ALBERT PIKE.