merely by planning operations, and leaving to others the entire burden of their execution; for, like the great mass of the farmers of that region, he puts his own hand to the plow. He is at this time President of the Agricultural Society of Chester and Delaware counties.

In 1836 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, and was re-elected in 1837. A nomination for the State Senate was tendered him in 1838; but, as his private affairs demanded all his time and attention, it was declined. In 1840 he was selected to represent his district in the Electoral College of Pennsylvania, and, as is known, cast his vote for the successful candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. In June, 1840, he received a nomination from what is known in his county as the great Whig meeting of the ninth of that month, to supply a vacancy in the popular branch of the State Legislature, occasioned by the death of one of the members; but the speaker of the House withholding the order for the special election, it never was held.

Mr. M'Ilvaine took his seat as a Whig member of the national Legislature at the commencement of the twenty-eighth Congress. One of the great issues then before the country was the vexed question of a protective tariff. To the consideration of that policy his thoughts had been early directed. The results of his investigation had placed him among the ardent friends and supporters of the system; and he took occasion to enforce his views in a speech delivered on the 29th of April, 1844, and subsequently on the 18th of June, 1846.

He has stood among the earliest and most constant opponents of the annexation of Texas. He spoke against that measure on the 25th of January, 1845. He assumed the position "that the annexation would be unconstitutional-injurious to the interests of the free states, as it tended to extend and perpetuate slavery, and to involve the country in war." On the 26th of March, 1846, on the bill to supply deficiencies in appropriations made for certain objects for the service of the fiscal year ending the 20th of June, 1846, he moved to strike out so much as provided for the expense of the army in Texas, and its transportation thereto, amounting to upward of eight hundred thousand dollars. He opposed this appropriation because, among other reasons, the expense for which it provided was incurred