Chapter XXIII…

Chapter XXIII

Depression among the People in 1863.--Military Situation.--Hostility to the Administration.--Determination to break it down.--Vallandigham's Disloyal Speech.--Two Rebellions threatened.--General Burnside takes Command of the Department of the Ohio.--Arrests Vallandigham. --Tries him by Military Commission.--His Sentence commuted by Mr. Lincoln.--Habeas Corpus refused.--Democratic Party protests.-- Meeting in Albany.--Letter of Governor Seymour.--Ohio Democrats send a Committee to Washington.--Mr. Lincoln's Replies to Albany Meeting and to the Ohio Committee.--Effect of his Words upon the Country.--Army of the Potomac.--General Hooker's Defeat at Chancellorsville.--Gloom in the Country.--The President's Letters to General Hooker.--General Meade succeeds Hooker in Command of the Army.--Battle of Gettysburg.--Important Victory for the Union. --Relief to the Country.--General Grant's Victory at Vicksburg.-- Fourth of July.--Notable Coincidence.--State Elections favorable to the Administration.--Meeting of Thirty-eighth Congress.--Schuyler Colfax elected Speaker.--Prominent New Members in Each Branch.--E. D. Morgan, Alexander Ramsey, John Conness, Reverdy Johnson, Thomas A. Hendricks, Henry Winter Davis, Robert C. Schenck, James A. Garfield, William B. Allison.--President's Message.--Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.--First proposed by James M. Ashley. --John B. Henderson proposes Amendment which passes the Senate.-- Debate in Both Branches.--Aid to the Pacific Railroads.--Lieutenant- General Grant.

At no time during the war was the depression among the people of the North so great as in the spring of 1863. When the Thirty- seventh Congress came to its close on the 3d of March, partisan feeling was so bitter that a contest of most dangerous character was foreshadowed in the Loyal States. The anti-slavery policy of the President was to be attacked as tending to a fatal division among the people; the conduct of the war was to be arraigned as impotent, and leading only to disaster. Circumstances favored an assault upon the Administration. The project of freeing the slaves had encountered many bitter prejudices among the masses in the Loyal States, and reverses in the field had created a dread of impending conscriptions which would send additional thousands to be wasted in fruitless assaults upon impregnable fortifications. General Hooker had succeeded to the command of the Army of the Potomac, still sore under the cruel sacrifice of its brave men in the previous December. General Grant was besieging Vicksburg, which had been fortified with all the strength that military science could impart, and was defended by a very strong force under the command of J. C. Pemberton, a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant- general in the Confederate army.

CRUSADE AGAINST THE PRESIDENT.

The opponents of the Administration intended to press the attack, to destroy the prestige of Mr. Lincoln, to bring hostilities in the field to an end, to force a compromise which should give humiliating guaranties for the protection of Slavery, to bring the South back in triumph, and to re-instate the Democratic party in the Presidential election of the ensuing year for a long and peaceful rule over a Union in which radicalism had been stamped out and Abolitionists placed under the ban. Such was the flattering prospect which opened to the view of the party that had so determinedly resisted and so completely defeated the Administration in the great States of the Union the preceding year. The new crusade against the President was begun by Mr. Vallandigham, who if not the ablest was the frankest and boldest member of his party. He took the stump soon after the adjournment of the Thirty-seventh Congress. It was an unusual time of the year to begin a political contest; but the ends sought were extraordinary, and the means adopted might well be of the same character. On the first day of May Mr. Vallandigham made a peculiarly offensive, mischievous, disloyal speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio, which was published throughout the State and widely copied elsewhere. It was perfectly apparent that the bold agitator was to have many followers and imitators, and that in the rapidly developing sentiment which he represented, the Administration would have as bitter an enemy in the rear as it was encountering at the front. The case was therefore critical. Mr. Lincoln saw plainly that the Administration was not equal to the task of subduing two rebellions. While confronting the power of a solid South he must continue to wield the power of a solid North.

After General Burnside had been relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac he was sent to command the Department of Ohio. He established his headquarters at Cincinnati in April (1863). He undoubtedly had confidential instructions in regard to the mode of dealing with the rising tide of disloyalty which, beginning in Ohio, was sweeping over the West. The Mount-Vernon speech of Mr. Vallandigham would inevitably lead to similar demonstrations elsewhere, and General Burnside determined to deal with its author. On Monday evening the 4th of May he sent a detachment of soldiers to Mr. Vallandigham's residence in Dayton, arrested him, carried him to Cincinnati, and tried him by a military commission of which a distinguished officer, General Robert B. Potter, was president. Mr. Vallandigham resisted the whole proceeding as a violation of his rights as a citizen of the United States, and entered a protest declaring that he was arrested without due process of law and without warrant from any judicial officer, that he was not in either the land or naval forces of the United States nor in the militia in actual service, and therefore was not triable by a court-martial or military commission, but was subject only, by the express terms of the Constitution, to be tried on an indictment or presentment of a grand jury. Of the offense charged against him there was no doubt, and scarcely a denial; and the commission, brushing aside his pleas, convicted him, and sentenced him to be placed in close confinement, during the continuance of the war, in some fortress of the United States--the fortress to be designated by the commanding officer of the department. General Burnside approved the proceeding, and designated Fort Warren in the harbor of Boston as the place of Mr. Vallandigham's detention.

THE ARREST OF VALLANDIGHAM.

The President, with that sagacity which was intuitive and unfailing in all matters of moment, disapproved the sentence, and commuted it to one sending Mr. Vallandigham beyond our military lines to his friends of the Southern Confederacy. The estimable and venerable Judge Leavett of the United-States District Court was applied to for a writ of habeas corpus, but he refused to issue it. The judge declared that the power of the President undoubtedly implies the right to arrest persons who by their mischievous acts of disloyalty impede or hinder the military operations of the government. The Democratic party throughout the Union took up the case with intemperate and ill-tempered zeal. Meetings were held in various places to denounce it, and to demand the right of Vallandigham to return from the rebel lines within which he had been sent. Governor Seymour of New York in a public letter denounced the arrest as "an act which had brought dishonor upon our country, and is full of danger to our persons and our homes. If this proceeding is approved by the government and sanctioned by the people it is not merely a step towards revolution, it is revolution; it will not only lead to military despotism, it establishes military despotism. In this respect it must be accepted, or in this respect it must be rejected. If it is upheld our liberties are overthrown." Waxing still bolder Governor Seymour said "the people of this country now wait with the deepest anxiety the decision of the Administration upon these acts. Having given it a generous support in the conduct of the war, we now pause to see what kind of government it is for which we are asked to pour out our blood and our treasure. The action of the Administration will determine, in the minds of more than one-half of the people of the Loyal States, whether this war is waged to put down rebellion in the South or to destroy free institutions at the North."

The evil effect upon the public opinion of the North of such language from a man of Governor Seymour's high personal character and commanding influence with his party can hardly be exaggerated. It came at a time when the Administration was sorely pressed and when it could not stand an exasperating division in the North. The governor's letter was publicly read at a large meeting of the Democratic party in Albany, presided over by Erastus Corning, and called to consider the act of the Administration. A long series of resolutions denouncing Vallandigham's arrest were adopted and forwarded to the President. But Mr. Lincoln rose to the occasion as if inspired, and his letter of June 12 to the Albany Committee turned the popular tide powerfully in favor of the Administration. One of the points presented made a deep impression upon the understanding and profoundly stirred the hearts of the people. "Mr. Vallandigham was not arrested," said the President, "because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army, upon the existence and vigor of which the life of this Nation depends. . . . If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of facts, which I would be glad to correct on reasonable, satisfactory evidence. I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering, to be in favor of suppressing the Rebellion by military force--by armies. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting father or brother or friend into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings until he is persuaded to write the soldier-boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked Administration of a contemptible government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and to save the boy is not only constitutional, but is withal a great mercy." No other man in our history has so fully possessed the power of presenting an argument in concrete form, overthrowing all the logic of assailants, and touching the chords of public feeling with a tenderness which becomes an irresistible force.

The Democrats of Ohio took up the arrest of Vallandigham with especial earnestness, and were guilty of the unspeakable folly of nominating him as their candidate for governor. They appointed an imposing committee--one from each Congressional district of the State--to communicate with the President in regard to the sentence of banishment. They arrived in Washington about the last of June, and addressed a long communication to Mr. Lincoln, demanding the release and return of Mr. Vallandigham. They argued the case with ability. No less than eleven of the committee were or had been members of Congress, with George H. Pendleton at their head. Mr. Lincoln's reply under date of June 29 to their communication was as felicitous, as conclusive, as his reply to the Albany Committee. He expressed his willingness in answer to their request, to release Mr. Vallandigham without asking pledge, promise, or retraction from him, and with only one simple condition. That condition was that "the gentlemen of the committee themselves, representing as they do the character and power of the Ohio Democracy, will subscribe to three propositions: First, That there is now a rebellion in the United States, the object and tendency of which are to destroy the National Union, and that in your opinion an army and navy are constitutional means for suppressing that rebellion. Second, That no one of you will do any thing which in his own judgment will tend to hinder the increase or favor the decrease or lessen the efficiency of the army and navy while engaged in the effort to suppress that rebellion. And Third, That each of you will in his sphere do all he can to have the officers, soldiers, and seamen of the army and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress the Rebellion, paid, fed, clad, and otherwise well provided for and supported."

