Rhode Island American And Providence Gazette

This is a highly talented Congress. On whichever side we look, we find a powerful array of genius, eloquence and learning. In the House of Representatives, we find on the side of the administration, Gorham, Sergeant, Everett, Bartlett, Sprague, Burges, Dwight, Pearce, Storrs, Wright, Taylor, Dorsey, Clarke, Martinsdale, Mercer Malary and many others of established reputation. On the other side we find the celebrated names of McDuffie, Cambreleng, Ingham, P. P. Barbour, Smyth, Randolph, Hamilton, Livingston and Gilmore. Mr. Oakley of N. York, will perhaps, be considered as an important acquisition either to one side or the other. Some, say that he will take the administration side, if he can enlist as a leader. But for that place he is not qualified by the character of his mind, which, though strong, is slow. There are also two new members, Mr. Bates, of Massachusetts, in favour of the administration, and Silas Wright, Jr. in the opposition, who, it is said, will make a figure here. New England is, on the whole, well represented, though she has, by no means, done herself ample justice. Massachusetts and Rhode-Island are splendidly represented. Vermont sends a few respectable and worthy men, but none of any eminence, with the exception of Mr. Mallory. From New Hampshire we have Bartlett. Maine gives us the dough-faces, Anderson and Ripley, who voted for Stevenson. I now designate them by name, because, in my former letter to you, I, by mistake, located them in Vermont. One half of the Maine representatives, last year, did not draw a sober breath, and we can look for little moral sobriety from nearly as many of them this year. But we will acquit Maine from censure, we will even exalt her in relative rank among her sister states, so long as she will send us a man so pure and so highly gifted as Sprague. Connecticut, if she takes her rank among the states from the rank of her representatives in the Senate and House, must take the very lowest grade. Once the Attica, she has now become, at least in the estimation of those who judge of her by her members of Congress, the Bootia of America.

On whom have the mantles of Sherman, Ellsworth and Griswold fallen?