The subject of all others which attracted his attention, and kept his editorial pen busy, was the claim of Massachusetts for indemnity from the general government, for certain disbursements made by her for the defence of her sea-coast during the war of 1812.

This matter, which forms but a mere dust point in the perspective of history, his ardent young mind mistook for a principal object, erected into a permanent question in the politics of the times.
But the expenditure of enormous energies upon things of secondary and of even tertiary importance, to the neglect of others of prime and lasting interest, is supremely human.

He was errant where all men go astray.

But the schoolmaster of the nation was abroad, and was training this young man for the work he was born to do.

These six months were, therefore, not wasted, for in the university of experience he did ever prove himself an apt scholar.