Mr. Lincoln sent duplicates of these three conditions to the committee, one of which was to be returned to him indorsed with their names as evidence of their agreement thereto, the publication of which indorsement should be of itself a revocation of the order in relation to Mr. Vallandigham. If the Ohio gentlemen subscribed to these conditions as essential and obligatory, they thereby justified the arrest of Vallandigham for resisting each and every one of them. If they would not subscribe to them they placed themselves before the people of Ohio in an attitude of hostility to the vigorous and successful conduct of the war, on which the fate of the Union depended. The committee made a very lame rejoinder to the President. He had in truth placed them in a dilemma, from which they could not extricate themselves, and they naturally fell under popular condemnation. Mr. Lincoln's hit had indeed been so palpable that its victims were laughed at by the public, and their party was foredoomed by their course to political annihilation in the coming election.

THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.

While these interesting events were in progress the military exigency was engaging the attention of the people with an interest almost painfully intense. There was an urgent demand for an early movement by the Army of the Potomac. Mr. Lincoln realized that prompt success was imperatively required. The repetition of the disasters of 1862 might fatally affect our financial credit, and end with the humiliation of an intervention by European Powers. General Hooker was impressed by Mr. Lincoln with the absolute necessity of an early and energetic movement of the Army of the Potomac. On the 2d and 3d of May he fought the battle of Chancellorsville. He had as large a force as the Union army mustered on a single battle- field during the war,--not less perhaps than one hundred and twenty thousand men. He made a lamentable failure. Without bringing more than one-third of his troops into action he allowed himself to be driven across the Rappahannock by Lee, who, on the 7th of May, issued a highly congratulatory and boastful order detailing his victory.

In the issuing of orders General Hooker was one day in advance of Lee. He tendered to the soldiers his "congratulations on the achievements of the past seven days," and assured them that "if all has not been accomplished that was expected, the reasons are well known to the army." He further declared that "in withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock before delivering a general battle to our adversaries, the army has given renewed evidence of its confidence in itself and its fidelity to the principles it represents. Profoundly loyal and conscious of its strength," the General continued, "the Army of the Potomac will give or decline battle whenever its interest or its honor may demand." The General thought "the events of the past week may swell with pride the heart of every officer and soldier in the army. By your celerity and secrecy of movement our advance was undisputed; and on our withdrawal, not a rebel ventured to follow." The questionable character of these compliments exposed General Hooker to ridicule, and increased the public sense of his unfitness for high command, though he was a gallant and brave soldier and admirably fitted for a division or a corps. The Union loss was serious. The killed and wounded exceeded eleven thousand. The year thus opened very inauspiciously. The gloom of 1862 was not dispelled. The shadows had not lifted. The weightiest anxiety oppressed both the government and the people. The Confederacy had sustained a heavy loss in the death of Stonewall Jackson. He had a genius for war, and in a purely military point of view it would perhaps have been better for the Confederates to lose the battle than to lose the most aggressive officer in their Army.

The spirit of the Confederates rose high. They believed they would be able to hold the line of the Mississippi against the army of Grant, and in the defeat and demoralization of the army of the Potomac they saw their way clear to an invasion of Pennsylvania, for which General Lee began his preparations with leisure and completed them with thoroughness. After General Hooker's failure at Chancellorsville, and his remarkable order which followed it, he evidently lost the confidence of the President. Some of the hasty notes and telegrams sent to General Hooker after his defeat are in Mr. Lincoln's most characteristic vein. June 5 the President wrote, "If you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock, I would by no means cross to the south of it. . . . In one word, I would not take any risk of being entangled up on the river like an ox jumped half over a fence, liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." Later, on June 10, the President wrote, "Lee's Army and not Richmond is your true objective point. If he comes towards the upper Potomac, follow on his flank on the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight him when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is fret him and fret him."* Lee was, by the date of this note, well on his way towards the North, and the military situation grew every hour more critical.

THE THREE DAYS' BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.

The indispensable requisite to Union success was a commander for the Army of the Potomac in whose competency the Administration, the people, and most of all the soldiers would have confidence. In the judgment of military men it was idle to intrust another battle to the generalship of Hooker; and as the army moved across Maryland to meet Lee on the soil of Pennsylvania, General Hooker was relieved and the command of the army assigned to General George G. Meade. This change of commanders was made by order of the President on the 28th of June, only two days before the opening engagement of the great battle of Gettysburg. By the middle of June the advance guard of Lee's army had reached the upper Potomac, and on its way had literally destroyed the division of the Union army commanded by General Milroy and stationed at Winchester. The agitation throughout the country was profound. On the 15th of June as the magnitude of Lee's movement became more apparent, the President issued a proclamation stating that "Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio were threatened with invasion and required an immediate addition to the military forces." He called therefore for one hundred thousand militia from these four States to serve for six months; ten thousand each from Maryland and West Virginia, thirty thousand from Ohio, and fifty thousand from Pennsylvania. All the surrounding States were aroused. Governor Seymour sent fifteen thousand extra men from New York. Governor Parker sent a valuable contingent from New Jersey. Western Maryland was occupied at various points as early as the 20th of June, and during the last week of that month rebel detachments were in the southern counties of Pennsylvania committing depredations and exacting tribute,--in York, Cumberland, Franklin, Fulton and Adams.

The two armies finally converged at Gettysburg, and on the 1st, 2d, and 3d of July the battle was fought which in many of its aspects was the most critical and important of the war. The Confederates began with the self-assurance of victory; and with victory they confidently counted upon the occupation of Philadelphia by Lee's army, upon the surrender of Baltimore, upon the flight of the President and his Cabinet from Washington. It was within the extravagant and poetic dreams of the expectant conquerors to proclaim the success of the Confederacy from the steps of Independence Hall, and to make a treaty with the fugitive Government of the United States for half the territory of the Republic. But it was not so fated. The army under Meade proved unconquerable. In conflicts on Virginia soil the army of Lee had been victorious. Its invasion of the North the preceding year had been checked by McClellan before it reached the border of the free States. It was now fighting on ground where the spirit which had nerved it in Virginia was transferred to the soldiers of the Union. With men of the North the struggle was now for home first, for conquest afterwards, and the tenacity and courage with which they held their ground for those three bloody days attest the magnificent impulse which the defense of the fireside imparts to the heart and to the arm of the soldier.

General Meade had not been widely known before the battle, but he was at once elevated to the highest rank in the esteem and love of the people. The tide of invasion had been rolled back after the bloodiest and most stubbornly contested field of the war. The numbers on each side differed but little from the numbers engaged at Waterloo, and the tenacity with which the soldiers of the British Isles stood that day against the hosts of Napoleon, was rivaled on the field of Gettysburg by men of the same blood, fighting in the ranks of both armies.

The relief which the victory brought to the North is indescribable. On the morning of the Fourth of July a brief Executive order was telegraphed from the Executive mansion to all the free States, announcing the triumph, for which "the President especially desires that on this day, He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and reverenced with the profoundest gratitude." By one of those coincidences that have more than once happened in our history, the Fourth of July of this year was made especially memorable. Rejoicings over the result at Gettysburg had scarcely begun when word came from General Grant that the Confederate forces at Vicksburg had surrendered, and that at ten o'clock of the Fourth, the very hour when Mr. Lincoln issued the bulletin proclaiming the victory of Gettysburg, General Pemberton's forces marched out and stacked arms in front of their works, prisoners of war to General Grant. The city of Vicksburg was immediately occupied by the Union troops, the first division of which was commanded by General John A. Logan. Jackson, the Capital of Mississippi, defended by General Joseph E. Johnston, capitulated a few days later to General Sherman, and the Confederate forces at Port Hudson surrendered to the army of General Banks. This was the last obstruction to the navigation of the Mississippi, and the great river flowed unvexed to the sea.

The entire situation was changed by these important victories. Heart and spirit were given to the people, hope grew into confidence, the strength of the Government was vastly increased, the prestige of the Administration was greatly heightened. Could the election for the Thirty-eighth Congress have taken place in the autumn of 1863, and not in the autumn of 1862, instead of being a close struggle it would have been an overwhelming triumph for the war policy which had wrought out such splendid results. The popular re-action was attested in every State where an election gave opportunity. Governor Curtin was re-chosen by a large majority in Pennsylvania over Judge George W. Woodward, who had pronounced a judicial decision against the constitutionality of the proscription law; the course of Governor Seymour was rebuked in New York by the thirty thousand majority given to the Republican State ticket, which was headed by the brilliant Chauncey M. Depew, then but twenty- nine years of age; while in Ohio the Democratic party was overwhelmed by an avalanche of popular indignation which responded to the nomination of Vallandigham with a majority of a hundred and one thousand for the Administration.

MEETING OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

The Thirty-eighth Congress met on the first Monday of December, 1863. The House was promptly organized by the election of Schuyler Colfax to the Speakership. He received 101 votes; all other candidates 81. Mr. Samuel S. Cox received 42 votes, the highest given to any candidate of the opposition. The vote for Mr. Colfax was the distinctive Republican strength in the House. On issues directly relating to the war the Administration was stronger than these figures indicate, being always able to command the support of Mr. Stebbins, Mr. Odell, and Mr. Griswold of New York, and of several members from the Border States.

