E ,C74a JAAAJJL4 erf -Viruo Quc^u,. i^jn^nJicri, v y^y 87 L Glass fa k7 5 Book—A: Ik o o tt T7! q ' rv ir ^ nPTTTT! in A "S DDuiiiD LlJJ IxxJli JJJ&. 3 SPEECH HON. EOSCOE COjSKLIInGt of 1st e "w "5t o r. ik , Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York, July 23, 1872. 99f~ PKoTB— On account of the gr$ai length of SeBator Coftkling's sgeecn ft has been necessary to omit portions chiefly relating to New York St ite matters, nationa) fiuauces, and extracts from the New Yor« Tribune a large part of which has beeu published in other documents. j Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- men : Your greeting of me to-hi^ht and the warmth of your rvception quite oppress me. I have not, words fitly to express my feel- ings. It has been my privilege lor twenty years, sometimes from this platform, to ad- dress my neighbors upon political issues, and too touch ardor and too mueh of the partisan have always been among my many faults. Yet no canvass has ever stirred me like this. [Cheers.] No election has ever bo appealed to my sense of fair play, no can- vass has ever involved so much of injustice, malice and foul play, none has ever so thor- oughly tested the common sense and gener- osity of the American people. [Cheers.] INJUSTICE HEAPED ON THE PRESIDENT. Eleven years' service in Congress has made me a close observer of four Presidents and of many public men; and if among them all there is one, living or dead, who never knowingly failed in his duty, that one is Ulysses S. Graut. If there has been a high official ever ready to admit and correct an error— if there has been one who did wisely, firmly, and well the things giveu him in charge, that one is the soldiw in war and the quiet patriot in peace, who has been named again by every' township in forty-six Scales find Territories for the. great trust he now holds. Yet this man, honest, brave, and modest, and proved by his transcendent deeds to be endowed with genius, common tense, and moral qi-dities adequate to the greatest affairs; tnis mau who saved his country, who snatched our nationality and our cause from despair, and bore tnem on his shield through the flame of battle, in which, but for him, they would have per- ished; this man, under whose administra- tion our country has flourished as uo one dared predict; this man, to whom a nation's gratitude and benediction are due, is made the mark for ribald •jives aud odious groundless slanders. Why is all this? Simply because ha stands in th« way of tin; greed and ambition of politicians and schemers. Many honest, men join in the «ry, or hear it without indiguatmu. They are. deceived by the cloud of calumny -which darkens tlv sky; but the inventors are men distempered with griefs, or else the sordid and the vile, who follow politics as the shark follows the ship. A war of mud and missiles has been waged for months. The President, bis family, and all nearly associated with him, have' been bespattered, and truth and decency have been driven far away/Every thief and cormorant and drone who has been put out— every baffled mouser for place and plunder— every mau with a grievance or a' grudge— all who have something to make by a change, seem to wag an unbridled tongue or to drive a foul pen. WHERE THE OPPOSITION HAS BLUNDERED. The American people may misjudge a po- litical question, they may b'e deceived, but) with the truth before them, they will never be unjust, ami never untrue upon a question of right and wrong. Ingratitude has been charged Upon Republics, and just there is -the point where the angry enemies of the Presi- dent have blundered.' Had the cool veterans of the Democracy formed or selected the is- sues to be presented, they would have been wise enough to so frame them that the .peo- ple could decide in their favor without fixing a stigma upon General Grant, and without blasting his name or doing him wrong. I5u* the Democratic statesmen, the leaders in a hundred lights, have been mere lookers-on* leadership has b en assumed by Republican renegades, and "out" men so eaten u|> with envy, or so maddened with the :oss or refusal of place and patronage, that nothing would satisfy them short of a rancorous, revengeful, personal raid. When a man turns Turk lie spits on the Cross, and when w.de-tnroaied Ultra-Republicans clandestinely trade with the enemy, and then turn open traitors to their party, they become the meanest and fiercest opponents, justas a Yankee slave overseer Horn N'ew England was always more brutal than those boru in the South When men whose vanity was hurt, and. others gnawed by ambition and cupidity, went uut to ruin the party which they could ETt C~|43 not rule, madness drove them on. They had bo polar star, ex'r.ept hatred of Grant and his supporters. These lusty patriots, who mod- stiy assumed the name of "Reformers," would not have an ordinary Presidential canvass for the fair discussion of political questions; such a proceeding would have b\-n too tame and insipid for them. Their stomaehsci aved stronger, more game-flavored meat; hard names must be called-, vengeance must'ba satisfied; the President must be po- litically court-martialed or dragged before a national assize to be. tried as a malefactor. In the Senate the Democrats proper kept- silent or talked about business; I give them credit for wasting but little rime; but half the last session, eight months in length, was worn out and wasted by slanderous elec- tioneering harangues aimed at the Adminis- tration and its friends by men badly in need of being reformed themselves. These self- righteous and noisy oracles pitched the key in%irhich the anti-Grant chorus was to be sung, and hence comes the absence of politi- cal questions and the presence of personal and scandalous issues. The public journals and newspaper correspondence from Wash- ington controlled bv these "Liberal*"— liberal in nothing so much as in defaming honest men and praising aud helping themselves— took hue from the heart-burnings.distempers, and ambitions which set them on. "Any- thing to beat Giant" was the motto, and it gratified their heat and spite toassail the President personally, and to heap malignant charges upon him; thus his character, his in- tegrity, his standing as a man have been put in issue, and the people are compelled to pass upon his guilt or innocence. The case has been so put that the question is not merely whether Grant shall be President, but whether Gr.ant shall be pronounced by the nation a fool, a knave, an impostor, an enemy of his country. Mad issues been taken upon public measures; had public questions been raised, whether new questions or those which have divided parlies heretofore, a popular verdict would Jiave been a verdict only between parties *nd policies and principles. Such a verdict would have rested upon public grounds, personal and disparaging to no one. In that case General Grant could not com- plain. If the political views he represents are not those of a majority there is no injus- tice and no reflection upon any one in so sa-y- iug and so voting. But when the President is arraigned for" iguorauce, dishonesty, and viae, and for nothing else, the case is different. What is the arraignment? What political position held by the Republican party or its candidates does the "any-thiug-to-beat- Grant" coalition deny? Will any one tell me? Read the manifesto put forth at Cin- cinnati, which Mr. Greeley did over in im- proved words, as he thought, in his letter of acceptance. Read the address lately pub- lished by .Mr. Greeley aud his committee, so- liciting the votes of the people of this State. These papers, in so far as, they refer to the Administration, are a gross personal libel fcpon the President, and they are nothing more. THE CINCINNATI PLATFORM ANALYZED. The tariff resolution at Cincinnati is a mere juggle — a shallow evasion, by which no one of common intelligence has a tight to be cheated. The resolution about Congress and "cen- tralism," if they mean anything, refer to the exercise of powers by Congress every one of which Mr. Greeley approved aud de- manded in his usual violent and unmeasured language. The amnesty resolution is spent, because a general amnesty bill was passed weeks ago. Every rebel votes, and every relvl may hold office now, except JVfferson Dayis and less than tw<» hundred others, who still spurn for- giveness. Where, then, is the political issue the peo- ple are to pass upon? It cannot be "evil service reform," unless dishonesty is imputed to '-he President. lie is for civil .service re- form, lie. recommended it and inaugurated it, and the Philadelphia Conventioa specially declared for it. There can-be no issue of that kind, except by pretending that Grunt is a hypocrite 4 , and that Greeley is not; and neither of these things would be easy to prove. Mr. Greeley has plainly and repeatedly avowed, in public and in private, that his political ac- tion hinges on patronage and spoils; without stopping to prove this now, 1 will recur to it hereafter. The coalition presents nothing of sub- stance, on which parties or individuals are divided in principle, but only assaults on thy President. This is nothing more or less than a chal- lenge of Comparison between the candid ites. The issue is narrowed to a single inquiry. Which is person illy the safest, fittest man for the Presidency? DEMOCRACY GIVES UP— WHAT IS ASKED O? DEMOCR ATS. Some things, however, are said and done effectually by the platform and nomination of our opponents. They blot, out and re- nounce the time-honored creed of the Demo- cratic party. That cn-ed is laid aside and its vital points repudiated. It is fairly admitted that Democratic doc- trines and Democratic candidates can not stand before the judgment of the country. The Democracy confesses its defeat upon the great issues of the century, and confesses its error also. Equality of race ; emancipa- tion of slaves; the ballot for the blacks; a protective tarid; exemption of Government bonds fr<*m taxation; paving bonds in c »in. Upon these and other things the Democracy at last confesses itself not only beaten but wrong, and the Republican party victorious and right. Stopping here, the homage paid to the Republican party would be great in- deed, but we find greater-tribute and homage still. Not only are the old grounds of difference given up, hut no new ones can be found. What measure or doctrine of the '.'epuhhcaa party, again I ask, have our opponents ven- tured to attack? The Republicai paTty has been in powoi for years, responsible for all legislation in the greatest era of the nation, and now its ri life long rival and adversary at last throws . up the sponge, not daring to join issue upou - • one political question. . Even the Knklux and election bills are not \v matters in difference, for Mr. Greeley sup- ported them both with all his virulent vocab- ulary. Mv own part in preparing and press- ing the election law was, I remember, the occasion of my being praised in the Trilnme. The only instance of alleged "centralism" being measures to which Sir. Greeley stands fully committed, the candidate and the plat- form together leave not a shred of anything Democratic. As if to abjure the last vestige, or Democracy and wipe out its very mem- ory, these vaulting managers have selected as their figure-head a professed ultra Repub- lican, formerly an ultra Whig, an I they ask honest Democrats to vote for him, against a man horn and b-.ed a Democrat, who never ac'ed with the Republican party till after the war had raised new issues, which Democrats divided. Democrats are asked to vote for that Republican who "out-Heroded Herod" always in politics and abuse, and who did more than any other man in the North to encourage secession and bring on the war. A Republican, coming from the Whig party with such a record, now asks # the votes of Democrats. "WHY SHOULD DEMOCRATS VOTE FOR GREE- LEY? Upon what ground will patriotic Democrats prefer Greeley to Grant? They must prefer Greeley because they disapprove Grant per- sonally, or else because they disapprove some political doctrine he represents. Are Democrats for repudiating the debt? Are they for agitating or annulling the thir- teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amend- ments of the Constitution? Would they re- establish ! l/.very? Would they pay the rebel war debt, or pensions to rebel soldiers, or rebel war claims? Would they inflate the currency again and flood the country with paper money? Are Democrats against re- ducing taxes aud exnenses? Are Democrats en iio^ed to peace with all nations and stable government at korae?e These questions are not asked to impugn the position of any man, bur. for the opposite reason. Genera! Grant being tried and true in all these things, why should any Union man, or Conservative man, or business man, or pa- triot, vote against him, even if his competitor was a safe and fit man for President? Plainly there can be no reason, unless Grant is un- wortiiy of confidence or respect, and de- serves to be found guilty of the crimes aud vices alleged against him. To judge this question we muse examine his history and lay bare his lile. " The tree is known by its fruit." the carpenter by his chips, the man by his deeds. GRANT'S EDUCATION. Grant can not b .