John Gorham Palfrey and the New England Conscience

The New England of his day regarded Palfrey's life as blameless and exemplary. Yet he himself once called it "his personal tragicomedy." In his stormy political career, Palfrey not only was Massachusetts Secretary of State, member of Congress, and Postmaster of Boston, but also played a key role in the formation of the Free Soil Party. Gatell has used papers of Palfrey's contemporaries and of the Palfrey family manuscripts, among them an unpublished autobiography, itself a search for meaning in a long and perplexing life.