Schuyler Colfax was especially fitted for the duties of the Chair. He had been a member of the House for eight years, having been chosen directly after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He came from good Revolutionary stock in New Jersey, but had been reared in the West; had learned the trade of a printer, and had edited a successful journal at South Bend. He was a paragon of industry, with keen, quick, bright intellect. He mingled freely and creditably in the debates. With a wisdom in which many able members seem deficient, he had given studious attention to the Rules of the House, and was master of their complexities. Kindly and cordial by nature it was easy for him to cultivate the art of popularity, which he did with tact and constancy. He came to the Chair with absolute good will from both sides of the House, and as a presiding officer proved himself able, prompt, fair-minded, and just in all his rulings.

The political re-action of 1862 had seriously affected the membership of the House. Many of those most conspicuous and influential in the preceding Congress had either been defeated or had prudently declined a renomination. E. G. Spaulding, Charles B. Sedgwick, Roscoe Conkling, and A. B. Olin did not return from New York; John A. Bingham and Samuel Shellabarger were defeated in Ohio; Galusha A. Grow was not re-elected in Pennsylvania, and lost in consequence a second term as Speaker; Albert G. Porter and McKee Dunn gave way to Democratic successors in Indiana. In the delegations of all the large States radical changes were visible, and the narrow escape of the Administration from total defeat in the preceding year was demonstrated afresh by the roll-call of the House.

MEMBERS OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

But the loss of prominent members was counterbalanced by the character and ability of some of the new accessions. Henry Winter Davis took his seat as representative from one of the districts of the city of Baltimore. He had been originally elected to the House as a member of the American party in 1854, and had been re-elected in 1856 and 1858. He had not co-operated with the Republican party before the war, and had supported Mr. Bell for the Presidency in 1860. He was always opposed to the Democratic party, and was under all circumstances a devoted friend of the Union, an arch-enemy of the Secessionists. Born a Southern man, he spoke for the South,-- for its duty to the Federal Government, for its best and highest destiny. To him before and above all other men is due the maintenance of loyalty in Maryland. His course was censured by the Democratic Legislature of his State in the winter preceding the Rebellion. He replied through an address "to the voters of Maryland," which for eloquence of expression, force, and conclusiveness of reasoning is entitled to rank in the political classics of America as the Address to the Electors of Bristol ranks in the political classics of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the graces of oratory he was unrivaled. He died at forty-eight. Had he been blessed with length of days, the friends who best knew his ability and his ambition believed that he would have left the most brilliant name in the Parliamentary annals of America.

Robert C. Schenck was an invaluable addition to the House. He had been serving in the field since the outbreak of the war, but had been induced to contest the return of Vallandigham to Congress. His canvass was so able and spirited that though in other parts of the State the Democrats captured eight Republican districts, he defeated Vallandigham in a Democratic district. Mr. Schenck had originally entered Congress in 1843 at thirty-four years of age, and after a distinguished service of eight years was sent by President Fillmore as Minister-Plenipotentiary to Brazil. After his return he had taken no part in political affairs until now. His re-appearance in Congress was therefore significant. He was at once placed at the head of the Committee on Military Affairs, then of superlative importance, and subsequently was made chairman of Ways and Means, succeeding Mr. Stevens in the undoubted leadership of the House. He was admirably fitted for the arduous and difficult duty. His perceptions were keen, his analysis was extraordinarily rapid, his power of expression remarkable. On his feet, as the phrase went, he had no equal in the House. In the five-minute discussion in Committee of the Whole he was an intellectual marvel. The compactness and clearness of his statement, the facts and arguments which he could marshal in that brief time, were a constant surprise and delight to his hearers. No man in Congress during the present generation has rivaled his singular power in this respect. He was able in every form of discussion, but his peculiar gift was in leading and controlling the Committee of the Whole.**

MEMBERS OF THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

Several new members entered the Thirty-eighth Congress who were destined to long service and varying degrees of prominence. James A. Garfield came from Ohio with a valuable reputation acquired in the Legislature of his State and with a good military record, established in the war and recognized by the conferment of a Major- General's commission which he had won on the field. William B. Allison, John A. Kasson and Hiram Price of Iowa, John A. J. Creswell of Maryland, Glenni W. Scofield of Pennsylvania, all earned honorable distinction in after years. George S. Boutwell entered from Massachusetts at forty-five years of age. Twelve years before, as a radical Democrat and Free-Soiler, he had been chosen governor of his State. James G. Blaine entered from Maine at thirty-three years of age. Among the new members on the Democratic side of the House were Samuel J. Randall, with the reputation of conspicuous service in the Pennsylvania Legislature, and William R. Morrison, fresh from his duty in the field as colonel of an Illinois regiment, and, though still young, old enough to have served with credit in the Mexican war. Fernando Wood, who had been elected a member of the House in 1840, and had served one term, now entered again. Francis Kernan appeared in public life for the first time, having defeated Roscoe Conkling in the Utica district. Charles A. Eldridge of Wisconsin became one of the ablest parliamentarians of the House.

In the Senate some important changes were made. Governor Morgan entered from New York as the successor of Preston King; Governor Sprague came from Rhode Island, and Governor Ramsey from Minnesota. These elections were all made in direct recognition of the valuable service which these Republican War-Governors had rendered the country. John Conness, a follower of Douglas, who had done much for the cause of the Union on the Pacific coast, now bore the credentials of California. B. Gratz Brown came from Missouri as pledge of the radical regeneration of that State.

To the Democratic side of the chamber three able men were added. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland succeeded to the seat made vacant the preceding autumn by the death of James Alfred Pearce. Mr. Johnson had long been eminent at the Bar of the Supreme Court. He was a warm supporter of Mr. Clay, and was chosen to the Senate as a Whig in 1845. He was attorney-general in the Cabinet of President Taylor, and after the defeat of the Whigs in 1852 had co-operated with the Democrats. He had stood firmly by the Union, and his re- appearance in the Senate added largely to the ability and learning of that body. Thomas A. Hendricks entered from Indiana as the successor of Jesse D. Bright, who had been expelled upon a charge of disloyalty. Mr. Hendricks had served in the House of Representatives from 1851 to 1855. He was but thirty-one years of age when first chosen and his record in the House had not prepared the public to expect the strength and ability which he displayed as senator. He was in the full maturity of his powers when he took his seat, and he proved able, watchful, and acute in the discharge of his public duties. He was always at his post, was well prepared on all questions, debated with ability, and rapidly gained respect and consideration in the Senate. Charles R. Buckalew of Pennsylvania succeeded David Wilmot. Both he and Mr. Hendricks were fruits of the violent re-action against the Administration the preceding year. Mr. Buckalew came with high reputation, but did not gain so prominent a position in the Senate as his friends had anticipated. He did not seem ambitious, was not in firm health, and though his ability was recognized, his service did not strengthen his party either in the Senate or in his State. A Democrat from Pennsylvania is somewhat out of harmony with the members of his party elsewhere, on account of the advocacy of the Protective system to which he is forced by the prevailing opinion among his constituents.

THE MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Congress assembled in December, 1863, in very different spirit from that which prevailed either at the opening or at the adjournment of the preceding session. The President in his annual message recognized the great change for which "our renewed and profoundest gratitude to God is due." Referring to the depressing period of the year before, he said "The tone of public feeling at home and abroad was not satisfactory. With other signs the popular elections then just passed indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while amid much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered in accents of pity, that we were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and we were threatened with such additions from the same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea and raise the blockade. We had failed to elicit from European governments any thing hopeful on this subject. . . .

"We are now permitted to take another view. The rebel borders are pressed still further back, and by the complete opening of the Mississippi the country, dominated by the Rebellion, is divided into distinct parts with no practical communication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influential citizens in each,--owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the beginning of the Rebellion,--now declare openly for emancipation in their respective States. Of those States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which three years ago would tolerate any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new territories, only now dispute as to the best mode of removing it within their own limits." The President dwelt with much satisfaction upon the good behavior of the slave population. "Full one hundred thousand of them are now in the United-States military service, about one-half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks, thus giving a double advantage,--of taking so much labor from the insurgents' cause, and supplying the places which otherwise might be filled with so many white men. So far as tested it is difficult to say that they are not as good soldiers as any. No servile insurrection or tendency to cruelty has marked the measures of emancipation and the arming of the blacks. . . . Thus we have a new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past."

The Thirty-seventh Congress was distinguished for its effective legislation on all subjects relating to the finances and to the recruitment of a great army. It was reserved to the Thirty-eighth Congress to take steps for the final abolition of slavery by the submission to the States of a Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The course of events had prepared the public mind for the most radical measures. In the short space of three years, by the operation of war, under the dread of national destruction, a great change had been wrought in the opinions of the people of the Loyal States. When the war began not one-tenth of the citizens of those States were in favor of immediate and unconditional emancipation. It is very doubtful whether in September, 1862, the proclamation of the President would have been sustained by the majority of the Northern people. In every instance the measures of Congress were in advance of public opinion, but not so far in advance as to invite a calamity through re-action. The President was throughout more conservative than Congress. He had surprised every one with the Emancipation Proclamation, but he was so anxious for some arrangement to be made for compensating the Border States for their loss of slaves, that he did not at once recommend the utter destruction of the institution by an amendment to the Fundamental Law of the Republic. He left Congress to take the lead.