-• illiterate, or, as a Greeley Grak'.r told an audience the other day, "igno- rant (it what sehool'oovs know." He was txiu-eai-sd at West Point, aud who- ever graduates in that exacting school must have an education such as few Americans receive. Mental culture is not atl we find in Grant at West Point.- His letters- written then stamp him with character enough by it- self to refute the worn and soiled scandal which now offends the nostrils of the nation. From West Point he went to act a subordi- nate part in the Mexican war. He acted it bravely, modestly, and well. The Mexican war be'ing over, his pay in the regular army would have gone on, and he might have lived in peace and idleness at the public cost, but, unwilling to be a drone, he became a tanner. THE "TANNER OF GALENA. "--WHAT HE TANNED. Mr. Sumner withers him by reminding us that "he tanned hides at Galena for afevr hundred dollars a year." He did not mas- querade as a wood-chopper; he did not figure in pictorials as a farmer; he did not so round telling "what he knew about" anything that he didn't understand himself; he minded his own business, and let other people's business alone; but he worked with his hands as a hewer of wood, which he sold in the market, and wrought out a living for his family and himself. From the breaking out of the rebellion, his career is a "thrice told tale" — the world knows it by heart. When the flag sank at Sumter, he did not wait to be called. With- out commission, command, uniform or should- er-straps, he started for the field, and grasp- ing the Stars and Stripes, and carried theak through a blaze of victories such as no mort™ before him had won. ' While : Senators who now hawk at .hiai were lolling for a fourth term ou cushions, and eviscerating encyclopedias, books of quotations, and classical dictionaries, the tanner of Galena swept rebellion from the valley of- the Mississippi, and the father of waters went uu vexed to the sea,* Lincoln and Stanton, who reposed un- measured confidence iu him, called him at once from the victorious fields of the West to the department of the Potoiuae, that Gol- gotha, where army after army, the very flower of the nation, had melted away. He came to the wilderness of Virginia, when that traitorous Commonwealth had become the rendezvous of the allied armies of rebel- lion, and when the rebel chiefs were boast- ing that iu the fastnesses of the Blue Ridgs they could defy the world in arms. He marched from Washington, and he measured no backward step until he set his foot upon the shattered fragments of the greatest military power an invading army ever over- threw. He solved the problem which had baffled all others, and preserved a nationality after the world thought it gone down. How stood he then? The nation leaned and reposed upou him, and blessed him. Both hemispheres gazed at him as the prod- igy and wonder of the age. The Democrats sought his consent to nomi- nate him for the Presidency without Dlalf-orm or pledge, but he declined. His integrity taughitfhiuj that when a party chooses a can- did:* to from the other side somebody is to be cheated; and by ( Grant's consent, n» one ever was or ever will be -cheated. But the Democratic managers adored 1dm, and saw him only resplendent with great- cess and with virtues. Fie. was not unfit, for President then; he was the fittest of all his countrymen; fie did not become unfit until Shr.ee years' experience had ripened and en- larged his knowledge, lie did not become unfit while the patronage' held ou-t, and vyhile unclean fingers Were allowed to fumble it. WHlT THE NEW YORK "WORLD" SAID. "Apply to General Grant what test you will; m 'asure him by the magnitude of the obstacles be has surrounded, by the value of the DO=.itions he has gained, by the fame of the antagonist over whom he has triumphed, by the. achievements of his most illustrious co-workers, by the sureness with which he directs his indomitable energy to the vital coint which is the key of a vast field of op- eration, or by that supreme test of consum- mate ability, the absolute completeness of his results, aud he vindicates his claim to stand next alter Napoleon and Wellington among the great soldiers of this country, if not on a ievel with the latter." WHAT HORACE GREELEY SAID. "Grant and his policy deserved the very highest credit. "•The people of the United States know General Grant — have known all about him e'$ce I) Hudson and Vi -tcsburg; they do not ino Wilis slanderers, and do not care to know them. , . - r, "While asserting the right of every Re- publican to his lintrammeled choice of a can- didate for next President until a nomination is made, I venture to Suggest that General Grant will be far better qualified for that momentous trust in 1872 than he was in 1868. ■« We are led by him who first taught our armies to conquer in the West, and subse- quently in the East also. Richmond would not come to ns until we sent Grant after it, and then it had to come, lie has never yet been defeated, and never will be. He will be as great and successful on the field of politics as On that of arms. "Yes^ General Grant has failed to gratify some eager aspirations and has thereby in- curred some intense hatreds. These do not and will not fail; and his Administration «dll prove at least equally vital. We shall hear lamentation after lamentation over his fail- ures from those whose wish is father to the thought; but the American people let them pass unheeded. Their strong arm bore him triumphantly through the war and into the Whits 'douse, and they still uphold and sus- tain him; and they never failed and never will." In September, 1871, Mr. Greeley wrote, and Bent to die Republican State Convention tor adoption, these resolutions: "II. In this alarming crisis in city and State affairs, the Republican party refers all good citizens to its record, as their warrant for giving it their fullest crmfidencA and Support in this campaign, now formally opening, of the honest mene against the thieves; "It abolished slavery. "It led in the suppression of the rebellion. "It preserved and enlarged the Union. "It promptly reduced the enormous forces thus required for a peace footing. "It has reduced the debt over two hundred and fifty milliwjw *>f dollars /in the last three years. "It has simultaneously reduced public tax- ation over two hundred and fiity millions of dollars per annum. "It has preserved peace on the border. "It has won a friendly adjustment of the threatening troubles with Great Britain. "III. For its conspicuous share, in this be- neficent record wa indorse the National Repub- lican Ad a< in ist ration." These resolutions were written only a little while ago, and all the slanders to this day invented against the President had long been current then. "GIFT-TAKING." But let us go back a moment to Grant before he seriously thought of being President, and when he was only the idol of the nation. Returning from the field, covered with glory, but poor in money, the affluent, whose for- tunes he had saved, met him with munificent offerings. In this they followed the customs of an ancient anil modem times. T he austere re puiTiics of antiquity, enriched and ennobled their heroes returning from victory. England, with an unwritten con- stitution and an omnipotent Parliament, which a lawyer once said "could do anything but make a man a woman," has enriched her generals both by acts of Parliament and by voluntary subscriptions. In the 'United States the Constitution does not permit Congress to act in such in itters; here they rest wholly m the voluntary action of individuals, and that public presentations to heroes involved turpitude in givers or re- cipients has been first found out by the spu- rious reformers and libelers now clamoring for notice. Wellington received from his Government and his neighbors more than §3,000,000. British citizens of Calcutta ra-de him pres- ents, the officers of the army gave him $10,000, the House of, Commons voted him $1,000,01)0, and a mansion and estate were purchased for him by subscription at, a eost of $1,300,000. Besides this, he was three times ennobled, twice by England and once by Spain. Oliver Cromwell, for deeds done in civil war, received $32,500 a year in gifts. M irl- borough was given a stately palace and a splendid fortune. Nelson and his family were ennobled, and received $75,000. Jew- els and money were given to Fairfax for ser- vices in civd war. The generals and admirals of England and France have generally been recipients of great pecuniary benefits. In England and elsewhere the customs of presents to pubiio men has gono beyond the army and the na.Yj. Richard Cobden, a civilian, in token of po- litical service only, was given by subscrip- tiou $350,000. John Bright lias j ust received costly g Its. America, younger and poorer, with few wars to breed heroes, has been less lavish than older nations; but Americans have not been stingy. General McClellau, perhaps, begins the list of largely-rewarded Generals. His active service ended before the war was over, and his Democratic admirers, prior to nomi- nating him lor the Presidency,, presented him a costly house and a large purse, amounting in all to a hundred thousand dollars. To Sherman, Sheridan, Farragut, atid Grant, large sums were given. To Stanton's fauVily, and to Rawlins', were given more than a hundred thousand each. Were these things dishonorable? Was it wrong for Gen- eral Graot to accept such gifts? The charge is an insult to the nition who witnessed and applauded the proceeding; it is an imputation anon those who gave, as much as upon him who received. It can not have been dishon- orable or improper for him to accept a gift, without it being dishonorable and improper to offer it. How must the cant and snivel we hear seem to the people of Germany just now? Bismarck, though Chancellor and Prime Minister, has jtrst received as a gift, in to- ken of his services in the recent war,. a mag- nificent landed estate, worth more than was given to all our g»-nera!s; and Bismarck, in like, token, has been made a prince. General Von Moltte. for his services in the German- Franco war, has been given $300,000; and Germany has set apart, from the French in- demnity fund, four million dollars, to lie dis- tributed in gift-; to her heroes. Do you be- lieve any German, or any man with a Ger- man h<*art in his bosom, will ever 03 mean enough to throw these gifts in the face of those who earned and accepted them? Yet git t-t. ikrng, forsooth, is paraded by political Pharisees. The charge that Grant accepted any gift after he became President, or after he was nominated, is wholly false. He has accented nothing of value since his first nom- ination — not even a carriage and horses — although Lincoln, and Buchanan, and Pierce, wild Taylor, and other Presidents, did accept carriages and horses after their election. "GIFT-BEARING GREEKS." But it is said that men who subscribed to gifts have been appointed to office, and the insinuation is lhat they were appointed be- cause they subscribed to gifts. The fact that hundreds who gave have never been appointed to anything would of itself seem to disprove the charge, that official patronage has been used to rep ty gilts. Only three — or at most, four — contributors to the funds raised for General Grant have ever been offered appointments, and ii would seem far-fetched to explain the selection of three lor a reason applying to more than three hundred who were never selected at all. Bat the facts answer the charge. Mil A T BTfcWAKT AND Mil. liOlilE. A. T, Stewart bUOoOfibed to toe Grant fund, so did every leading man in the city of New York who then supported the war and the Republican partv. No man on Manhat- tan Island who would