The Territory of Utah was represented in the House by Mr. John N. Burnhisel, a small, dapper gentleman, who in deportment and tone of voice resembled Robert J. Walker. It was very rarely that he participated in debate, and his forte was evidently taciturnity. In private conversation he was fluent and agreeable, defending the peculiar domestic institutions of his people. The delegate from Oregon was Mr. Joseph Lane, who had served bravely in the Mexican war, gone to Oregon as its first Governor, and been returned as its first Territorial Delegate. He was a keen-eyed, trimly built man, of limited education, but the possessor of great common sense. Henry M. Rice, the first Delegate from the Territory of Minnesota, had been for years an Indian trader in connection with the American Fur Company, and was thoroughly acquainted with the people he represented, and whose interests he faithfully served. New Mexico, then a _terra incognita_, was represented by Don José Manuel Gallegos, a native of the Territory, who had been educated in the Catholic schools of Mexico, and who was devoted to the Democratic party. He had as a rival Don Miguel A. Otero, also a native of New Mexico, who had been educated at St. Louis, and whose Democracy was of the more liberal school. He successfully contested the seat of Mr. Gallegos in the Thirty-fourth Congress, and secured his re- election in the two ensuing ones.
The Senate was behind the House in entering into the "irrepressible conflict." The death of Vice-President King having left the chair of the presiding officer vacant, it was filled _pro tempore_ by Mr. Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana. He was a man of fine presence, fair abilities, and a fluent speaker, thoroughly devoted to the Democratic party as then controlled by the South. He regarded the anti-slavery movement as the offspring of a wanton desire to meddle with the affairs of other people, and to grasp political power, or --to use the words of one who became an ardent Republican--as the product of hypocritical selfishness, assuming the mask and cant of philanthropy merely to rob the South and to enrich New England. The rulings of the Chair, while it was occupied by Senator Bright, were all in favor of the South and of the compromises which had been entered into. The Secretary of the Senate, its Sergeant-at- Arms, its door-keepers, messengers, and even its little pages, were subservient to the South.