Mr. James M. Ashley of Ohio is entitled to the credit of having made the first proposition to Congress to amend the Constitution so as to prohibit slavery throughout the United States. During the entire contest Mr. Ashley devoted himself with unswerving fidelity and untiring zeal to the accomplishment of this object. He submitted his proposition on the fourteenth day of December. Mr. Holman of Indiana objected to the second reading of the bill, but the speaker overruled the objection and the bill was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Mr. Wilson of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Mr. Arnold of Illinois subsequently introduced joint resolutions proposing a like amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Holman moved to lay the resolution of Mr. Arnold on the table. The motion failed by a vote of 79 nays to 58 ayes. The vote thus disclosed was so far from the two-thirds necessary to carry the constitutional amendment as to be discouraging to the supporters of the measure.

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.

On the thirteenth day of January, 1864, Mr. Henderson of Missouri introduced in the Senate a joint resolution proposing a complete abolition of slavery by an amendment to the Constitution, and on the tenth day of February Mr. Trumbull, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, reported the proposition to the Senate in these words: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky proposed to amend the resolution so as to exclude the descendants of negroes on the maternal side from all places of office and trust under the government of the United States. Mr. Davis betrayed by this motion his apprehension that freedom to the negro would be followed by the enjoyment of civil rights and the exercise of political power. Mr. Davis proposed at the same time to amend the Constitution so as to consolidate New England into two States to be called East New England and West New England, the evident attempt being to avenge the overthrow of the slave system by the degradation of that section of the country in which the anti-slavery sentiment had originated and received its chief support.

--It fell to Mr. Trumbull, as the senator who had reported the resolution, to open the debate. He charged the war and all its manifold horrors upon the system of slavery. He stated with clearness the views of the opposition in regard to the legal effect of the proclamation of emancipation, and with eloquent force of logic he portrayed the necessity of universal freedom as the chief means of ending not only the controversy on the battle-field, but the controversy of opinion.--Mr. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware on the 31st of March replied to Mr. Trumbull, and discussed the subject of slavery historically, citing the authority of the old and the new dispensations in its support.--Mr. Hendricks of Indiana objected to a proposition to amend the Constitution while eleven States of the Union were unable to take part in the proceedings. He wished a constitution for Louisiana as well as for Indiana, for Florida as well as for New Hampshire.--Mr. Clark of New Hampshire criticised the Constitution, and traced the woes which the country was then enduring to the recognition of slavery in that instrument. From the twenty-eighth day of March until the eighth day of April, when the final vote was taken, the attention of the Senate was given to the debate, with only unimportant interruptions. Upon the passage of the resolution, the yeas were 38, and the nays 6. The nays were Messrs. Garrett Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle, and Saulsbury. Upon the announcement of the vote, Mr. Saulsbury said, "I bid farewell to all hope for the reconstruction of the American Union."

When the joint resolution, passed by the Senate, was read in the House, Mr. Holman objected to the second reading, and on the question, "Shall the joint resolution be rejected?" the yeas were 55 and the nays 76, an even more discouraging vote than the first. With 55 members opposed to the amendment, it would require 110 to carry it, or 34 more than the roll-call had disclosed. The debate was opened by Mr. Morris of New York who treated the abolition of slavery as a necessary preliminary to the reconstruction of the Union.

--Mr. Fernando Wood denounced the movement as "unjust in itself, a breach of good faith utterly irreconcilable with expediency."

--Mr. Ebon C. Ingersoll of Illinois made a strong and eloquent appeal for the passage of the amendment and the liberation of the slave. With the accomplishment of that grand end, said he, "our voices will ascend to Heaven over a country re-united, over a people disinthralled, and God will bless us."

--Mr. Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania argued earnestly against the amendment. He regarded it as the beginning of radical changes in our Constitution, and the forerunner of usurpation. The policy pursued was uniting the South and dividing the North.

--Mr. Arnold of Illinois said, "in view of the long catalogue of wrongs which it has inflicted upon the country, I demand to-day the death of African slavery."

--Mr. Mallory of Kentucky maintained that Mr. Lincoln had been forced to issue the Proclamation of Emancipation by the governors who met at Altoona. He was answered by Mr. Boutwell of Massachusetts, who most effectively disproved the charge.

--Mr. Pendleton of Ohio maintained that three-fourths of the States possessed neither the power to establish nor to abolish slavery in all the States. He contended that the power to amend did not carry with it the power to revolutionize and subvert the form and spirit of the government.

The vote on the passage of the amendment was taken on the fifteenth day of June. The yeas were 93, the nays were 65. The yeas were 27 short of the necessary two-thirds. Mr. Ashley of Ohio, who had by common consent assumed parliamentary charge of the measure, voted in the negative, and in the exercise of his right under the rules, entered upon the journal a motion to reconsider the vote. This ended the contest in the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress. Mr. Ashley gave notice that the question would go to the country, and that upon the re-assembling of Congress in December he should press the motion to reconsider, and he expected that the amendment would be adopted. This result forced the question into the Presidential canvass of 1864, and upon the decision of that election depended the question of abolishing slavery. The issue thus had the advantage of a direct submission to the votes of the people before it should go to the State Legislatures for ultimate decision.

PUBLIC AID TO THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

In the previous Congress an Act had been passed which was approved by the President on the first day of July, 1862, to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes. The company authorized to build it was to receive a grant of public land amounting to five alternate sections per mile on each side of the road. In addition to the lands the Government granted the direct aid of $16,000 per mile in its own bonds, payable upon the completion of each forty miles of the road. The bill was passed by a vote which in the main but not absolutely was divided on the line of party. The necessity of communication with our Pacific possessions was so generally recognized that Congress was willing to extend generous aid to any company which was ready to complete the enterprise. The association of gentlemen who had organized under the provisions of the Act, were unable, as they reported, to construct the road upon the conditions prescribed and the aid tendered. It was impossible to realize money from the lands under the grant, as they were too remote for settlement, and $16,000 per mile was declared insufficient to secure the means requisite for the construction of the road across trackless plains, and through rugged passes of the Rocky Mountains.

The corporators had accordingly returned to Congress in 1864 for further help, and such was the anxiety in the public mind to promote the connection with the Pacific that enlarged and most generous provision was made for the completion of the road. The land-grant was doubled in amount; the Government for certain difficult portions of the road allowed $32,000 per mile, and for certain mountainous sections $48,000 per mile. The whole of this munificent grant was then subordinated as a second mortgage upon the road and its franchise, and the company was empowered to issue a first mortgage for the same amount for each mile--for $16,000, $32,000 and $48,000, according to the character of the country through which the road was to pass. Mr. Washburne of Illinois and Mr. Holman of Indian made an earnest fight against the provisions of the bill as needlessly extravagant, and as especially censurable in time of war when our resources were needed in the struggle for our national life. Mr. Washburne had sustained the original bill granting the aid of lands and of bonds. He alleged, and produced a tabular statement in support of the assertion, that the Government was granting $95,000,000 to the enterprise, besides half of the land in a strip twenty miles wide from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.

PUBLIC AID TO THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

So earnest however was the desire of the Government to secure the construction of the road that the opponents of the bill were unable to make any impression upon the House. On an amendment by Mr. Holman declaring that "the roads constructed under the Act shall be public highways and shall transport the property and the troops of the United States, when transportation thereof shall be required, free of toll or other charge," there could be secured but 39 votes in the affirmative. On an amendment by Mr. Washburne to strike out the section which subordinated the government mortgage to that of the railroad company on the lands and the road, but 38 voted in the affirmative and the bill passed without a call of the yeas and nays. In the Senate there were only five votes against the bill. Mr. Ten Eyck of New Jersey was the only Republican senator who voted in the negative. Whatever may have subsequently occurred to suggest that the grant was larger than was needed for the construction of the highway to the Pacific, there can be no doubt that an overwhelming sentiment, not only in Congress but among the people, was in favor of the bountiful aid which was granted. The terrible struggle to retain the Southern States in the Union had persuaded the Administration and the Government that no pains should be spared and no expenditure stinted to insure the connection which might quicken the sympathy and more directly combine the interests of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. A more careful circumspection might perhaps have secured the same work with less expenditure; but even with this munificent aid a full year passed before construction began from the eastern end of the road, and for a considerable period it was felt that the men who embarked their money in the enterprise were taking a very hazardous task on their hands. Many capitalists who afterwards indulged in denunciations of Congress for the extravagance of the grants, were urged at the time to take a share in the scheme, but declined because of the great risk involved.

Two organizations, composed of powerful men, were formed to prosecute the work. The California Company, with Governor Leland Stanford and the indomitable C. P. Huntington at the head, constructed the thousand miles stretching from the Bay of San Francisco to Salt Lake, and a company headed by Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, two Massachusetts men noted for strong business capacity, industry, and integrity, constructed the thousand miles from the Missouri River to the point of junction. In the history of great enterprises, no parallel can be found to the ability and energy displayed in the completion of this great work. With all the aids and adjuncts of surrounding civilization, there had never been two thousand miles of rail laid so rapidly as this was across trackless plains, over five rugged ranges of mountains, through a country without inhabitants, or inhabited only by wild Indians who offered obstruction and not help.