have been thought of for the Cabinet refused to subscribe. A man of wealth and prominence belonging to .thu Union party at that time, who had^refused to shui\' in an offering to a Union general, would have been as mean and as marked as a member of a church who should refuse to pay his part to the minister. The call was general, and for the wealthy who had sup- ported the war to give was a matter of course. When General Graut became President, had he named for his Cabinet E. D. Morgan, George Opdvke, Jackson S. Schultz, William E. Dodge. Henry Clews, or any other lead- ing merchant or banker who supported him, it would have turned out that he too was a "gift- bearing Greiik." The same thing is true of Mr. BorD, of Philadelphia, the late Secretary of the Navy. These Cabinet Ministers were selected tor two reasons: First, their supposed fitness; and second, because they were not "politi- cians." Mr. Stewart's success and master- ship of the details of a varied and immenss business convinced th« President that he might render great service as Secretary of th« Tr< as my. Mr. Borie, a retired merchant aud importer and shipper and shipowner, was believad to have large experience and knowledge appli- cable to the Navy Department. The facts by themselves might not have caused these two selections, because other men might have been found qualified, and at the same time known iu political affairs. THE NEW YORK " TRIBUNE" AT THE BOTTOM OP IT. The New York Tribune, and the news- papers which followed it, or chimed in with it, had more to do than all else with briugiae about the nomination of Mr. Stewart ana Mr. Borie, and of others uukuown in public affairs. T»e Tribune had vociferated against " poli- ticians," it had conjured the President to avoid "politicians," and had proclaimed again and again that the country had a right to expect of General Grant that " politicians" would uot be put in high places, but that new men would be brought iu. Listening to this hollow bluster, echoed in many public journals, the President was misled as to the popular judgment. His own wisdom taught him that if yoa want a lawyer you should select a man who has proved himself a lawyer; that if you want a doctor, you had better take one who has beeu tried, and so if you want an agent to manage public affairs, you bad bet- ter take a man experienced in such affairs. But Mr. Greeley insisted that a Cabinet' should he chosen upon the principleon which he is trying to be President, viz: passing oyer all the men whom you know to be tit, and Hiking a man at a venture with no reason to believe hfea tit. Indeed, Mr. Greeley once teldi he President that. in his opinion, offices should never be giv i\ Co Mm e .vli y e i • d - take care of themselves; Out should I I for s those who couldn't make a living in any other way. Much has been said about Presi- dent Grant's choice of his Cabinet, but those who know his inside history know that the very men who are now hounding the Presi- dent warmly approved of the persons named, especially of Mr. Stewart. THE PRESIDENT'S RICHES. The "Liberal" idea of deceucy and manly war, forces me to speak of another thing, which will grate upon our ears. The politi- cal scavengers pretend that the President has grown rich, as President, by illicit gain, and they parade his property by millions. We have fallen on sorry times, when the Chief Magistrate of the country, with a fame so great and pure, must givn an account of his private property in answer to electioneer- igg falsehoods. The President would dis- dain to do it; 1 have no authority to do it; I do not assume to do it on his behalf; but on behalf of the party and the cause he repre- sents I venture to state the facts. At Galena, where be "tanned hides," he owned a house, and during the war .he in- vested the savings from his pay in some lots in Chicago, and in some shares of street railway stock. Mrs. Grant inherited her share of her father's farm in Missouri, and they bought out the other heirs with a portion of the I hundred thousand dollars presented by citi- zens of New York. This one hundred thou- sand dollars also paid for a house in Wash- ington, which was subsequently sold to Gen- eral Sherman, and a cottage and grrmiids were bought at Long Branch, after the Wash- ington house was sold. The people of Phila- delphia presented a house, which rents ftw about two thousand dollars a year. This completes the property of the President, with one exception. Some years ago he purchased ten thousand dollars, in nominal value, of the stock of the Seneca Stoue Company; to this day it has paid nothing, partly because the President has interfered to prevent Seneoa stone being adoplrd as building material for the Govern- ment. One u is, that iuul no aspersion been cast upon him, he would personally gta !ly be mustered out. M.n-e than a year ago, expressing to me privately his earnest wish to leave, public toil, he said that at West Point he counted the days, the hours, and even fciie minutes to elapse, before ho should be graduated, and that, with a like eagerness, he counted the time that would complete Ids Presidential service; and often, heroic vinhctive injustice had roused him to resistance, those who kuew him best, and among tnem the ablest and purest memln-rs of the beuate, continu- ally expressed sohoitude lest he should refuse to run a<#un, and leave, the par cy distracted by rivalries and with nocaudidase so strong. But when the shower of mud and the beat- ing of gongs and the fout-tnouthed uproar burst upon him, all felt that we wexe safe. Grant never scares well at all, and is never driven when courage can maive a stand; and the tsvo debts the Republican party owes to the deserters who hive attempted to betray it are, first, that th.-y have cleansed and re- formed the party by leaving it; and, second, that they have insured it a candidate who, in the words of Horace Greeley, "never has been defeated, and never will be." ***** Then came the next effort to throw dust in the people's eyes. The New York Tribune, and otner journals, which for a year had been doing rhe worse than menial offices of the Democratic party, raised a yt;ll thai; "the office-holders were going to renominate Grant." This bald tal ; had its run until the ■Philadelphia Convention met. It then turned out that, among seven hundred and tiny del- egates, iht-ro were not thirty office-holders, a thing unexampled in American nobcies. £$o national convention of tUe patty in powei ever met before, in which men holding official station were not largely present. PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION — HENRY "WIL- SON. The roll-call in the National Convention was answered by a chorus of States, and with a unanimity and a spirit which made the convention the most remarkable ever held, and the indorsement the most flattering and pronounced ever given to a candidate. The announced wish of Mr. Colfax to withdraw from public life, left the convention without unity of sentiment as to the second place on th.^TWret; and the choice fell upon the man whom M<. Wade has well described "as the incarnation of American citizenship." Born a child of poverty and toil, the Natiek Cobbler during a long life of purity and pub- lic service, had won a place in the respect and good will of his countrynsen, which made it fit that the second office in the Republic should be held by Henry Wilson. Without the con- trast between his colleague and himself, the prize might not ha*re. fallen to him. But the inexcusable conduct of Mr. Sumner led the Convention to prefer Mr. Wilson for Vice President, for his own great merit, and also because his nomination would record a na- tional judgment against the pretension that the party belongs to any man, or is subject to the whim or dictation of any knot of men, however petted in the past. Mr. Wilson has been a Senator many years, a Senator during General Grant's wholn military and civil ser- vice. He has at all times upheld Republican measures, and therefore is answerable, as he wishes to be, for the acts of the party and the policy of the Administration. The objections to either candidate apply to both, and can be argued together. GEORGE WASHINGTON AND OTHERS ALSO SLANDERED. Never before did a political party plant itself upon personalities and scandal, and' upon nothing else. George Washington was visited with loathsome abuse by his political opponents. The convention which nominated Polk hung out from the balcony a '*ill- length daub of Benry Clay, bespattered with blood, hold- ing a pistol in one hand and a pack of cards in the other. These were revolting, indeed, but there is one marked difference between the scandals hurled at Washington. Jackson, Clay. Lin- coln, and others, and those now flung at Grant. ofThe miotic measures, the political policy, these other Presidents, was in each case opposed and criticised, and the sting of per- sonal calumny was used as a spur to the main contest." Now p rsonal abuse is the Alpha and 0;isegu on one side. John Quincy Adams was besmeared with rancorous asper- sion on account of his appointments to office, as his t ither had been for appointing reJatives to office, bat issue at the same time was always maoV upon grave political ques- tions. What political policy of Grant or his Ad- ministration does the opposition assail? What part of the present policy do they pro- pose to reverse or alter? What part dare tbfiy avow or admit they mean to change? Lay your finger on it if you can. Hard words you can find; vague, cloudy, sweeping denunciations; but take u;», one by one, the important positions and measures of the Administration, and except the San Do- mingo treaty, if that be an exception, where is the specific thing upon which issue is made? Let me state the case in another form. Suppose all the slurs and flings and vile gos- sip against Grant are true — suppose you ad- mit the whole of them — wbat do they signify? Suppose he has appointed a dozen relatives to office; suppose he has failed to appreciate the claims of certain politicians; suppose presents had been given him after he was President; suppose the idea of making A. T. Stewart Secretary of the Treasury was as foolish as every reformer says it was bow; suppose that there was no express law au- thorizing two young military friends to write in his office and j*arry his messages. Put it all together, and*vvhat pf it? If you want a mau to pilot a ship, or lead an army, or try a cause, or build a house, or set a broken arm, or run a locomotive, what do you care, so long as he does his work well, whether he is too fond of bis relatives, or doesn't like certain politicians, or his sub- jected himself to envious sneers by having presents given to him? All these things are aside from the purpose. "They are titling, mint, anise, and cnmuiia." His he made a good President? That is the question. BAN DOMINGO. Let us examine the evidence, and, first of all, let us take up the charges ant evidence against him. The San Domingo Treaty, un- like going to Long Brauch, or smokiug a cigar, or riding in a palace car, was a matter of public busiuess, and is, therefore, a topis not despicable or unworthy. His guilt and his innocence in this respect can ad be brief- ly stated. The Monroe doctrine is one of the tradi- tions of the country, and of both political parties. The Monroe, doctrine means oppo- sition to acquisitions on this continent by European powers. When President Grant came in no such question was pending, but such ^question soon arosa. An agent from tiie Dominican republic presented himself to the President, saying that the people, of Do- minica, few in< numbers, but rich in one of the most fertile isles of any sea, Ij ing close to our shores, waited to come under the American flag; and that failing to do so they would look to a European alliauce. r\*e President made no reply, and afterward a second envoy appeared, repeating these statements, with glowing accounts of the fertility and resources, of the island of San Domingo. General McCIellan, Admiral Porter, Com- mlsioner Hogan, and Others had previously examined aud feporled upon the [siand, and 8 hart strongly stated its advanlages as a coal- ing itation, a naval station, a military key to the Gulf of Mexico, and as an area prolific in coffee, sugar-cane, rice, dye-stuff, ma- hogany, and other valuable woods, and in other products of the tropics, besides iron, copper, gold, and salt. With this information before him the Presi- dent could not turn