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 238 T. W. Davenport. none as to its promoting the moral well-being of society, and none as to the right or propriety of an American citizen cherishing an ambition for political preferment and promot- ing it by laudable means. Indeed, can any one conceive of any better or higher bid for official honors than that a citizen has shown his loyalty to popular institutions by his conduct, by his acts, whether letters, speeches or public- spirited affiliations? If the Judge expected to advance his candidacy by becoming an open and avowed opponent of slavery extension, he was in a most profound state of ignor- ant as to the means of advancement in his party. He cer- tainly knew that party harmony was evssential to official pro- motion, and he also knew that silence on the slavery question and .•acquiescence in the doings of the pro-slavery admi];^istra- tion at Washington were absolutely essential to any sort of promotion in the Democratic party. He knew all this and was not such a child as envious aspirants in his own party affected to believe, viz., that he expected his "Free State Letter" to raise a tidal wave that would carry him triumph- antly to the Senate. Everybody who has seen Judge Williams, or has had any conversation with him, or has heard him speak, is impressed with the conviction that he is far removed from a fanatic or visionary, and when he wrote that "Free State Letter" in the summer of 1857, he was cognizant of the stupid silence of his brother Democrats and knew the reason for it. that it was to avoid dissension fatal to individual aspiration for advancement. The Judge was warned in advance by Mr. Bush, who was favorable to its publication, that it would "fix him," but despite the warning he per- formed a much-needed public service for which posterity will gratefully remember him, when the names of the obsequi- ously silent partisans shall have sunk into oblivion. Evidently the Judge was in error as to one purpose then, and which he essay<^d again in 1860, that was his hope or belief that his party could be weaned from slavery by working on the inside. Reforming political parties organized on the spoils system, by working on the inside, has been attempted several times since,