On the first day of the session, December 7, 1863, Mr. Elihu B. Washburne of Illinois introduced a bill to empower the President to appoint a Lieutenant-General for all our forces. It was avowedly intended for General Grant who had already been appointed a Major- General in the Regular Army. Some opposition was shown to the measure, when it was formally reported from the Military Committee by Mr. Farnsworth of Illinois who ably supported it. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens indicated his intention to oppose it and was followed by Mr. Garfield who thought the action premature. Mr. Schenck also intimated that it might be difficult at that moment to say who would in the end command precedence among our generals. Eighteen months before, McClellan would have been chosen; after Gettysburg Meade would have been selected; at one time in the midst of his successes in the South-West Rosecrans might have been appointed. As a matter of course Grant would now be selected. Mr. Schenck however announced his intention to support the measure.

Mr. Washburne closed the debate with an impressive plea for the bill. He avowed that it meant General Grant who had been "successful in every fight from Belmont to Lookout Mountain. The people of this country want a fighting general to lead their armies, and General Grant is the man upon whom we must depend to fight out this rebellion in the end." Mr. Washburne gave a unique description of General Grant in the critical campaign below Vicksburg: "General Grant did not take with him the trappings and paraphernalia so common to many military men. As all depended on celerity of movement it was important to be encumbered with as little baggage as possible. General Grant took with him neither a horse nor an orderly nor a servant nor a camp-chest nor an overcoat nor a blanket nor even a clean shirt. His entire baggage for six days--I was with him at the time--was a tooth-brush. He fared like the commonest soldier in his command, partaking of his rations and sleeping upon the ground with no covering except the canopy of heaven." The speech of Mr. Washburne was very earnest and very effective, and, the vote coming at its conclusion, the House passed the bill by 96 yeas to 41 nays. It was not strictly a party vote. Randall of Pennsylvania, Morrison of Illinois, Eldridge of Wisconsin, Voorhees of Indiana and several other Democratic partisans supported the measure, while Thaddeus Stevens, Winter Davis, Garfield, Broomall of Pennsylvania and others among the Republicans opposed it.

The bill was desired by the President who approved it on the 29th of February, 1864, and immediately nominated Ulysses S. Grant to be Lieutenant-General. Mr. Lincoln saw the obvious advantage of placing a man of General Grant's ability in command of all the armies. The General was ordered to Washington at once, and arrived at the capital on the eighth day of March. Mr. Lincoln had never before seen him, though both were citizens of Illinois and General Grant had been distinguished in the field for more than two years. A new era opened in our military operations and abundant vigor was anticipated and realized. General Sherman was left in command of the great army in the West. He had up to this time been serving with General Grant but was now to assume command of an enormous force and to engage in one of the most arduous, heroic, and successful campaigns in the military history of the country. The march from Vicksburg to Chattanooga, thence to Atlanta, to Savannah, and Northward to the Potomac, is one of the longest ever made by an army. From Vicksburg to Chattanooga the army was under command of General Grant, but the entire march of the same body of troops must have exceeded two thousand miles through the very heart of the insurrectionary country. But the great operations of both Grant and Sherman were incomplete when Congress adjourned on the Fourth of July. Its members returned home to engage in a canvass of extraordinary interest and critical importance.

CHARACTER OF GENERAL SHERMAN.

The character and ability of General Sherman were not fully appreciated until the second year of the war. He had not aimed to startle the country at the outset of his military career with any of the brilliant performances attempted by many officers who were heard of for a day and never afterwards. With the true instinct and discipline of a soldier, he faithfully and skillfully did the work assigned to him, and he gained steadily, rapidly, and enduringly on the confidence and admiration of the people. He shared in the successful campaigns of General Grant in the South-West, and earned his way to the great command with which he was now intrusted,--a command which in one sense involved the prompt success of all the military operations of the Government. Disaster for his army did not of course mean the triumph of the Rebellion, but it meant fresh levies of troops, the prolongation of the struggle, and a serious increase to the heavy task that General Grant had assumed in Virginia.

General Sherman was a graduate of West Point, and while still a young man had served with marked credit for some twelve years in the army. But he had more than a military education. Through a checkered career in civil life, he had enlarged his knowledge of the country, his acquaintance with men, his experience in affairs. He had been a banker in California, a lawyer in Kansas, President of a college in Louisiana, and, when the war began, he was about to take charge of a railroad in Missouri. It would be difficult, if not impossible to find a man who has so thorough, so minute a knowledge of every State and Territory of the Union. He has made a special study of the geography and products of the country. Some one has said of him, that if we should suddenly lose all the maps of the United States, we need not wait for fresh surveys to make new ones, because General Sherman could reproduce a perfect map in twenty-four hours. That this is a pardonable exaggeration would be admitted by any one who had conversed with General Sherman in regard to the topography and resources of the country from Maine to Arizona.

General Sherman's appearance is strongly indicative of his descent. Born in the West, he is altogether of Puritan stock, his father and mother having emigrated from Connecticut where his family resided for nearly two centuries. All the characteristics of that remarkable class of men re-appear in General Sherman. In grim, determined visage, in commanding courage, in mental grasp, in sternness of principle, he is an Ironside Officer of the Army of Cromwell, modified by the impulsive mercurial temperament which eight generations of American descent, with Western birth and rearing, have impressed upon his character.

[* The Italicized words were underscored in the original letters of the President.]

[** THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. REPUBLICANS IN ROMAN; DEMOCRATS IN ITALIC.

The Senate was composed of same members as in Thirty-seventh Congress (given on pp. ----), with the following exceptions:-- ILLINOIS.--William A. Richardson succeeded O. H. Browning. INDIANA.--Thomas A. Hendricks succeeded David Turpie. MAINE.--Nathan A. Farwell succeeded William Pitt Fessenden. MARYLAND.--Reverdy Johnson succeeded James Alfred Pearce. MINNESOTA.--Alexander Ramsey succeeded Henry M. Rice. MISSOURI.--B. Gratz Brown succeeded Robert Wilson. NEW JERSEY.--William Wright succeeded James W. Wall. NEW YORK.--Edwin D. Morgan succeeded Preston King. PENNSYLVANIA.--Charles R. Buckalew succeeded David Wilmot. RHODE ISLAND.--William Sprague succeeded Samuel G. Arnold. "Waitman T. Willey and Peter G. Van Winkle were admitted as the first senators from West Virginia. Lemuel J. Bowden took Mr. Willey's place as senator from Virginia, and colleague of John Carlile. The political power of West Virginia was thus actually represented at one time by four senators. "James W. Nye and William M. Stewart took their seats Feb. 1, 1865, as senators from the new State of Nevada. "Ten States were unrepresented.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

CALIFORNIA.--Cornelius Cole, William Higby, Thomas B. Shannon. CONNECTICUT.--Augustus Brandegee, Henry C. Deming, _James E. English_, John H. Hubbard. DELAWARE.--Nathaniel B. Smithers. ILLINOIS.--James C. Allen; William J. Allen; Isaac N. Arnold; John R. Eden; John F. Farnsworth; Charles M. Harris; Ebon C. Ingersoll, elected in place of Owen Lovejoy, deceased; _Anthony L. Knapp_; Owen Lovejoy, died March 25, 1864; _William R. Morrison; Jesse O. Norton; James C. Robinson; Lewis W. Ross; John T. Stuart_; Elihu B. Washburne. INDIANA.--Schuyler Colfax, James A. Cravens, Ebenezer Dumont, Joseph K. Edgerton, Henry W. Harrington, William S. Holman, George W. Julian, John Law, James F. McDowell, Godlove S. Orth, _Daniel W. Voorhees_. IOWA.--William B. Allison, Joseph B. Grinnell, Asahel W. Hubbard, John A. Kasson, Hiram Price, James F. Wilson. KANSAS.--A. Carter Wilder. KENTUCKY.--Lucien Anderson, Brutus J. Clay, Henry Grider, Aaron Harding, Robert Mallory, William H. Randall, Green Clay Smith, William H. Wadsworth, George H. Yeaman. MAINE.--James G. Blaine, Sidney Perham, Frederick A. Pike, John H. Rice, Lorenzo D. M. Sweat. MARYLAND.--John A. J. Creswell, Henry Winter Davis, _Benjamin G. Harris_, Francis Thomas, Edwin H. Webster. MASSACHUSETTS.--John R. Alley, Oakes Ames, John D. Baldwin, George S. Boutwell, Henry L. Dawes, Thomas D. Eliot, Daniel W. Gooch, Samuel Hooper, Alexander H. Rice, William B. Washburn. MICHIGAN.--Augustus C. Baldwin, Fernando C. Beaman, John F. Driggs, Fracis W. Kellogg, John W. Longyear, Charles Upson. MINNESOTA.--Ignatius Donnelly, William Windom. MISSOURI.--Francis P. Blair, Jr., seat successfully contested by Samuel Knox; Henry T. Blow, Sempronius H. Boyd; _William A. Hall; Austin A. King_; Samuel Knox, seated in place of Mr. Blair, June 15, 1864; Benjamin Loan; Joseph W. McClurg; James S. Rollins, _John G. Scott_. NEVADA.--Henry G. Worthington, seated Dec. 21, 1864. NEW HAMPSHIRE.--Daniel Marcy, James W. Patterson, Edward H. Rollins. NEW JERSEY.--George Middleton, Nehemiah Perry, Andrew J. Rogers, John F. Starr, William G. Steele. NEW YORK.--James Brooks; John W. Chanler; Ambrose W. Clark; Freeman Clarke; Thomas T. Davis; Reuben E. Fenton, resigned Dec. 10, 1864; Augustus Frank; John Ganson; John A. Griswold; _Anson Herrick_; Giles W. Hotchkiss; Calvin T. Hulburd; Martin Kalbfleisch; Orlando Kellogg; Francis Kernan; De Witt C. Littlejohn; James M. Marvin; Samuel F. Miller; Daniel Morris; _Homer A. Nelson; Moses F. Odell_; Theodore M. Pomeroy; _John V. L. Pruyn; William Radford; Henry G. Stebbins_, resigned 1864; John B. Steele; Dwight Townsend, elected in place of Mr. Stebbins; Robert B. Van Valkenburgh; _Elijah Ward; Charles H. Winfield; Benjamin Wood; Fernando Wood_. OHIO.--James M. Ashley, George Bliss, Samuel S. Cox, Ephraim B. Eckley, William E. Finck, James A. Garfield, _Wells A. Hutchins, William Johnson, Francis C. LeBlond, Alexander Long, John F. McKinney, James R. Morris, Warren P. Noble, John O'Neill, George H. Pendleton_, Robert C. Schenck, Rufus P. Spaulding, _Chilton A. White, Joseph W. White_. OREGON.--John R. McBride. PENNSYLVANIA.--Sydenham E. Ancona, Joseph Baily, John M. Broomall, _Alexander H. Coffroth, John L. Dawson, Charles Denison, James T. Hale, Philip Johnson_, William D. Kelley, _Jesse Lazear, Archibald McAllister, William H. Miller_, James K. Moorhead, Amos Myers, Leonard Myers, Charles O'Neill, Samuel J. Randall, Glenni W. Scofield, Thaddeus Stevens, John D. Stiles, Myer Strouse, M. Russell Thayer, Henry W. Tracy, Thomas Williams. RHODE ISLAND.--Nathan F. Dixon, Thomas A. Jenckes. VERMONT.--Portus Baxter, Justin S. Morrill, Fred. E. Woodbridge. WEST VIRGINIA.--Jacob B. Blair, William G. Brown, Killian V. Whaley. WISCONSIN.--James T. Brown, Amasa Cobb, Charles A. Eldridge, Walter D. McIndoe, Ithamar C. Sloan, Ezra Wheeler.