a deaf ear and a closed eye to so grave a matter. He caused two or three discreet persons to go, Unexpected and unobserved, to San Domingo, learn all they could, and make report. This being done, the President was convinced that the matter should be entertained, but iu the form of a treaty, and submitted to the judgment of the Senate and the country. THE PRESIDENT CALLS ON MR. SUMNER— A QUESTION OP VERACITY.' A treaty was proposed and reduced to Writing, and the President, with none of the "pretension" which Mr. Sumner imagines, paid Mr. Sumner the deference of going to his house, in place of sending for him to confer with him as chairman of the Commit- tee of Foreign Relations, and to ascertain whether he favored the treaty, and would support it: The interview took place in t he presence of two witnesses General Babcock and Colonel John W. Forney. These two witnesses, in addition to the President, affirm Mr. Sumner distinctly de- clared himself in favor of the treaty, and stated that he should support it. Colonel Forney testifies as' follows: "I was present at Mr. Sumner's residence wk n President Grant called and explained tnt. Dominican treaty to the Senator, and al- though I can not recall the exact words of the latter, / understood him to say that he won d most cht of those who opposed and to those who favored the treaty, bat Mr. Sumner resisted the inquiry inch by inch, and after a majority of Che foreign Relations Committee had joined him in denouncing it, he insisted that it should be refi rred to that committee. The same familiar parliamentary maxim about putting a " child to nurse with those who care not for it," upon which he rung tbe changes so often in the French Arms af- fair, was quoted to him in vain. When the sale of arms was to be inquired into, Mr. Sumner slandered the Senate for appointing a committee all in favor of investigating, be- cause the committee was not biased in favor of convicting somebody, but the San Domingo inquiry he insisted should go to a committee, of which a majority had declared in advance against any inquiry at all. At the end of a protracted and stubborn contest, Congress authorized a commission to be sent; not, however, till Mr. Snmner had denounced the President for not taking it upon himself, of his own authority, to send a commission without asking permission of Congress. Now we hear from Mr. Sumner, not that the President shrinks from his pre- rogatives, but that ho arrogantly oversteps them. Mr. Wade, Dr. Howe, of Boston, and Pres- ident Andrew D. White were selected as commissioners. They visited San Domingo, and made a report which few of the Ameri- can people have read, but which will be read when the din and passion of to-day are for- gotten. The report explodes utterly every calumnious pretense, and presents a state- ment which leaves no room to doubt the duty of the President to consider as he did the acquisition of San Domingo, and to urge it upon tho attention of tha Senate and the country. HOW THE PRESIDENT SHAMED EI8 ACCUSERS. In transmitting this report to Congress the President did his last act Id the matter. With tha report he sent a message, to which a Min- ister from one of the first Powers of the earth, told me he called the attention of his Government, as one of the most remarkable State papers of which he had knowledge. In that message stand these words: "The mere rejection by tne Senate of a treaty negotiated by the President only indi- cates a difference of opinion between two co- ordinate departments of the Government without touching the character or wounding the pride of either. But when such rejection takes place simultaneously with charges, openly made, of corruption on the part of tho President, or those employed by him, the case is different. In such case the honor of the nation demands investigation. This has been accomplished by the report of the Com- missioners herewith transmitted, and which fully vindicates the purity of the motives and action of those whs represented the United States in the negotiation. And now my task is finished, and with it ends all personal so- licitude upon the subject. "My duty being done, yours begins; and I gladly hand over the whoie matter to the judgment of the American people, and of their Representatives in Congress assembled. The facta will now be spread before the country, and a decision rendered by that tribunal whose cenvictions so seldom err, and against whose will 1 have no policy to •nforce. My opinions remain unchanged; indeed, It is confirmed by the report, thaC the interests of our country and San Domingo aliko invite the annexation of that Republic. In view of the differences of opinion upon this subject, I suggest that uo actiou bo taken at the present session beyond the printing and general dissemination of the report. Before the next session of Congress the people will have considered the subject, and formed an intelligent opinion concern- ing it, to which opinion, deliberately made up, it will be the duty of every department of the Government to give heed, and no one will more cheerfully conform to it than my- self." This was the utterance last year of the man whom we are told is swollen with "pre- tension" and "ungovernable personality." Among the glarlugabsurdities heaped upon the San Domingo matter is the allegation that the war was made upon the Republic of Ilayti. The foundation for this is that a vessel or two cruised in that part of tha ocean during the negotiations. Not a gnu was tired, nor a pocket pistol, nor a percus- sion cap, and the only warlike demonstration ever heard of was that a sea captaiu seut, up a sky rocket from the deck of his vi The purpose of this sky rocket, or where the stick came down, has never been ascertained. This, i-i brief, is the story of the San Do- mingo affair. I do not refer to it to cham- pion the treaty or argue its merits; that is another matter. My purpose is to shu .. that, the part acted by the President was the part of an honest, modest man, walking in the path of the Constitution and of his pre • decessors. "REMOVAL" OF MR. SUMNER. It may not be amiss here to allude to the effort to rouse indignation over the so-called "removal" of Mr. Sumner trorn the Commit- tee of Foreign Relations. Mr. Sumner was never "removed" at all. All Senate commit- tees die at the end of each session. All Senate committees are created anew at the beginning of each session. Mr. kumuer had been se- lected repeatedly for the chairmanship of the committee referred to, and ttie question was always, looking over thy whole Senate, who would be the moat useful, and, all thingscon- sidered, the be=,t man for the place. At the time in question, and for reasons easily stated, the Senate thought it would not be wise to se- lect Mr. Sumuer again for that committee, and be was selected for another. This was ecause Mr. Sumner opposed San Domingo, nor because he changed sides upon that question, nor because the Presideutor the Secretary of State wan ted, or did not want, Mr. Sumner on this committee or on that. 1 b sons were wholly different, they were reasous of the Senate alone, and reason.-* which have governed the formation of parliamentary committees everywhere since were known. The Committee on Foreigu Affairs, in eitheir House of Congress, not only, like other committees, to rep the majority of the body, but, for pi reasons, it must be composed of men who 10 can and will consult freely with the Presi- dent, the Secretary of State, and their assist- ants This is especially true of the chair- man, he being the oigan of the committee. Mr. Sumner not. only wielded his position as chairman in opposition to the majority of the Senate upon several important questions, and boasted in the Senate that the commit- tee could not be changed, but his conduct and language in public and in private had rendered it impossible for him to hold com- munication with those whom it was indis- pensable to confer with freely, and impossi- ble for them to confer with him. Men can uot do business conveniently with those whom they denounce and insult con- tinually, nor with those toward whom they assume offensive superiority, and the time came, with Mr. Sumner as chairman, when the Senate was left in ignorance, and busi- ness delayed for weeks, for lack of informa- tion from the State Department, merely be- cause Mr. Sumner did not hold communica- tion with it. The simple, indeed, the only cure for all this, was to select another chair- man. This was done, and nothing more; and it turned out that treaties, six or seven in number, having long lain buried in the committee, after the change of chairman, were at once brought up and ratided. I leave this matter after asking one ques- tion. Is there one man on this continent except Mr. Sumner who could with propriety have clung to a position after his associates who conferred it were unwilling he should retain it? Is there one other man who would have supposed that his being on this commit- tee or on that would "jar the harmony of the universe?" "NEPOTISM." Let me go on with the charges against the President. Few of them figure more largely than appointing relatives to offlee. Mr. Sumner has staggered the nation by the weight of the dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other big books which he has dumped upon us to show what "nepotism" is. From the morning of time common sense has distinguished between creating a useless and lucrative sinecure and bestowing it on a relative, and selecting a relative to do a ser- vice required to be done. When Hannibal and Frederick the Great and Napoleon and Emperor William put a brother or a son at the head of an army, with rank and titles, or even placed him on a throne, the world never thought it was like a sinecure for a Papal nephew. On the contrary, in public and in private business, nothing has seemed more natural than for those intrusted with affairs to em- ploy and associate with themselves persons in whom they most confided, whether rela- tives or not. In all such cases if the person be lit little harm can be done; but if he is un- fit a great wrong Is doue, whether he be a relative or not. If the appointment of rela- tives be a crime, a great many men, inclu- ding the busiest and most blatant "Liber- als," must be great criminals. Andrew Johnson, his Cabinet and chief officers, must have been huge offenders, for reasons which no one thought of at the time, though every one knew of them. President Johnson's son was his chief pri- vate secretary. Governor Seward's son»was Assistant Secretary of State. Edwin M. Stanton's son was a clerk in the War Depart- ment. Gideon Welles' son was Chief Clerk of the Navy Department; and when Gideon Welles employed a relative at a great remuner- ation to buy ships the scandal was not that he paid just sums to a relative, but that he paid such sums at all. Keverdy Johnson, Minis- ter to England, made his son assistant secre- tary of legation. John A. Dix, Minister to France, did the same thing with his son. All this was under Andrew Johnson, but when a drag-net of criticism and impeachment was cast over him, these things were uot caught up. " LIBERAL" RELATIVES. The rueful "Reformers" themselves will not bear examination on this point. Mr. Schurz pressed his brother-in-law on tb8 President, and obtained for hi in a lucrative office, and when Mr. Trumbull caused his re- moval upon statements impeaching his fit- ness, Mr. Schurz raged against the Presi- dent for removing his brother-in-law. Mr. Trumbull seems to have procured appoint- ments for his brother-in-law, his sons, and his nephews, and he broke, it is said, with the President because he refused to appoint Mr. Trumbull's son to an office. That shrill and frisky "Reformer," Mr. Tipton, although not colossal himself, would need a hay scales to be weighed along with all his relatives he has helped to get office. Three brothers-in- law, a nephew, and a son, in office, with othes things for other relatives, did not satisfy his "liberal" inclinations, but he vigorously plied the President and Secretary of State to give a valuable consulship to another son, and after they declined he frequently avowed, once pipingly to the President himself, that the refusal was the cause of his opposition. Mr. Fenton saw no objection to giving to his adopted son his influence for an office, nor to obtaining it from Tammany Hall, and keep- ing it, through all the exposures of Tweed and the rest, although no service was attached to it equivalent to the pay. Mr. Sumner, with a brother-in-law in office under Andrew Johnson, was inflamed by his removal, and did not hesitate to make known his displeasure. Even Mr. Greeley did not scruple to coun- tenance his brother-in-law in obtaining the most lucrative collectorship of internal reve- nue in the United States. Nor has he hesi- tated to urge appointments, clearly unfit, on the ground of the intimate terms between himself and those he urged. RELATIVES OF TTJE PRESIDENT. But if General Grant has done wrong, the crime of others can not help him.' Let us look into his case. You might suppose from the noise that he had used a relative as a peg for every ho,le in the country, and that he had put round pegs in squaie holes and square pegs in round holes everywhere. It 11 has be«n said that b e has appointed fifty rela- tives, forty relative*, thirty relatives, and Mr Sutnup'r estimates thirteen relatives, to office. None of these statements are true. Since President Grant came in but nine per- sons m nil connected in the remotest degree with him or with his wife, have held political office under the United States. 