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��HON. EDWAED H. EOLLINS.
��business, he returned to Concord and went into trade on his own account, soon building up a large and successful busi- ness. After the great fire in 1851, he bought the land and erected what is known as Eollins' Block, north of the Eagle Hotel, one of the stores being oc- cupied by his own business. Of this property he still retains the ownership.
In politics Mr. Eollins was originally a Webster Whig, and acted with the Whig party upon becoming a voter. In the Presidential election of 1852, how- ever, like many other New Hampshire men who had never before acted with the Democracy, he cast his vote for the Pierce electoral ticket, and at the subse- quent March election he also supported Nathaniel B. Baker, the Democratic can- didate for Governor, for whom it may be said he entertained feelings of strong friendship and high personal regard. Up to this time Mr. Eollins had taken no ac- tive part in politics, and but for the sharp contest over the slavery question which soon developed, signalized by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he might, perhaps, have continued to this day voting with the Democracy in the elections, and quietly dispensing med- icines in the good city of Concord.
Dissatisfied with the course of the Ad- ministration, and strongly opposed to the extension of slavery, or any meas- ures rendering its extension possible, (although, by the way, it appears from the family history that his ancestors in colonial times were slave-holders to some extent, even including the Hon. Ichabod Eollins of the Eevolutionary era), he acted no farther with the Demo- cratic party, and upon the inception of the American, or so-called Know-Noth- ing movement, in the winter of 1854-5, he entered into it, attracted somewhat, it may be, by its novelty, and also by the idea that it might be (as it proved) in- strumental in the defeat of the Democ- racy.
From this time Mr. Eollins was an ac- tive politician. He labored effectively in perfecting the new party organization, taking therein the liveliest interest. At the March election he was chosen to the
��Legislature from Ward 4, and served ef- ficiently in that body as a member of the Judiciary Committee. The next year witnessed the fusion of the American or Know Nothing organization with the new Eepublican party, which object Mr. Eollins was largely instrumental in se- curing. The talent which he had al- ready developed, as a political organizer made his services eminently desirable as a campaign manager, and he was made Chairman of the first State Central Com- mittee of the Eepublican party, a posi- tion which he held continuously until his election to Congress in 1861, and in which, as the Democratic leaders well know, he exhibited a capacity for thorough organ- ization — a mastery of campaign work, in general and in detail, seldom equaled and certainly never surpassed. And here it may be said, as it is generally conceded by well informed men in both parties, that the Eepublican party owes more, for its repeated and almost continual success- es in the closely contested elections of this State, from 1856 to 1877, to the la- bors of Mr. Eollins than those of any other man.
Ee-elected to the Legislature in March, 1S56, Mr. Eollins was chosen Speaker of the House, ably discharging the labori- ous duties of the office, to which he was again elected the following year.
Mr. Eollins was chairman of the New Hampshire delegation in the Eepublican National Convention at Chicago in I860, havihg been chosen a delegate at large in the State Convention, with but a single vote in opposition. In the close contest between the friends of Lincoln and Sew- ard in that Convention the New Hamp- shire delegation supported Lincoln from the first, and was strongly instrumental in securing his nomination. Here it may be said that Mr. Eollins had become (as he ever remained), an ardent admirer of Lincoln, and it was through his efforts that the services of the latter were se- cured upon the stump in this State dur- ing the previous winter in the series of memorable campaign speeches which won for him the sincere admiration, and se- cured him the personal support of the New Hampshire Eepublicans.
In 1861, Mr. Eollins was nominated by
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