TERRITORIAL DELEGATES. ARIZONA.--Charles D. Poston. COLORADO.--Hiram P. Bennett. DAKOTA.--William Jayne, John B. S. Todd. IDAHO.--William H. Wallace. MONTANA.--Samuel McLean, seated June 6, 1865. NEBRASKA.--Samuel G. Daily. NEVADA.--Gordon N. Mott. NEW MEXICO.--Francisco Perea. UTAH.--John F. Kenney. WASHINGTON.--George E. Cole.]

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Chapter XXIV

Presidential Election of 1864.--Preliminary Movements.--General Sentiment favors Mr. Lincoln.--Some Opposition to his Renomination. --Secretary Chase a Candidate.--The "Pomeroy Circular."--Mr. Chase withdraws.--Republican National Convention.--Baltimore, June 7.-- Fremont and Cochrane nominated.--Speech of Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge. --Mr. Lincoln renominated.--Candidates for Vice-President.--Andrew Johnson of Tennessee nominated.--Democratic National Convention.-- Chicago, August 29.--Military Situation discouraging.--Character of the Convention.--Peace Party prevails.--Speeches of Belmont, Bigler, Hunt, Long, Seymour.--Nomination of General McClellan for President.--George H. Pendleton for Vice-President.--Platform.-- Suits Vallandigham.--General McClellan accepts, but evades the Platform.--General Fremont withdraws.--Success of the Union Army. --Mr. Lincoln's Popularity.--General McClellan steadily loses Ground.--Sheridan's Brilliant Victories.--General McClellan receives the Votes of only Three States.--Governor Seymour defeated in New York.

The Presidential election of 1864 was approaching, with marked political fluctuations and varying personal prospects. The tide of public feeling ebbed or flowed with the disasters or the victories of the war. The brilliant military triumphs of the summer of 1863 had quelled political opposition, and brought overwhelming success to the Republican party. This period of heroic achievement and popular enthusiasm was followed in the winter of 1863-64 by a dormant campaign, a constant waste, and an occasional reverse which produced a corresponding measure of doubt and despondency. The war had been prolonged beyond the expectation of the country; the loss of blood and of treasure had been prodigious; the rebels still flaunted their flag along the Tennessee and the Rappahannock; the public debt was growing to enormous proportions; new levies of troops were necessary; the end could not yet be seen; and all these trials and sacrifices and uncertainties had their natural effect upon the temper of the public and upon the fortunes of the war.

The preliminary movements connected with the Presidential canvass began in this period of doubt. The prevailing judgment of the Union-Republican party, with full trust in the President's sagacity and clear recognition of the injurious construction that would be put upon a change, pointed unmistakably to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. But this predominant sentiment encountered some vigorous opposition. A part of the hostility was due to a sincere though mistaken impatience with Mr. Lincoln's slow and conservative methods, and a part was due to political resentments and ambitions. The more radical element of the party was not content with the President's cautious and moderate policy, but insisted that he should proceed to extreme measures or give way to some bolder leader who would meet this demand. Other individuals had been aggrieved by personal disappointments, and the spirit of faction could not be altogether extinguished even amid the agonies of war. There were civil as well as military offices to be filled, and the selection among candidates put forward in various interests could not be made without leaving a sense of discomfiture in many breasts.

These various elements of discontent and opposition clustered about Secretary Chase, and found in him their natural leader. He was the head of the radical forces in the Cabinet, as Mr. Seward was the exponent of the conservative policy. He had been one of the earliest and most zealous chiefs of the Free-soil party, and ranked among the brightest stars in that small galaxy of anti-slavery senators who bore so memorable a part in the Congressional struggles before the war. He was justly distinguished as a political leader and an able and a versatile statesman. For the part he was now desired and expected to play he had a decided inclination and not a few advantages. Keenly ambitious, he was justified by his talents, however mistaken his time and his methods, in aspiring to the highest place. His sympathies were well understood. By his unconcealed views and his direct expressions he had encouraged the movement against Mr. Lincoln. A year in advance of the Presidential election he had announced his conviction that no President should be re-elected, and had added the opinion that a man of different qualities from those of Mr. Lincoln would be needed for the next four years.

MR. CHASE A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.

Apart from the influence of his known attitude and of his recognized leadership, the opponents of Mr. Lincoln were naturally attracted to Mr. Chase by the fact that he was at the head of the department which was most potential in the distribution of patronage. If the purpose was not avowed, the inference was suggested that no man could do more to help himself. There had been sharp contention over the important Treasury offices in New York, in which Mr. Chase appeared on the one side and the rival influences in the Administration on the other, and this contest was interpreted as a part of the political and Presidential struggle. Mr. Chase having consented to the use of his name as a candidate, his friends began active work on his behalf. Early in the winter of 1863-64 what was known as the "Pomeroy circular" was sent out, ostensibly as a confidential paper, but promptly finding its way into print. It derived its name from the Kansas senator who was prominent in the advocacy of Mr. Chase's nomination. The circular represented that Mr. Lincoln's re-election was impossible; that his "manifest tendency toward compromises and temporary expedients of policy" rendered it undesirable; that Mr. Chase united more of the qualities needed in a President for the next four years than were combined in any other available candidate; and that steps should be taken at once to effect a general organization to promote his nomination.

But the effort met with small response. It aroused no popular sympathy. Its chief effect indeed was to call forth the always constant if sometimes latent attachment of the people to Mr. Lincoln, and to develop an irresistible desire for his re-election. A few days after the issue of the "Pomeroy circular" the Republican members of the Ohio Legislature passed a resolution in favor of Mr. Lincoln's renomination, and Mr. Chase availed himself of this unmistakable action in his own State to withdraw his name as a candidate. The signal failure of the movement however did not entirely arrest the effort to prevent Mr. Lincoln's renomination. Restless spirits still persisted in an opposition as destitute of valid reason as it was abortive in result. With the view of promptly settling the disturbing question of candidates and presenting an undivided front to the common foe, the Republican National Convention had been called to meet on the 7th of June. The selection of this early date, though inspired by the most patriotic motives, was made an additional pretext for factious warfare. An address was issued inviting the "radical men of the nation" to meet at Cleveland on the 31st of May, with the undisguised design of menacing and constraining the Republican Convention. This call passionately denounced Mr. Lincoln by implication as prostituting his position to perpetuate his own power; it virulently assailed the Baltimore Convention, though not yet held, as resting wholly on patronage; it challenged the rightful title of that authoritative tribunal of the party, and declared for the principle of one term. There had been no election of delegates to this Cleveland assemblage, and it possessed no representative character. It was simply a mass convention, and numbered about a hundred and fifty persons claiming to come from fifteen different States.

The platform adopted by the Convention was brief, and in some directions extreme. It demanded that the rebellion be suppressed without compromise, and that the right of habeas corpus and the privilege of asylum be held inviolate; declared for the Monroe doctrine and for constitutional amendments prohibiting the re- establishment of Slavery and providing for the election of President for one term only and by direct vote of the people; and finally advocated the confiscation of the lands of rebels and their distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers. General Fremont was selected as the candidate for President, and General John Cochrane of New York for Vice-President. General Fremont hurried forward his letter of acceptance, which was dated only four days after his nomination and three days before the Baltimore Convention. It repudiated the proposed confiscation, but approved the remainder of the platform. It was chiefly devoted to a vehement attack upon Mr. Lincoln's Administration, which was charged with incapacity and with infidelity to the principles it was pledged to maintain. General Fremont further hinted that if the Baltimore Convention would select some candidate other than Mr. Lincoln he would retire from the contest, but plainly declared that if the President were renominated there would be no alternative but to organize every element of opposition against him.