1 haw a list of them, an,! do notspeak with- out information, Nine is the total number in political office. This does not include a son of thti President sent as a pupil to West Point, long before his father became Presi- dent; nor does It include his brother-in-law Dout, who has long held a commission in the army by the same tenure uuder which Sber- maa and Sheridan, and every other officer of be ai mj hold- his place, and which the Pres- ident has no more power to give or take away khan the man in the moon. Of the nine relatives or connections in of- fice two wi-ire appointed by Andrew John- son, vu: the, President's father, postmaster at Covington, Ky., and his brother-in-law, the Rev Mr Cramer, consul at Leipsic. Mr. Cramer was transferred from Leipsic toDen- mark b\ President Grant, on the recommen- dation oi Bishop Simpson, Bishop J ayne, and many other well-known persons, friends of Mr Cramer. Being the brother-in-iaw of the President, he of course became a mark for "liberal" abuse, and was charged with drink- ing beer and being refused membership of a social club. But now comes the Cincinnati Methodist" Conference, about as respectable a body as has met iu Cincinnati lately, and certifies, after full investigation, the utter falsity of the charges. Tneh report is fortified by letters from Copenhagen, and by statements of the official journal and oth^p newspapers there, indignantly repelling the aspersions cast at Mi Cramer, and pronouncing him a blame- less officer and man. Ded acting Jesse R. G-rant and M. J. Cra- mer, Appointed bv Johnson, seven instances of relatives in political office remain, and of those one two were in truth and in fact ap- d bv the President, as I will show you. Orlando 11 Moss, a cousin of the President, holds a clerkship under the Third Auditor of the Treasury. He was a soldier in the war, and General Logan, as he stated in the Sen- ate, procured his appointment at the Treas- ury Department without the knowledge of the President, who, Iu fact, never heard of it until he real it in a newspaper. This leaves six, and of these four hold local offices, viz: George W. Dent, appraiser at San Fran- Cisco; .lames F. Casey, collector at New Or- leans; une a brother, and the other a brother- In law of \lrs. (riant. Peter Casey, postmas- ter at Vieksburg, Miss., a brother of a broth- er-in-law of Mrs Grant; and George B. John- son, assessor of the third district of Ohio, who married a third cousin of the President. These meii hold local offices and were selected and (nit forward, as has been universal in both political parties of fifty years, by the local Representatives. When Hie member of Congress from a dis- trict certifies the character of an applicant lor a post office, or any other office local in t\h district, and recommends his selection, tiys practice of the Government has al ways been to rely and act, upon such representations, holding the member of Congress responsible to the Government and to ins constituents, if he obtains unfit appointments. It was in this way that the four persons just, named were selected, the President hav- ing no part in the matter, if he believed the applicants fit and worthy, except to consult the wishes of the people, made known through their representatives, or else to overrule their wishes, upon the ground that it might be bet ter for himself not to run tho risk of having the matter some time or other flung in ins face. • Two appointments remain, and upon these the President did undoubtedly exercise his own choice, and his own Judgment The first is Alexander Sharp, a connection of Mrs. Grant, who was appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia. This officer is virtually a member of the President's h >u on are the head, that I am obliged to decline the part assigned me by the State Commit- tee in the proposed reorganization of th° Republican party of our city. Had a little forbearance and conciliation been evinced 6y the apfxnnting power at Washington, [ thinJc this vuuht have been different Yours, IlORACE GREELEY. The sapping and mining begun in 1870, aH>i secretly continued ever since, has culmi- nated in the bolt no longer covered up, which has recently occurred; its strength was in its secrecy and in its denied existence; its weak- ness Is in its being known of all men. It has been said that the President removed friends of Mr. Fenton; if this were, true, when made an explanation of the betrayal or desertion of the party, it sinks those who re- sort to it to the lowest depth of sordid hypoc- risy. But it is not true. One friend of Mr. Fenton was removed to gratify Mr. Moses II. Grinned, and in no other instance to my knowledge was a friend of Mr. Fenton's dis- placed, except for cause; while to this day the great body of those he recommeuded to office remain in office still. To illustrate this, si nee President Grant came in not six post- masters In the entire State have beenypp- pointed al my Instance; more than two hun- dred have been appointed at Senator Fen- ton 's instance, arid not oue has been disturbed Unless for official delinquency. COLLECTOR MURPHY. Mr. Murphy was appointed Collector of New York, but not to gratify me, or at my solicitation. He has been held up as a scoundrel, yet the records conclusively prove that he increased the collection ot revenue and diminished the percentage of cost. No acl of dishonesty has, to my knowledge, ever been proved against him. I moved and insisted upon the investigation which was lately made of the custom house— the in- quiry was conducted by some of the best and ablest members of the Senate, arid the report acquits Mr. Murphy of every charge impair- ing his integrity. 1 do not allude to the mat- ter, however, to go into Mr. Murphy's mer- its; 1 did not suggest his appointment, and during his collectorship I never asked or n commended an appointment at his hands, not oue. My object is to show you the wick- edness of the charge that the President ap- pointed Mr. Murphy contrary to the judg- ment of the best men in the party, and for Borne unusual or improper reason. Mr. Murphy was an experienced, success- ful business man, at leisure, and vigorous enough to endure the great strain and labor of the place.. If the President was wrong in selecting him, let me, show you who else were wrong. Here are some of those who, in writing. recommended his Domination or confirma- tion. Their signatures are in my possession: Edwin D. Morgan, George Opdyke, Henry Clews, Joha A Griswold, Cbas. J. Folger, Edwards Pierrepont. John C. Churchill, M. C, Orange Ferriss, M. C, Hamilton Ward, M. C, Giles VV Hotchkiss, M C, David S. Bennett, M. C, Win. A. Whitbeck, Edward Haigkt, George Bliss, Jr., Spofford Brothers & Co., John lloey, Isaac Dayton, George D. Morgan, Thomas* P.. Van Buren, John LI. Hall, and fifty-six other prominent business men of New York city; the Republican Gen- eral Committee of Kings county, New York, and residents of Brooklyn, New York, 110 in number; E. W. Leavenworth and others, residents of Syracuse. Besides these many others recommended Mr. Murphy's appoint- ment. You will, I trust, pardon the time given to these facts; if it were right to detain you many others might be stated, showing the injustice and falsehood which have been piled upon the President and upon me in this regard. The whole pretense that the friends of Governor Fenton were ever ostra- cised because they were his friends, is the veriest sham that could be palmed off upon the public; and yet the argument of spoils is used without a blush to extenuate the acts of those who, for two years, have been plot- ting the destruction of the party. MR. SUMNER AND MR. GREELEY HATE "PRE- TENSION." It is as untruthful as ^he pretense that the "President is a quarreler," that he insisted upon a renominaMon or that he is a preten- tious man. The President is charged with "pretension" by Mr. Sumner in a speech written and printed beforehand, in which Mr. Sumner speaks of himself, and praises himself one hundred and fifty-six times, and flatters himself thoroughly and copiously twenty times. But Sumner is nothing to Greeley. Greeley thinks Grant "preten- tious" too, and Greeley, at the Boston Jubi- lee, in explaining his own fitness for the Presidency, modestly spokeof him self twenty times in ten minutes — thin is twice a minute. Had Sumner used the personal pronoun at the same nte, no printing office would have had big i's enough to set up the speech. THE " MILITARY RING." But we may not stop here iu counting the President's crimes; he has, we are told, a "military ring" at the White House, and turns the White House into a "military bar- racks " When he moved into the White House, he heard soldier-, patroling in the hall, and when he asked them what it meant, they said they were President Johnson's body guard, he told them he wanted no guard, and sent them to their quarters. The next day he gave orders removing all troops from Washington, and not a military com- pany has ever been there since. 13 The "military ring" eonslstsiof three young men who write for the President without a farthing of expense to the, Treasury. The President is authorized bylaw to employ anrl p.ay secretaries. The gentlemen who assist him were on hia staff in the war, and are now on the staff of General Sherman; their commissions are their own; the President can not take them away; and now, in time of peace, General Sherman does not require th^ir services. "One of them is detailed to oversee th" public parks, and the other two assist the President, which they do from love Of the man, and without a cent of pay beyond what they would draw if they sat at, General Sherman's headquarters doing nothing. This is the whole of it; exactly like, the case of Colonel Bliss and his father-in-law, President Taylor, or the case of Donaldson and Jack- son, or the case of Andrew Johnson and the three or four army officers who assisted him. It saves several thousand dollars a year, does the public business, and nobody is harmed. "SEASIDE LOITERINGS. " The catalogue of the President's atrocities would be incomplete without oue other thing. During ten or twelve weeks of brat and fever and ague at Washington, h>s family go to a cottage at the seaside, and he goes and comes from there to the Capital. It is eight noun from the White House to the cottage, with two mails a day and a tele- graph every instant. Nothing can occur, however suddenly, demanding his attention without bis being within immediate call; yet this is the occasion of constant hullabaloo. Governor Hoffman leaves his Slate and re- sides at Newport, R. I., for the summer. Mr. James Brooks, though member of Congress, goes to China and Japan, not returning even when Congress meets. General Jackson used to spend weeks at the Rip Raps in Hampton Roads, where no intclliizence could reach him from Washington in days, and then only by special messenger, and whence he could not return for days, if sent for. No telegraph, railroad, daily mail, or even steamboat plied there then. President Adams, separated from Massachusetts by a stag^-eoach ride of many days, used to spend weeks at his home. Washington passed much time at Mount Vernon, and even that nas further removed in communicating with the' Capital then than Long Brauch is now. ***** The public, however, will be satisfied with one tact, viz: that no instance has yet been discoveivd or pretended in which anything, ho .