The Late George H. Williams. 283 was a whig partisan, but before the year 1856, he had de- spaired of the party, was willing to see it die, and found a place to go, along with others of his fellow citizens who would no longer tolerate the noncommittal policy of the whigs. Doubtless, Webster, after the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise, would have found the same place and been free from the lets and hindrances of compromises with powers that were unfaithful to their obligations. But Judge Williams, regret it as we may, had not the power or courage to abandon the democratic party until it met the fate of the Egyptians who would not let the people go*. The great majority of men have a dominating pride of con- sistency as partisans — (stability of character they call it) — and perforce an abhorrence of change, of being called a quit- ter, a vaccinator. Human beings have an innate pride of con- sequence and power and there is a consequent dread of being stigmatized as trifling, small and easily moved. Really great- souled, great-minded men have this vanity. Lincoln and Washington were not free from it. And how common it is for men to vaunt their physical proportions rather than their vir- tues. Looked at rationally as a natural endowment for which its possessor is in no wise responsible and is equally void of praise or blame, size or power, or any other quality of mind or body should furnish no occasion for arrogance or swelling pride, and if this vain and simple feeling could be banished and a pride of civic achievement be substituted for it, very likely human society would be much the gainer by the ex- change. The death of the National Democratic party was a glorious resurrection to Judge Williams, for then began the services for which he will hold a place in American history. His previous career on the bench in Oregon and in Iowa was entirely commonplace, and his speeches in the latter state in favor of the election of Franklin Pierce to the presidency, being colorless as to human rights and the dangerous tendencies of the continued domination of the slave power, could not
