New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-06-13
Henry Wilson.


party for the honored position of Vice Presi-
dent, Hon. Henry Wilson, is one of those
rare examples of men who have won prom
inent place in the politics of the country
without any advantages of birth or culture
in early life. He was born at Pennington,
New Hampshire, on the 10th day of Feb
ruary, 1872. His parentage was of the hum
blest, for he was barely ten years of age
| when he was apprenticed to farmer i'll the
vicinity for eleven years. His master was
kind and generous man, who sent the young
Woodworking boy to school in the intervals
of agricultural labor, and here he soon devel-
oped great taste for reading. He hungered
after knowledge, and his evident desire to
| learn induced lawyer of Pennington to offer
| him the free use of his library, which was
fortunately very extensive one. Here the
statesman in embryo reveled, and, in after
| life, he has declared to friends that he be-
| lieves he read during those eleven years
hundred volumes year. When he became
twenty-one he had exhausted the library.
His indentures were now completed, and, if
he had chosen to become farmer, oppOrtu-
mites of advancement were not wanting, for
everybody liked the shy, awkward youth,
with his broad, high forehead, his honest eyes
| and his immense but somewhat desultOry
| stores of information. But he had resolved
upon quitting Pennington and seeing the
world. Putting his few clothes and his books,
his only treasures, into a bundle, he slung it
across his shoulder and walked gayly off to
Natick, in Massachusetts,, where he hired
himself to a shoemaker, with the resolution
of working at this trade until he had accumu-
lated fund sufficient to maintain him in some
good academy. 1t took two years to do this,
when he returned to New Hampshire and stu
died for time in the academy at Stafford,
Wolfsborough, and Concord. Most unfortu-
nately, the man to whom he had confided his
little heap of savings became insolvent, so
Henry Wilson was obliged to return to the
shoe-maker's bench at Natick. He was now
twenty-six, and noted everywhere in the
neighborhOod as a modest, well-educated
young man, with 4 great turn for debating.
He delighted in discussion, and was so re-
doubtable an opponent that no one in the
academies or among his comrades at Natick
cared to enter into an argument with one who
was so logical, so keenly alive to the weak
points of others, and who had, moreover, so
powerful flow of language. Everybody pre-
dcted that at the next election the people
would hear of Henry Wilson. They did. In
1910 General Harrison was the Wing can
didate, and young Wilson's feelings were
warmly enlisted on his side. He spoke with
great effect at Natick in his favor, and after
ward in other towns of Massachusetts and
ANCW AluiiloluiCs ilc WIS 1T UilCt IcCOSUlZtu
as Il genuine orator. and his services were
engaged by the Wing party, for whom he de-
livered no less than sixty speeches during
that campaign. In the next five years he
was himself elected three times as member
of the Legislature of Massachusetts, and was
twice State Senator. Here he quickly distin-
guished himself as bitter hater of slavery,
and, when State Senator from Mddlesex
county, was selected to carry the great pro-
test of Massachusetts against the evils of
slavery and against the annexation of Texas
to Washington. The poet Whittier was con-
nected with him in this characteristic en-
bassy. He was a delegate to the Wing Ma
tional Convention of 1913, being now thirty
six and he took the opportunity of proposing
and presenting to the convention series of
anti-slavery resolutions which were declared
by many authorities to be the most compre-
hensive and the most unsparing that the
brain of man could devise. The convention,
however, was too tinid to accept them, and
Henry Wilson, on their rejection, at once
withdrew and devoted himself to assisting in
the formation fthe Free-Soil party. Believing
that the public mind wanted educating Oh the
subject, he purchased the Boston ReDubhcau
and for two years agitated the question without
fear or flinching. In lS49 he was chosen Chair.
man of the Free-Soil State Committee of Mas
sachusetts, which post he held for four wears.
In 1880 he was sent to the State Senate and
unanimously elected President. Two wears
atterward he was elected by reclamation
President of the great Free Soil Convention,
which was held in Pittsburg, Pennsy lvania,
when he electrified the members by the most
wonderful displays Of eloquence. The Free
Soiiers put him up as candidate for Represent
alive in Congress, and though defeated, he
ran ahead of his ticket by thousands OF votes.
Next year the same party put him up for
Governor, but he was again defeated, though
still running largely ahead of his ticket. Two
years afterward things changed, and the Free
Sellers being in the ascendant, Henry Wilson
was elected United States Senator in the
place af Edward Everett. No sooner had he
taken his seat than he made the Senate
Chamber ring with the most eloquent denun-
Citations of slavery. He made great speech
advocating the repeal Of the fugitive slave
law, and for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. He next took an active
part in organizing the Republican party on
the basis Of equal and exact justice to all.
In May, 1856, Mr.. Sumner, his colleague,
was assaulted in the most dastardly manner
by Preston Brooks, of South Carolina. He
rose to his feet and denounced the assault as