\ ever small, was neglected or left undone because tiie President was absent. This one fact answers a hurricane of abuse. I have discussed, perhaps at inexcusable length, the paltry and personal slanders dragged into the campaign, and yet nothing has been said of the blameless, simple, dady life of the President, nor of his innocence of a quarrelsome disposition. He quarreled with Lee, and every other rebel wlwle rebellion lasted, lie settled tnat I, and has never quarreled sine**, unless it be Quarreling out to ube^ Intolerable dicta- tion, and simply to let alone men who oppose and denounce him. Let us turn from the man to the Magistrate, aud scan his official record and stewardship. WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE-*- FOREIGN AFFAIRS. What has the Administration done in three years? First, it has maintained our rights with every foreign Power, and kept the peace with all the world. Governor Seward said to me last year after he had girdled the earth with his novels: "How remarkable is our success in foreign affairs; but two years ago Russia was our only friend in Christendom! and now America has not an enemy in the world." lie proceeded to say, that this good result came from the temperate and just course of our Government. Mr. Sumner has lately told us that we are in a "muddle wbh everybody." Can any of you tell with whom we are in a "muddle?" Can any of you name a sea, a continent, or an island where onr flag is not respected? Can any of you name a commercial center in which our se- curities are not sought? Can any of you name a Power which denies a right to one American citizen? Spain's release of Dr. llouard, whose American citizenship is very doubtful, leaves no controversy, no contested matter, with any Power on earL.h, save Eng- land. With England preceding Administrations failed to settle several large and dangerous questions. This Administration has com- posed them all in one treaty, applauded by the country and the world as one of the best products of statesmanship and civilization. Recently a difference arose, as to the con- struction of the treaty, and England was un- willing and afraid to submit the question to the tribunal to which it plainly belonged, The British Government took the grouni that they bad agreed to a treaty which did not contain what they intended; that their meaning was not set down in language so plain that they were willing to trust it, to the arbitration at Geneva; and they insisted that we should withdraw part of onr claims. This was a strange position, and involved a humiliating admission; it was saying virtu- ally that their agents had not been aOl * to cope with ours. Indeed, this was said wit!>> out disguise and with taunts in the British Parliament. There is nothing here surely to wound American pride. England's refusal to go to trial, unless we would agree not to pr'-tve or argue ptrtof our case, was met on our side by the st tte-' ment th«lt we insisted upon having the lav* settled for the future in regard to indirect damages so called. Our Government insisted that hereaftet England should never demand any d images from us except such as s!ie admitted to be within the law of nations no-v. Upon this ground the President declined t ■> withdraw any of our chums, spying, however, tliat in- direct losses would iu;r. be pres-sed, provided by agreement between the parties, or by a •i of the C«url ,ve e mid 'v. gu ira-n tax the future against similai it ■-■.'■ £fe« 14 potiations firmed, resulting in a supplemental article <>r clause of the treaty, n\u\ befora this was filially accepted the Tribunal at Geneva did, what we all the while main- tained fts right to do, and made a decision good for the future as well as the present,, and good for us as well as for England, denying the right of one nation to recover certain kinds of damage from another. By this rule we will settle with Erie- land as often as she is a belligerent and we a neutral; and if she is content, we should be. We are to be the neutral hereafter, we shall have no more rebellions, no foreign Power will be impatient to get up a war with us; but England, differently sdtu ated, with her elbows hitting the elbows o," other nations, may not be so fortunate; and when her commerce and her cause stiff, rs from American citizsns, or from cmisera or privateers built in America, we will measure to her the rule of damages she asks foi no""w. Whether England keeps or breaks the twenty, it will remain the greatest event of diplomacy in our history. Had Hamilton Fish rendered no other public service in his life, his ability, devotion, and success in this great matter would inscribe his name high up ou the roll of illustrious names. The only error pre- tended in the management of the Alabama claims has been the maintenance of views of which the noisest advocate always has been Mr. Sumner; but even hr has not succeeded in producing a "muddle" with any foreign Power, not even with the aid of hfcjjriend Schurz, by his romances and vagaries^ touch- ing the sale by American merchants of arms to France. WHAT HAS THE ADMINISTRATION TO DO WITH PAYING THE DERT? From Washington down, every Adminis- tration has been tried by its financial results. But now we hear that the authorities deserve no eredil for paying the debt, that the people have paid it. Of' course, the people have paid it, but who has honestly collected and accounted for the money? Who has reduced the expenses? Who has upheld the public credit? Who has cheapened the Interest? Who ha* wisely applied the money? Who has made the greenback in your pocket, that used to be worth only r- If its face, almost as good as gold? Tne people paid taxes under Andrew Johnson twice as great as they pay now. Why was not twice as much of the debt paid then? Why was only 813,000,000 of the debt paid then with ex- travagant taxation? Under Andrew John- son, the whif-ky ring, the contractors, and other "Liberals," preyed upon the revenue s», that it is calculated one-quarter of the whole was lost. Under the present Adminis- tration, after taxes were lessened $84,(100,000 a year, collections increased $84,000,000. Did the people do that? It' one of your agents made a given amount of mof]"v gu twice as far as an agent before him hud noise, w.uld it be you, or the agent, to beeivd'ied or Warned? Bat look a f&tle further. The expenses everywhere have been reduced, and so re- duced that fehey are less per capita this year than they were under Washington, and less than they were urKh-r any Administration 'since, with only four exceptions, and in case of these four the advantage is only apparent and but a few cents. Compare the year I860, under Buchanan, with last year, 1871. In I860, the population being 31,443,321, the ex- penses were $1 95 for each person; 18J1, population 38,565,983, expenses $1 76 for each person. There is one great diffei^nce between these two years not shown by the figures. In 1860 the whole amount expended for public buildings, improvements of rivers and harbors, and other public works throughout the country, was only $2,913,371 48. In 1871 such public improvements were made and paid for. to the amount of $10,- 733,759 05. If a! Usance be made for these lasting im- provements, greater during the last two years than before, the actual cost per head of governing the country under Grant is as small as it ever was sluce the foundation of the Government. In 1858 the War Department cost $25,679,- 121 63 It) 1859 it cost. $23,154,720 53. In 1860, under Floyd, the accounts of the Department were not closed, but went over in part to Lincoln's administration. In 1871 the War Department cost $22,376,- 981 28. Taking the whole running expenses of the Government, for the executive, legislative, and judicial departments, including the army and navy, and foreign ministers, consuls, and agents, the cost in I860 was $61,402,408 64. The same accouut in 1871 was $68,684,- 613 92. With new States and Territories, with seven millions more population, with new courts, and the internal revenue establishment, the whole excess of cost in 1871 over 1860, was $7,282,205 28. Here is an increase of thirteen per cent, of cost, with an increase of twenty-five percent, of population, saying nothing of increased demands. The ".Reformers" had not looked up these figures when Mr. Trumbull stated, at the Cooper Institute, that the expenses of the Government;, aside from interest and pen- sions, ought to be not more than thirty-three per cent, greater now than before the war; it turns out I fiat the increase is only about one- third as much as he thinks it should be. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. Durinefthe present year large additional reductions are to come; internal revenue dis- tricts are to be reduced to eighty in all; su- pervisors of revenue to ten in aft; deputies and assistants will vanish with the taxes they heretofore collected, and only a skeleton of the revenue establishment will be left. Four millions and a half will lx; saved this year in the. cost of conducting the Internal Ke ' tected. .»mi pro cb«k murders and bn2 'Purposes to Gra men recommended hv «R^ftT ein ° ave been I J"™ wno cri <*l the lo(idP«r%*Th U w-VF^ mouthinc abniYe h*Y R6for mers,V now Jaw - Here are PtIi « l,LSt f°r the Kuklux whereve? fo, in thS' ) W^ents; C 12, 1871, XJ -ho cW w» spokeu Jl,ne 1 ™»t, taSaSS.^SBSSL'i *o»>W o»t tariff ar-faf ,^"ri ^^ u 'f. B r ,H ' n '- ^'v. Si f' ''^ ls tf >« orh* which, if it gain hf ■ U 11 ' 1 lv "'' ! " i< » ) > and K lu auMl > Wl " usher in the pay- 16 meat of the rebel drbt, the payment of rebel ons, i ho payment o1 losses from the rav- ages of the war, and a brood of dire, heresies. This is ho Cbimera. Democrats and "Re- formers" struck hands, at the last session, in admitting rebels tot.hu Court of Claims, to recover Tor their cotton captured in the war; lind every Democrat, with most of Ihe new Converts'ln the Senate, voied to pay from the Treasury rebel claimants, for carrying ihe hi ail in ihe South rn States after they went Into rebellion; ah act which Republicans pre- vented after a weary contest. "Centralism" is a mere goblin. Whenever Congress transcends the Constitution tlie Court will so decide, and the people will apply the corrective. But watch you, and pray to be delivered from that dogma of State Independence which once drenched the land in blood aud covered it with tixes and with mourning. All the "Centralism" we have how is a strong and stable Government, under which the nation prospers, wi h safety to property, labor, liberty, and life. Woe to the day, and woe to the hour, when the. peo- ple change it off, for, they know not what. CANT ABOUT INVESTIGATIONS. With some minds the greater the humbug, the greater the sensation. The country is filled with factional outcry, and one of the Catch-word-; is "investigations." "Reform- ers" in the Senate wasted weeks and months In attempting to mislead the public in this respect. It was brazenly pretended that men like Buckingham, or' Connecticut, and Ham- lin, of Maine, and Freltnghuysen, of New Jersey, and Howe, of Wisconsin, and An- thony, of Rhode Island, and others of the best and purest statesmen of tbe. nation, at- tempted to clonk fraud and stifle inquiry. The. New York Tribune and other un- principled n^wspaue** published pretended speeches which >*<->«- never made, put into the mouths of Administration Senators, as uttend in caucus, by myself among others, declaring that the Administration should not be investigated. Nothing could be more false. No friend of the Administration ever objected to the most searching and sweeping investigation, but always the contrary. The only men who thwarted or delayed investi- gation were our opponents. They did, as 1 will show you. We urged that one committee could not investigate everything, and that to make the work thorough it must be parceled out to different committees. This was met with a gtorm of electioneering flings and insinua- tions, which consumed days. Finally, to bring the matter to an end, we acquiesced in having a single committee, to which all in- vestigations should go. Every man of sense must see that if the object was full and ppc-dv inquiry this was not the way, and so the event proved. Wh.u the committee was raised I moved an investigation of the New York custom house. Mr. Trumbull passionately object- ed, and threw the. resolution over by a i*>iut Of order. A.s soon as a majority could do so i- was taken up and