The masses of the party regarded him as the representative of the opportunity which a great State, in a republic, holds out to the children of its humblest and poorest citizens.

To him principle and party stood before all other things; and he could not be untrue to one any more than to the other.

He had in no wise identified himself with active politics or with anti-rent associations; but the people honoured him for his integrity as well as for his fearless support of the principle of individual rights.

He could not be otherwise than the constant friend of everything which made for the emancipation and elevation of the individual.

His advocacy of an elective judiciary, the union of law and equity, and the simplification of pleadings and practice in the courts, showed that there were few stronger or clearer intellects in the constitutional convention.

Everything was against him save his own personal influence, based upon his sincerity, integrity, and lofty patriotism.

To prevent the calling of a constitutional convention, therefore, or at least to have confined it within limits approved by the Hunkers, was the Governor's great opportunity.

Our principles are as sound as they ever were, and the hearts of the great mass of our party will be found as true to them as ever.

Perhaps he cannot be called a man of genius; but he was a man of commanding ability, with that absolute probity and good sense which are the safest gifts of a noble character.

He was the last of the heroic figures that made famous the closing quarter of the eighteenth and the opening quarter of the nineteenth centuries.

When, finally, his body was transferred from the sofa in the library where he had written himself into an immortal fame, to the cemetery on Second Avenue, the obsequies became the funeral not merely of a man but of an age.

It did not nominate a ticket, which would have defeated the purpose of the secession; but, by proclaiming the principles of Free-soil, it struck the keynote of popular sentiment; divided the Democratic party, and let the Whigs into power…

He drafted the address to the people, his eloquence made him its chief orator, and his enthusiasm seemed to endow him with ubiquity.

He was a lawyer of great distinction, the peer and often the opponent of Charles O'Conor and William H.

Each had that personal magnetism that binds followers to leaders with hooks of steel.

But whatever reasons incited John Van Buren to unite with the Free-soilers, so long as he advocated their principles, he was the most brilliant crusader who sought to stay the aggressiveness of slavery.

His perennial wit kept his audiences expectant, and his compact, forceful utterances seemed to break the argument of an opponent as a hammer shatters a pane of glass.

Butler, Preston King, and John Van Buren illuminated the principles of the Free-soil party in speeches that have seldom been surpassed in political conventions.

It will be remembered that Van Buren, in his inaugural as President, pledged himself to veto any bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, unless sanctioned by Maryland and Virginia.

But Chancellor Walworth had two traits which made him a marked figure in the Commonwealth--an enthusiasm for his profession that spared no labour and left no record unsearched; and an enthusiastic love for the Church.

With that, he passed out of the real world of state-craft into the class of politicians whose ambition and infirmities have destroyed their usefulness.

He was to become a United States senator, and to serve, for eight years, with distinguished ability, as secretary of state in the Cabinet of President Grant; yet, in all that period, he never departed from the simple, sincere life that he…

His features were not striking, but in person he was tall, symmetrical, and graceful; and no one in the State could hold an audience with such delightful oratory and lofty eloquence.

Real friends of emancipation must not be content with protests.

The absence of violent democratic innovations was the Constitution's remarkable feature.