“ In 1857 he was chosen, as a Republican, to the State Senate, and was elected president pro tempore. In 1860 he was elected a member of the Thirty-seventh Congress. In 1867 he was a member of the New York Constitutional Convention, of which he was elected president. From 1809 until 1877 he was again a member of Congress, serving as chairman of the important committees on Commerce, the Pacific Railroads, and Southern Affairs, and taking a leading part in legislation affecting the reconstructed Southern States. ”