passed. Tiie Hodge res- oluble, iolknved, and other resolutions, and whnt was the result? The committee, thus overloaded, was aole to complete only the custom house inquiry, and this shoved Un- der everything else. * The Hodge matter and other things wait; and when the presidential election is over, and there is nothing to be made by clan-trap and buncombe, we shall be permitted probably to refer them to ap- propriate committees. When the French- arms resolution was offered by Mr. Sumner, the Republican Senators offered to vote the investigation instantly, but Mr. Sumner ob- jected, and asked its postponement. When he, moved it again all other business was at once laid aside, and again the majority offered to vote for the inquiry, But Mr. Sumner insisted upon speech-making, and he and Schurz went at it, attempting to prove in advance all the dismal rigmarole of a talse and foolish preamble. Of course, their speeches could not go un- answered to tbe country, lest silence should seem to give consent; and so days and weeks were wasted when in Ave minutes the pre- tended object could have been accomplished. The pretended object was not the real ob- ject, as everybody knew; the aim was politi- cal effect, and "for this tbe "Reformers" would besmirch the Government, even though the crusade disgraced us, or involved us with foreign powers. The result, as you know, was ruinous to those who began it The French-arms In- vestigation is a fair sample of the rest. We had in all, in the two Houses, fourteen com- mittees set on the Administration. Such a thing was never heard of before. No Ad- ministration was ever so put under a micro- scope, or pried into with malicious eyes. What did it all amount to? Directly and in- directly these investigations probably cost, in time, money, and neglect of legislation, millions of dollars — and who is benefited? Nobody but the Administration they were intending to destroy. KUKLUX DOINGS. The only investigation of value related to the condition of the South. The Commirtee on Southern Outrages made a report ful of frightful lessons. In ten States au organiza- tion exists known as the "Kuklux Klan," or "In viable Empire of tbe South." It is a res- urrection of the remains Of the rebel army. General Forrest, of Fort Pdlo.v, was its chief head, or "Grand Cyclops." It is a secret oath-bound band. Its object is to kill and drive out "Radicals" and " carpet- bag- gers, "and to intimidate the blacks frotn vo- ting against the Democratic party. Speak- ing to those who have, not read the evitfeuce, the existence, the nature, and the deeds of these assassius are so incredible that I dare not ask you to accept, them on my word. Let iu« state, a few things contained in fhe re- port, and proved by much testimony. General Forrest admits his belief that the order is 500,000 strong. In the two Caro- lina^, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, one hundred counties have been k-pt under a reign of terror. One of the obligar tions of luembersuij) is to commit perjuiw as a witness or a juror. Many leading wealthy 17 men are among the actors, and until Con- gress interfered the State authorities w.-re powerless, or unwilling to enforce the laws; barbarous atrocities occurred nightly, but no one was punished or even arrested. Whites aud blacks were murdered aod robbed, their houses burned, and nameless deeds done by disguised bauds. In fourteen counties in North Carolina eighteen murders were done, and three hun- dred and fifteen whippings occurred. In nine counties in South Carolina forty mur- ders and over two thousand other outrages. In twenty-nine counties of Georgia seventy- two murders and one hundred and twenty- six whippings. In twenty-six counties of Alabama two hundred aud fifteen murders and one hundred and sixteen oth'er outrages. In twenty counties of Mississippi twenty- three murders and seventy-six other out- rages, and in a single county of Florida one hundred and fifty-three murders. In these ninety-nine counties 426 murderswere done, aud 2,909 other acts of violence. The object in all this, as extorted from many witnesses, was "to put down Radical rule and negro suffrage. " Thus scourged, the people of the South piteously appealed to Congress for protection. A committee was sent to the Southern States to learn the facts, and a law was passed authorizing tbeUaifced States courts to act in the matter, flie same law authorized the suspension, for a limited space, of th« habeas corpus, in case it should be necessary. Under this act of Congress, at the January term of court in South Carolina, 001 men were indicted by the grand jury for these crimes of violence. la the nurtti*m district, of Mississippi 490 were indicted, and in the southern district of Mississippi 152. In North Carolina 981 men were indicted. Iu South Carolina five of these culprits were immediately tried and convicted, and fifty-three of them pleaded guilty. At the next term others were tried, and many more pleaded gudty. In the other Scales the courts are at work metiug out justice. These are the offenders in whose behalf Waue Hampton and others raised money and em- ployed counsel. Keverdy Jtihnson and Henry Staubery were the' counsel, aud 1 read a p.issage from Mr. Johnson's argument to the jury: "But Mr. Attorney General has remarked, and would hava you suppose, that my friend and myself are here to defend, to justify, or to palliate the ouira_tes that may have been perpetrated in your S:ate by this association of Kuklux. He makes a great mis-tike as to both <>f us. I have listened with unmixed hor- ror to some of the testimony which has b en brought before you. "" The- outrages proved are shocking to humanity; they admit of neither Recuse or justification,; they violate evei'y obliga- tion which law and nature vnvpuse unon man; they snow that the parties engaged were brut », insensible to the obligation of humanity and religion." Toe. action of Congress and the. President has put an end to much of this bloody busi- ness; but stopping murder is called "cen- tralism," and we are being stoned for that. SOUTHERN STATE GOVERNMENTS — AM- NESTY. The South has been for years a fertile field for electioneering sensation. Tile State gov- ernments iu some of he Southern States have been weak and bad, and the "Liberal-" want to try us for that. What have we to do with it? Why, they say we imposed political dis- abilities on the rebels. Who imposed politi- cal disabilities on rebels? We are told the people pay the debt, but, we never hear that the people imposed the disabilities yet they did. The fourteenth amendmeutof the. C in- stitution, ratified by the Legislatures of three- quarters of the States, is the disability under which rebels have been. That amendment does not touch the right to vote, but leaves every rebel a voter. It touches only the right to huld office. It provides that the men who took an oath to support the Constitution aud then fought against it, thus adding per- jury to tieason, shall not hold office; and it further provides that Congress, by a two- thirds vote, may relieve them. It is foolish to pretend, all being allowed to v>te, that the majority could not rule; it is absurd to pre- tend that the few rebels, who were perjured as w**U as traitors, were the only fit men to elect State officers and legislators. It follows that thu fourteenth amendment is not the cause of buxl men being elected to office in the Southern States. The truth is, as was idmndanUy proved before the Kuklux Gom- ifuttea, that capable, educated men, eligible to office, refused to accept it, and refolded to vote, aud pursuaded the reb Is generally not to vote, all for the purpose of frustrating re- construction in the South, and making it odious. Amnesty or want of amnesty had nothing to do with labs in Southern Legislatures any more than in our own. No man has'e/er asked to be relieved who has not been re- lieved promptly. Indeed, liistory has no in- stance of such forbearance and mercy as has been granted to the ring-leaders of rebellion. Not oue was ever visited with the least penalty, oxcept being barred from office, for committing perjury as well as treason, and bills lor ivliet began at once, and ah who asked soon received forgiveness. Whether a geuttral act, naming no one, but. covering rebels in a body, was a compliance with ;he fourteenth amendment, may well be doubted. Be this as it may, the President recommended, and Congress on the 2lat of last May adopted, such an act. It would have passed weeks earlier, but that "Liberal-," who pretended to be for a " civil rights bill " by itself, voied avowedly to make it as obnoxious as possible, and then, when it became part of the am- nesty bill, some of them voted against it and others dodged; and this when two votes would have carried it. Ami now, when not more than one or two hundred men in the whole South are left ineligible to office, and these men who still defy and spurn the Constitu- tion, we are gravely told that " amnesty " is a great issue before the American people. Amnesty, as an issue, is as dead as the politicians who prate about it. Lt is about aa vital as Air. Sumuer's published reason loj? 18 supporting Mr. Greeley, namely, that Gree- ley was bora the same year that he was him- self. "Peace, good will toward men," have been for three years national watchwords. Even the old Indian scares ha ,r e failed to bring on Indian wars, which were always contrac- tor*' wars. For the first time in our history an Indian peace policy has triumphed, mas- sacres have been prevented, the whites and the Indians alike have been spared, and mil- lions saved to the nation. WHY CHANGE?— WHO ASKS IT? Such is the Administration, and such the stable, prosperity and the wholesome condi- tion of things, at. home and abroad, which we are asked to trade off. for we know not what. To suppose it will be done would be to brand free government as a failure, and to insult the sense of the American people. What is the change offered us? Dues any- body know? When did the necessity for any change arise? Certainly not when ii September, 1870, Mr. Greeley called the Reform movement "a con- spiracy to destroy the Republican party;" not in September, 1871, when Mr. Grcvley drew resolutions fully indorsing the present Ad- ministration; not on the Sfc'n of January, 1871, when in a speech Mr. Greeley said: "I wu ture to suggest that General Grant will be for better qualified for that momentous trust in 1872 than he was in 1W>8;" not when in Feiv- ruaryv 1871, Mr. Greeley said that a defeat of the Republican party in trie nation would be a "disgrace and humiliation," not only a year ago when Mr. Greeley said: "When a Republican Convention, fairly chosen after five consultation and the frank interchange ot opinion, shall have nominated Republican candidates for President and Vice President, we shall expect to urge all Repub- licans to give them a hearty, effective sup- port, whether they be or be not of those whose original preference has been gratified." Not on the 25th of April, 1871, when Mr. Greeley placed his hostility to President Grant squarely and solely on the ground of certaiu appointments in the city of New York. Who were the discoverers of the need of a change? Who called the "Cincinnati Con- vention?" Did the business men of the country call it? Did the public-spirited, the unselfish, and the patriotic call it? Every one knows that it was the work of the politi- cal "outs." A few respectable men were drawn In, but the great body of the movers were, as Greeley used to say of the Demo- crats, "the very scum" of politics. Nearly every man whose name appeared was either a disappointed office-seeker, a man with a grievance, or a man with a bad character. There is an effrontery bordering on the sub- lime iu professional corruptions, the worst and most notorious, starting up to berate honest people. From such effrontery came a con- vention, which from beginning to eud, was managed to cheat and defraud the respecta- ble men who were drawn into it and the pub- lic generally. That the nomination was bar- tered iiad bellowed tnrough we are assured by the best who were present; and now the Democratic party has died by its own hand, ami gone for eternal punishment to Horace Greeley. MR. GREELEY AND HIS "CLAIMS." An examination of the fitness of Mr. Gree- ley, and his claims to public confidence, is the duty of every citizen. That he has shown great talent as an editor and writer, all ad- mit, but nearly all else claimed