Three days before the Baltimore Convention, a mass meeting was held in New York to give public voice to the gratitude of the country to General Grant and his command, for their patriotic and successful services. While this was the avowed object of the demonstration, there was a suspicion that it had a political design and that its real purpose was to present General Grant as a Presidential candidate. If such were the intent, it was effectually frustrated both by the emphatic refusal of General Grant to countenance the use of his name, and by the admirable and impressive letter of Mr. Lincoln. Paying a warm tribute to the heroic commander of the army, the President said appealingly, "He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting you will so shape your good words that they may turn to men and guns, moving to his and their support." This patriotic singleness of thought for the country's safety defeated and scattered all more political plans, and the hearts of the people turned more and more to Mr. Lincoln. He had been steadily growing in the esteem of his countrymen. The patience, wisdom, and fidelity with which he had guided the government during its unprecedented trials and dangers had won the profound respect and affection of the people. Besides this deepening sentiment of personal devotion and confidence, there was a wide conviction that, in his own expressive phrase, "it is not wise to swap horses while crossing the stream."

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Under these circumstances the Union-Republican National Convention met in Baltimore. The feeling with which it convened was one of patriotic and exultant confidence. The doubts prevailing a few months before had been dissipated. The accession of General Grant to the command of all our armies, and the forward movement both in the East and in the West, inspired faith in the speedy and complete triumph of the Union cause. Many eminent men were included in the roll of delegates to the Convention. Not less than five of the leading War Governors were chosen to participate in its councils. Vermont sent Solomon Foot who had stood faithful in the Senate during the struggles before the war. Massachusetts had commissioned her eloquent Governor John A. Andrew; the delegation from New York embraced Henry J. Raymond; Daniel S. Dickinson, who was to be prominently named for Vice-President; and Lyman Tremain who, like Dickinson, was one of the able war Democrats that had joined the Republican party. New Jersey and Ohio each sent two ex-governors --Marcus L. Ward and William A. Newell from the former, and William Dennison and David Tod from the latter. Simon Cameron, Thaddeus Stevens, and Ex-Speaker Grow of Pennsylvania; Governor Blair and Omer D. Conger of Michigan; Angus Cameron of Wisconsin and George W. McCrary of Iowa were among the other delegates who have since been identified with public affairs and have occupied positions of responsibility.

In calling the Convention to order Governor Morgan of New York made a brief speech advocating a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge of Kentucky was chosen temporary chairman. The appearance on the platform of this venerable and venerated divine was in itself an event of great interest. By birth and association he was connected with the aristocratic class which furnished the pillars of the Confederacy; he belonged to a family conspicuously identified with the rebellion; yet among his own order he was the strongest and sturdiest champion of the Union cause south of the Ohio. His pointed eloquence was equaled by his indomitable courage. The aggressive qualities of his staunch Scotch ancestry shone in his own resolute and unyielding character, and he was distinguished both in Church and in State as an able and uncompromising controversialist. His years and his history inspired a general feeling of reverence; and as he was conducted to the chair of the Convention, his tall figure, strong face, and patriarchal beard imparted to him something of personal majesty. His speech well illustrated his rugged attributes of character. It was sharp, sinewy, and defiant. At the beginning he hurled out the declaration that "the nation shall not be destroyed;" and referring to the plea which treated the Constitution as the sacred shield of the system that was waging war on the Union and which insisted that it must remain untouched, he proclaimed that "we shall change the Constitution if it suits us to do so." He solemnly affirmed "that the only enduring, the only imperishable cement of all free institutions has been the blood of traitors." He alluded to the fact that he had lived amid the surroundings of slavery, and had been among those who sustained and upheld the system; but, recognizing that it was this institution which had lifted the sword against the Union, he aroused the enthusiasm of his vast audience by his unhesitating declaration that we must "use all power to exterminate and extinguish it." Next to the official platform itself, the speech of Dr. Breckinridge was the most inspiring utterance of the Convention.

When the question of calling the roll of the Southern States and of receiving their delegates was reached, Thaddeus Stevens objected on the ground that such an act might be regarded as recognizing the right of States in rebellion to participate in the Electoral College. The Convention decided however to call the roll of all the States, and to refer the question of admitting their delegates to the Committee on Credentials. Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio was elected permanent president. Preston King of New York from the Committee on Credentials reported in favor of admitting the Radical Union delegation from Missouri, and excluding the Conservative Union or Blair delegation. It was proposed to amend by admitting both delegations to seats; but the recognition of the Radical Union delegation was urged on the ground not only that they were regularly elected, but that it was the duty of the Convention to strengthen the advanced Union sentiment of the South, and that their admission would be the practical adhesion of the national party to the broad anti-slavery policy which was essential to the salvation of the country. This view prevailed by a vote of 440 to 4. The admission of the delegations from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana was a question of no less interest. It involved the effect of the rebellion upon the relation of the rebelling States to the Union. Could they have a voice in public affairs without specific measures of restoration, or were the acts of secession a nullity without influence upon their legal status? The committee reported in favor of admitting the delegations from these States, without the right to vote. The chairman, Mr. King, was the only member who dissented, and he moved to amend by admitting them on the same footing as all the other delegates. The question was first taken on Tennessee, and the amendment was carried by a vote of 310 to 153--a decision which had an important bearing on the subsequent nomination for Vice-President. The delegates from Arkansas and Louisiana were given the right to vote by 307 to 167. The Territories of Colorado, Nebraska, and Nevada were soon to enter the Union as States, and their delegates were allowed to vote. The remaining Territories and the States of Virginia and Florida were admitted without the right to vote.

THE PLATFORM AND THE CANDIDATE.

With the completion of the organization the Committee on Resolutions made their report through Mr. Henry J. Raymond. The platform upon which it had unanimously agreed was a trenchant and powerful declaration of policy. Its tone was elevated, its expression was direct and unequivocal. It pledged every effort to aid the Government in quelling by force of arms the rebellion against its authority; it approved "the determination of the government not to compromise with rebels nor to offer them any terms of peace except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States;" and it called upon the government to prosecute the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the Rebellion. It resolved that "as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of Republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic;" and it declared for "such an amendment to the Constitution as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits or jurisdiction of the United States." The heroism of the soldiers and sailors of the Republic was gratefully acknowledged. The wisdom, patriotism, and fidelity of President Lincoln, and his measures for the defense of the nation were approved. A general expression that harmony should prevail in the national councils was interpreted as contemplating a possible reconstruction of the Cabinet. Declarations for the encouragement of foreign immigration by a liberal policy, for the speedy construction of a Pacific railroad, for the inviolability of the National faith, and for the re-assertion of the Monroe doctrine, completed a platform which in all its parts was pervaded by the most vigorous spirit. Its commanding feature was its explicit demand for the abolition of slavery. The President's Proclamation of Emancipation had been issued more than a year before, but this was the first National assemblage with power to make it the fixed policy of a party. The Baltimore platform, which was adopted by acclamation, made this the paramount issue, and from that hour Freedom and the Union were inseparably associated.

The nomination for President being in order, there was a strife for the honor of naming Mr. Lincoln. General Simon Cameron offered a resolution declaring Abraham Lincoln the choice of the Union party for President, and Hannibal Hamlin its candidate for Vice- President. To this proposition the immediate objection was made that it might be open to the misconstruction of not permitting a free vote, and that it complicated the selection for the first place with a contest over the second. After some discussion General Cameron withdrew his resolution, and on a general demand, in order to remove all ground for the charge that the nomination was forced, the roll of the Convention was called. Abraham Lincoln was named by 497 delegates,--all of the Convention except the 22 from Missouri, who under instructions voted for General Grant. Amid great enthusiasm Mr. Lincoln's nomination was then declared to be unanimous.

CANDIDATES FOR THE VICE-PRESIDENT.

The Vice-Presidency had excited an animated contest. While many felt that the old ticket should remain unbroken, and that Mr. Hamlin should continue to be associated with Mr. Lincoln, there was a wide sentiment in favor of recognizing the war Democrats, who had acted with the Union party, by selecting one of their number for the second place. Two prominent representatives of this class were suggested,--Daniel S. Dickinson of New York and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. One was identified with the patriotic Democrats of the North and the other with the sturdy and intrepid Unionists of the South. Mr. Dickinson, by reason both of his earnest loyalty and of his coming from the important State of New York, was regarded in many quarters with special favor. The Massachusetts delegation early declared their preference, and sent a message to the New-York delegation announcing their purpose to vote for him if New York would present him as a candidate. Had New York given him a united support his nomination would not have been doubtful. But the very reasons which commended him in other sections excited jealousy in his own State, and prompted an opposition which led to his defeat.

