Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER n 1853-1860 I start out as a political troubadour—Sing for Fremont—Mix a country clerk's duties with fashioning sketches of drugs I sell—As magazine editor I write verse for old folks and stories for children—Some of the bucolics and tales I inflicted upon Tioga Darbys and Joans. Early in 1853 the nation was in the throes of the slavery controversy. I became an intense abolitionist. I observed with bated breath the union of Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Horace Greeley and John Sherman, Republicans; Henry Wilson, Henry Winter Davis and Ben Wade, Know Nothings; Hannibal Hamilton, Lyman Trumbull and Frank Blair, Democrats; Charles Sumner and Salmon P. Chase, Free Soilers; and Giddings, Garrison, Phillips and the Lovejoys, Abolitionists, to create a new party. That party was and is known to-day as the Republican party. It was formed for the final effacement of human slavery from the American continent. While at the drug counter I studied assiduously the speeches and acts of Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward and Horace Greeley, about whom theNew York State Whigs and "Conscientious Democrats" rallied, and longed to be in their confidence. In this I was not satisfied. But later I did possess that of their heirs, Hugh Hastings, Reuben E. Fenton and Eoscoe Conkling. AS CAMPAIGN WABBLEB I was not an orator. But I could sing some. At least I managed to master the tenor score of sacred music in the old Presbyterian church in Owego. So, when John C. Fremont was named as the first candidate of the Republican party in 1856 for the Presidency, I concluded that I could help a little by warbling campaign ditties. I also made some attempts at composing the words and airs to the melodies. A number of us boys formed a glee club. My heart still thumps when I recall how night...