for him now, I deny. The very talents he has shown unfit him for the Presidency. It is said that a great debt is due and un- paid by the Republican party to Mr. Greeley. The account stands very differently, as most persons understand it. Does not Mr Greeley owe much to the Re- punlicnn party? That party gave him wealth, fame, and influence. ILs taknt and indus- try were his own; but the Tribune was sus- tained as a party organ, and was made a miue of wealth by tho Republican party. Who does not know that Republicans, whether private citizens or postmasters, or other "office-holders," or country editors, or committee-men, haw made common cause for years for the Tribtme, have organized clubs, pushed and begged for subscriptions, and made the Tribune what it was? Who does not know that this year tens of thousands of Republicans paid their money in advance for ttie 'Tribune, while yet its cbtws wern half concealed, holding itself out as a Republican paper, and that the money thus obtained by false pretense is kept to sus- tain the paper in its present gross and knav- ish course? Who does not know that the po- sition given Mr. Greeley by the Republican party did more than all else to make sale of his liook called the "American Conifer," which is said to have paid hiui more tlun a hundred thousand dollars? He sent canvass- ers to solicit subscribers fortius book, and who subscribed, who paid him a fortune tor his book? Was it the Democrats or the no- pan y men, or was it those to whom he says now "he owes nothing?" It us true that Mr. Greeley has seldom been intrusted with office, thoagh he has long sought office from the Whig and Republican parties. This, however, is dimply from want of confidence in his practical judgment and consistency. Prior to 1854 Mr. Greeley's extreme crav- ing for office was not understood, and his letter to Governor Seward, November 11, 1854, dissolving the "political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley" because office had not been given him, amazed the public. In this letter, after reierring to some of the offices he wanted from the whig party, and upbraiding Governor Seward for not appoint- ing him to Miuie office in 1837, he says: "Now came the gnat scramble of the swell- mob of coon mtustrels aud cider suck- ers at Washington, I not being counted iu. t Several regiments of them .vent on from this city; but no one of the whole crowd — though I say it who should not — had done so much toward General Harrison's nomination and election as yours respectfully. 1 asked noth- ing, expected nothing; bat yon, iJooernoT 19 Seward, ought to have asked that I be postmas- ter of New 'York. * * * # * "Let me speak of the same canvass. I was once sent to Congress for ninety days, merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for four years. ****** "But this last spring, after the Nebraska question had created a new state of things at the North, one or two personal friends, of no political consideration, suggested my name as a candidate for Governor, and I did not discourage them." While he belonged to the Republican party Mr. Greeley was a candidate for Governor several times, for Senator, for Representa- tive, and for other offices; always being de- feated in the nomination or election, except When once chosen for a ninety-day term in Congress, when made Presidential elector in 186-t, and when he ran for the constitutional convention under a law insuring his election without regard to the number of votes. WHAT MR. GREELEY DID WHEN IN OFFICE. The Republican party has been blamed for not gratifying Mr. Greeley's ambition for office, but the mass of the party, thouuh ap- preciating his eccentric genius, ha.-* believed In in erratic, and not possessed of the practi- cal wisdom, moderation, or business capacity to make a useful or safe official As often as he has been fried in public station he has failed. His brief career in Congress was a sad fiasco; ha more than once excused his course by saying that lis voted without un- derstanding the question, and had voted as he did not mean to. (<~!ongressional Globe, 1848-9, vol.20, pp.269, 336.) lie involved himself in questions of veracity, which com- pelled him to retreat from hid statements; and on one occasion was confronted on tin* floor by members who flatly testified to the untruthfulness of what he said. (Globe, as above. ) Libels, published in his paper, sub- jected him to indignities, and even to worse embarrassments. His course in the Constitutional Conven- tion was a series of peevish attempts to as- sume everything and do everything, and re- sulted in his impatiently and prematurely outfitting his post, after pouring upon mem- bers a volley of oaths. Even the task of act- ing as chairman of a lDcal committee, last year, brought him into dilemmas and appar- ent breaches of his word which a man of common discretion woukt have avoided. His affiliations with men have shown him a poor judge of human nature, and the ease with which the designing impose upon him has always excited the sympathy of his friends. The worst men have stuck to him and used him, with no more power on his part to shake them olf than a ship has to shake off its barnacles. Ilis management of every business, except editing a newspaper, has shrnvn him wanting in business capacity; and as an editor he is always lacking a bal- ance wheel to keep him from absurd incon- sistencies. His investments of money with the shift- less and the dishonest; his embarking in ventures with Tweed, and lending his name to int-n unworthy of trust, can bo excused onlj on th' 1 ground of want of sound judgment. His Fourierisrn and Asrarianism attest a mind given to vagaries like this; o:i 'me oc- casion he insisted that there could be no property in land, because property was the product of human labor, and that land., like air. belonged to (rod Almighty, and could not he owned by man. Building a barn, where a barn could not stand, and was washed away, planting tur- nips where turnips could not grow, trying ro substitute cabbages for tobacco, and then as- suming to teach fanners in all the varying climates and soils of tiie continent, what to raise and how to plow, and when to hoe, can only pass as the grotesque and harmless antics of a man of oddities, flattered b~y many, and most of all by himself. "A jack of all trades is master of none," "and what he knows about farming," would show Mr. Greele', a universal genius, if it were not for what he could learn from those he assumes to teach. The overweening confidence with which he holds his opinions, and the rude vehemence with which he utters them, make the sudden- ness with which he changes them the plainest proof of insincerity or unsoundness; while the epithets ami libels with which he pursue* those he hates or envies, shows a straugdy unchristian and unbridled natufe. Mr. Greeley's own traits of character, a3 seen by his party associates, liav« mule it belter for him and fur the public that he should not hold office, and when Andrew Johnson nominated him, alter he bailed Jef- ferson Davis, as Minister to Austria, rumor is greatly at fault if Senators who now sup- port him, even all those who then belonged to the Republican party, could be induced to vote for his confirmation. Truthful history will never record that when Horace Greeley deserted the Uepub- Icin p.irty fur \ Presidential nomi i 1 i > a, n s owed the party nothing; or that the party owed him a great and unpaid debt; or that the party was wrong in not selecting such a man for high public trusts. The verdict will be rather that he spoke like a leiiem< i^ in- grate, when on the 12th of June, 1871, he said to a street audience, "I am perfectly willing to pass receipts with the Itepuolican party, and say that our accounts are now settled and closed." MR. GREJELEY AS A POLITICIAN. Eccentricity and fickleness are Mr. Gree- ley's traits; as a politician, he has boiled and advised bolting; he has opposed the n >mi na- tion or election of every President who has been chosen for thirty years; he has quar- reled with every Administration; he lias as- sailed the character »f those he differed with, wantonly and savagely; he has imputed cor- ruption toothers merely for not' von ng or thinking as he did; he sought by intrigue the defeat of Mr. Lincoln after he was nominated the second time, and as late as Saptemb -r 2, 1861, wrote secret letters, which have since COl le toTigilt, to C HlCOCS LleaHU r es :o prevent Lincoln's election; he strove to poison i J redi- 20 dent. Grant against cspahl* and hrmest R •- j Eublieaus, and advised him to excluvl] f.mm is councils men trained in public affairs; h& has recommended unfit meu for office,, and insisted on their appointment; afteriudorslng and applauding everything involving priuoi- ple or relating !<> the public interest done by the ;vdministration, lie has .struck at the President on aeeouat of "patruuage," aud bolted the party, after manoeuvring more than a year to get its nonrinatiou. On trie 4th of May, 1H71, he wrote William Larmore, who had inquired whether he would be a candidate for President before th« Repub- Can Convention tins year, " I f ully peopose plso never to decline any duty or responsi- bility which my political friends see (it to de- volve upon me;" and having thus put him- Self in the field, he started for the South to make speeches, in one of which he asserted over anain the right of secession, aud iu another hoped for the time wheu bis country- men would feci pride iu Lee and Stonewall Jackson. IL> apologized for Tammany robbers, en- joying from them at the same time an im- mense advertising patronage, and blocking the wheels of reform after the Tmnuiauy frauds were known to the whole nation; he colluded wih men known to bt< in the inter- est of Tammany Hail, and whom he had pre- viously so branded himself, to prevent the It', publican party being puiged of Tamuiauy influence; for two years before his open de- sertion he sought to divide and destroy the Republican party of New York, and tra- duced many upright men because of their resistance to the domination of corruptiou- ists; and finally, in signing the call for the Cincinnati Convention, "vhich adopted the Free-trade Missouri platform, he turned his back on the only political principle or idea prominent for the last ten years, of which he had not before been on both sides. CONCLUSION. Yet in the blind-staggers of faction the American people are challenged to scan and decide upon this record. Such a coiUM-m, and such a nomination, in" in eh.i.is and di wrier ''Libn! Republic in " rnovein mis have been tried in other SUtes, and, until the re- sults wero felt, thev succeed d. They tried in Virginia nominating a Republican for U-overuor, on a bargain with the Dem>ert1>s» d.uiy Republicans were entrapped, md Vir- ginia is cursed with a rule which ttiftbest Democrats are ashamed of. They tried in West Virginia a fusion be- tween "outs" and Democrats, and now West Virginia holds debate in her Constitu- tional Convention on the question of nullify- ing the Constitution of the United States and depriving the blacks of the right to voce. They fried in Tennessee a movem Kit of b lit- ers and D .•taocra.ts, and- the result is the de- struction of. common schools* in which 190,000 children were cultured.^ They tried the experiment in Missouri, and the fruit it b >re is a Democratic State gov^ eminent and Frank Blair in the Senate. In (Jl these cases one side or the other was cheated and the public interest washarmod, am) now it is proposed to attempt the same thing oif'a national scale. No wonder that leadin r D unocratic jour- nals and large bodies of Democrats refuse to be parties to such chicanery, and no wonder that it draws to Itself, as no otiier movement ever did, the very worst elements, North and S.).iu h. The issue, stands before you. On the one side, is safe, tried, and stable government; peace with all nations and prosperity at home, with business thriving and debt aud taxes melting away. On the other side is a hybrid conglomera- tion made nip of the crotchets, distempers, and personal aimso. resrle^s and disappointed men. What ills might cone of committing to them the affairs of the nation no judg- ment cau fathom-, no prophecy can foretell/r . The result is very safe, because it rests with .the sanitt generation which wis given by Pnwitlence to see throu i the darkness of the rebelliou, and that generation can not be blind now. LB S 7 \2 1 T^BARV OF CONGRESS 013 789 1190