CHAPTER VI.--HENRY WILSON.

Lincoln, Chase and Wilson as Illustrations of Democracy--Wilson's Birth and Boyhood--Reads over One Thousand Books in Ten Years --Learns Shoemaking--Earns an Education Twice Over--Forms a Debating Society--Makes Sixty Speeches for Harrison--Enters into Political Life on the Working-Men's Side--Helps to form the Free Soil Party--Chosen United States Senator over Edward Everett--Aristocratic Politics in those Days--Wilson and the Slaveholding Senators--The Character of his Speaking--Full of Facts and Practical Sense--His Usefulness as Chairman of the Military Committee--His "History of the Anti-Slavery Measures in Congress"--The 37th and 38th Congresses--The Summary of Anti-Slavery Legislation from that Book--Other Abolitionist Forces--Contrast of Sentiments of Slavery and of Freedom-- Recognition of Hayti and Liberia; Specimen of the Debate--Slave and Free Doctrine on Education--Equality in Washington Street Cars--Pro-Slavery Good Taste--Solon's Ideal of Democracy Reached in America. 269