than to change the name of the Free Soil party. Few Whigs or Democrats united to the movement. A secret organization called Americans, or Know-Nothings, swept the Commonwealth like a wave, electing all the State officers, and, with scarcely an exception, the entire Legislature.

The candidate for Governor nominated by the Republicans at Worcester, himself joined the Know-Nothings, and labored to defeat his own election.

The next year the attempt was more successful. On the 10th of August, 1855, a meeting without distinction of party was held at Chapman Hall, in Boston, which was addressed by Mr. Hoar, George Bliss, Franklin Dexter, William Brigham, Lyman Beecher, Richard H. Dana, Jr., Charles F. Adams, Henry Wilson, Stephen C. Phillips, and others. On the 30th of the same month, a meeting of conference committees was held, representing the American or Know-Nothing party, the Know-Somethings, an antislavery organization which had held a National Convention at Cleveland in June, and the Chapman Hall Convention. This conference appointed a committee of twenty-six to call a State Convention, at the head of which they placed Mr. Hoar. This State Convention was held at Worcester, nominated Julius Rockwell for Governor, and the organization which it created has constituted the Republican party of Massachusetts to the present day.

The part taken in calling this Convention, and in promoting the union which gave it birth, was Mr. Hoar's last important public service. His failing health prevented his taking an active share in the Presidential campaign of 1856.

I prefer, in putting on record this brief estimate of a character which has been to me the principal object of reverence and honor in my life, to use the language of others, and not my own. From many tributes to my father's character, from persons more impartial than I can be, I have selected two or three.

I cannot quote at length Ralph Waldo Emerson's sketches of Mr. Hoar, who was his near neighbor and intimate personal friend for many years. They are noble and faithful as portraits of Van Dyke or Titian. One of them is a speech made in Concord town-meeting on the third day of November, 1856, the day after Mr. Hoar's death. The other was contributed to the Unitarian Monthly Religious Magazine, then edited by Rev. Dr. Huntington, afterward Bishop of New York. Mr. Emerson says in one of them: "His head, with singular grace in its lines, had a resemblance to the bust of Dante. He retained to the last the erectness of his tall but slender form, and not less the full strength of his mind. Such was, in old age, the beauty of his person and carriage, as if his mind radiated, and made the same impression of probity on all beholders."

He ends with this quatrain:

  With beams December planets dart,
  His cold eye truth and conduct scanned;
  July was in his sunny heart,
  October in his liberal hand.

The following is from a letter of Sherman Day, a man whose reputation for wisdom and integrity is among the treasures of California:

"BERKELEY, 23d May, 1884.
  HON. GEO. FRISBIE HOAR,
  U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

My Dear Sir:

"I was very much gratified to receive, some weeks since, a copy of your biographical sketch of your venerable father. It was the more precious to me because it awakened memories of my own early life; while it recalls the tall, the gentle and dignified figure and courteous demeanor of your father in his prime of life. I can remember being at your father's wedding at my grandmother's house when I was about 6-1/2 years old. Several years before you were born, I was at the Phillips Academy at Andover, and used occasionally to spend a vacation with my beloved aunt, who was a sort of mother to me in my earliest childhood. It was at her home that I first read Washington Irving's Sketch Book, then just appearing in separate numbers. I believe the book belonged to a law student of your father's, as your father had not yet taken to the reading of romances.

"My memory extends back to the organization of the Constitutional Convention of 1820. I well remember the venerable figure of John Adams, as he took the seat of honor at the right hand of the president, and I remember the sonorous voice of Josiah Quincy, the Secretary. I was staying at the house of Mr. Evarts, and remember your father's dining there, and discussing the deportment and characteristics of several of the more prominent members. Among them was the tall member from Worcester, Levi Lincoln, conspicuous by his drab overcoat, by his frequent speaking, and by his constantly moving about among the members. The member who made the most lasting impression on my memory was Daniel Webster. He was not yet forty years old, stalwart, black haired and black eyed, with a somewhat swarthy complexion; his manly beauty and his eloquence being alike objects of admiration. He had not attained that stoutness which his form assumed in later years. I could illustrate his appearance better to your brother, Edward, by asking him to recall Don Pablo de la Guerra of Santa Barbara, whom I deemed a very good type, in appearance, of Webster in the Convention of 1820."

George William Curtis came to know Mr. Hoar very well during his own life in Concord. He and his brother, Burrill, were almost daily visitors at our house:

WEST NEW BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.,
  March 19, 1884.

My dear Mr. Hoar:

I thank you very much for a copy of your sketch of your father which vividly recalls him to me as I remember him in my Concord days long ago. I recollect that when I saw in Paris Couture's famous picture of the Decadence of the Romans, it was your father that I thought of as I saw the figures of the older Romans gazing reproachfully upon the revels. So he may have felt of his country as he died.

  With great regard, very truly yours,
  GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

The following is from J. Evarts Greene, formerly editor of the Worcester Spy, and one of the ablest members of his profession in New England:

WORCESTER, Mar. 10, 1884.

My dear Mr. Hoar:

I want to thank you especially for the copy of the Memoir of your father, which I received to-day. I am exceedingly glad to have it on your account and his. He is the most venerable figure in my memory. He was always spoken of in our family with the highest respect, and few things have ever gratified me so much as his kindness to me on the occasion of my last visit to Concord during his lifetime. It was in 1850, I think, while I was in college and about fifteen years old. I had always held him in awe as the greatest and wisest man within my knowledge, and should have no more have thought of familiar conversation with him than with the Pope. But his grave and kindly courtesy, as he sat down with me after supper, though it did not quite put me at my ease, gave me courage to talk more freely than I had ever thought possible; and while my veneration for him was not diminished, I felt that there was no one now on earth that I need be afraid of.

  Faithfully yours,
  J. EVARTS GREENE.
  The Hon. Geo. F. Hoar.

The following letter is from Professor Thatcher, the eminent
Latin Professor of Yale:

NEW HAVEN, 14th March, 1884.
  HONORABLE GEORGE F. HOAR.

My dear Senator:

I write simply but cordially to thank you for the copy of your venerated Father's Memoir which you have been so kind as to send to your cousin, Elizabeth. I have read it with the delight which must be common to all who