Mr. Dickinson's career had been long and honorable. He had been chosen to the State Senate in 1837, and quickly attained a leading place. After serving as lieutenant-governor, he was in 1844 appointed United-States senator by Governor Bouck to fill a vacancy, and was subsequently elected by the Legislature for a full term. Appearing in the Senate at the important juncture when the annexation of Texas and the Mexican war were agitating the country, he soon took an active part in the discussions. He was particularly distinguished for his aptness in repartee, and for his keen and incisive humor. Politically he belonged to the conservative or Hunker wing of the Democracy. Entering the Senate just as Silas Wright was leaving it to assume the Governor's chair, he joined Secretary Marcy and the influences that moulded Polk's Administration, against the able and powerful statesman who had so long held sway over the Democratic party in New York. Mr. Dickinson's talent made him the leader of the Hunkers, and in 1852 he was one of their candidates for President. When the war came, he declared himself unreservedly on the side of the Government, and rendered valuable service to the Union party. He was especially effective on the stump. His sharp wit, his rich fund of anecdotes, his sparkling humor, his singular felicity and aptness of biblical illustration, which had earned for him the popular name of "Scripture Dick," served to give him wonderful command over an audience, and the effect was heightened by his personal appearance, which his long, flowing silvery locks made strikingly impressive.

The suggestion of Mr. Dickinson's name for Vice-President was cordially received by many delegates. But some of the controlling influences among the New-York Republicans were not well disposed towards the advancement of those who came from the Democratic ranks. They feared, besides, that if the candidate from Vice-President were taken from New York, it might prejudice her claims for the Cabinet, and might endanger Mr. Seward's position as Secretary of State. For these reasons their influence was thrown against Mr. Dickinson's nomination. On a test-vote in the New-York delegation, Dickinson received 28, Johnson 22, and Hamlin 6. This result was fatal to Mr. Dickinson's chances, and brought Mr. Johnson prominently forward. His record and character had much to attract the patriotic respect of the country. The vigor and boldness with which, though a Southern senator, he had denounced secession at the beginning of the outbreak, had taken strong hold of the popular heart. The firmness and unyielding loyalty he had displayed as Military Governor of Tennessee greatly deepened the favorable impression. The delegates from his own and other Southern States had been admitted to the Convention as an evidence that the Republican party honored the tried and faithful loyalists of the South, and many felt that the nomination of Mr. Johnson would emphasize this sentiment, and free the party from the imputation of sectional passion and purpose. The ballot for Vice-President gave Johnson 200; Dickinson 113; Hamlin 145; General B. F. Butler 26; General L. H. Rousseau 21; with a few scattering votes. Before the final announcement, several delegations changed to Johnson, until as declared the ballot stood, Johnson 492; Dickinson 17; Hamlin 9. Mr. Johnson was then unanimously nominated. The Convention had completed its work, and the results were hailed with satisfaction throughout the country.

The Republicans had been compelled in 1856 and 1860 to nominate their candidates both for President and Vice-President from the North. This was contrary to the patriotic traditions of the country with which a single exception had in all parties divided the candidates between the two great sections of the country. Strangely enough both parties violated the practice in the exciting canvass of 1828, when Jackson and Calhoun were the candidates of the Democratic party and Adams and Rush were the candidates of the National Republican party. The nomination now of Andrew Johnson from the South tended, in the phrase of the day, to nationalize the Republican party, and this consideration gave it popularity throughout the North. It was nevertheless felt by many of Mr. Hamlin's friends to be an injustice to him. But it did him no injury. He accepted the result in a cordial manner and worked earnestly for the success of the nominees. The whole country saw that the grounds upon which Mr. Hamlin was superseded were not in derogation of the honorable record he had made in his long and faithful public career.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1864.

The Democratic National Convention was held nearly three months after the Republican Convention had renominated Mr. Lincoln, and only two months prior to the election. It had originally been called to meet in Chicago on the 4th of July; but as the time approached, the brighter military prospects and the rekindled national hopes left a darker Democratic outlook, and the assembling of the Convention had been delayed to the 29th of August. Several reasons had combined to secure the selection of this unusually late day. It gave longer opportunity to observe the course of the military campaign, and to take advantage of any unfavorable exigencies; it allowed more time to compose Democratic dissensions; and it furnished more scope for the party, whose chances rested solely upon the degree of popular discontent, to seize upon any disturbed state of the public mind, and turn it to account.

The delay of nearly two months had been accompanied by a marked change in the situation. The advance of the Union cause which had depressed Democratic expectations in the spring, had been succeeded by inactivity and doubts which revived Democratic hopes in August. The postponement which had been ordered that they might avail themselves of any unfavorable course of affairs, thus deluded them into a bold abandonment of all reserve. Changes in the military situation were sometimes sudden and swift. Had the Convention been postponed another week, its tone and action might have been essentially different; for its tumultuous session had scarcely closed before the clouds that hung over the country during the summer were scattered, and our armies entered upon the most brilliant movements and triumphs of the war--triumphs which did not cease until the surrender at Appomattox.

But the Convention assembled at a time of uncertainty if not of gloom and depression. The issue of the great struggle was not yet clear. General Grant, with his unquailing resolution "to fight it out on this line," had cut his way through the Wilderness over the bloody field of Spotsylvania, and against the deadly lines of Cold Harbor. He had fastened his iron grip upon Petersburg, and there the opposing armies were still halting in their trenches. In the Shenandoah Valley, Early was defiant and aggressive. In the West, the delay at Kennesaw, the fall of the heroic McPherson, and other reverses had marked a campaign of slow advances. The assaults upon Mr. Lincoln's Administration had been renewed with increased venom and persistence. Mistaken and abortive peace negotiations with pretended rebel commissioners at Niagara Falls had provoked much criticism and given rise to unfounded charges. The loyal spirit and purpose of the people were unshaken; but there was some degree of popular impatience with the lack of progress, and it was the expectation of the Democratic managers that the restive feeling might be turned into the channel of opposition to the Administration.

The Convention included among its delegates many of the most distinguished leaders of the Democratic party. Massachusetts sent Josiah G. Abbott and George Lunt. The credentials of Connecticut were borne by the positive and aggressive William W. Eaton. Among the representatives of New York were the accomplished Governor Seymour; the acute Dean Richmond; Samuel J. Tilden, who had not yet achieved his national distinction; Sanford E. Church, who afterwards became chief judge of the Court of Appeals; and Ex- Governor Washington Hunt, whose Silver-Gray conservatism had carried him into the Democratic party. Ohio counted on the roll of her delegates William Allen, who had been the contemporary of Webster and Clay in the Senate; George H. Pendleton and Allen G. Thurman, who were yet to take high rank in that body; and Clement L. Vallandigham, just then more prominent with a doubtful celebrity than any one of his abler colleagues. Pennsylvania contributed Ex- Governor Bigler, and William A. Wallace already showing the political talent which afterwards gave him a leading position. The Indiana delegation was led by Joseph E. McDonald, and the Kentucky delegation by Governor Powell, James Guthrie, and by Ex-Governor Wickliffe who had been driven by Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery policy into the ranks of his most bitter opponents. In ability and leadership the Convention fairly represented the great party whose principles and policy it had met to declare. Besides the accredited delegates, it brought together a large number of the active and ruling members of the Democratic organization. The opposition to the war was stronger in the West than in the East, and the presence of the Convention in the heart of the region where disloyal societies were rife, gathered about it a large and positive representation of the Peace party, which manifested itself in public meetings and in inflammatory utterances.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1864.

The representatives inside and outside of the Convention were united in opposing the War and in demanding Peace. But there were different shades of the Peace sentiment. One portion of the Convention, led chiefly by the adroit New-York managers, arraigned the whole conduct and policy of the Administration, and insisted upon a cessation of hostilities, but at the same time modified the force and effect of this attitude by urging the nomination of General McClellan for President. They concurred in the demand for an armistice, but made a reservation in favor of continuing the war in case the rebels refused to accept it. Another portion sought to make the declaration against the war so broad and emphatic that neither General McClellan nor any man who had been identified with the struggle for the Union could become the candidate. Both divisions agreed in denouncing the war measures of the Administration, in resisting emancipation, in calling for immediate cessation of military movements, and in opposing the requirement of any conditions from the Southern States. They differed only in the degree of their hostility to the war. The faction peculiarly distinguished as the Peace party was led by Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio, who was the central figure of the Convention. He had been conspicuous in Congress as the most vehement and violent opponent of every measure for the prosecution of the war. Subsequent events had increased his notoriety, and given explicit significance to his participation in the National Convention of his party.

The Convention, meeting in the same city where Abraham Lincoln had first been nominated four years before, struck its keynote in opposition to his Administration. Mr. August Belmont, Chairman of the National Committee, opened the proceedings with a violent speech. "Four years of misrule," he said, "by a sectional, fanatical, and corrupt party have brought our country to the very verge of ruin. . . . The past and present are sufficient warnings of the disastrous consequences which would befall us if Mr. Lincoln's re- election should be made possible by our want of patriotism and unity." In still more explicit terms he went on to picture the direful effects of that catastrophe. "The inevitable results of such a calamity," he said, "must be the utter disintegration of our whole political and social system amid bloodshed and anarchy, with the great problems of liberal progress and self-government jeopardized for generations to come."

Ex-Governor Bigler of Pennsylvania was made temporary chairman, and followed in a speech which expressed similar sentiments in more discreet and temperate language than Mr. Belmont had used. He contented himself with general utterances, and was not betrayed into personal reflections or prophecies of ruin. The organization was promptly completed, and the character of the platform was foreshadowed when it was known that Mr. Vallandigham was a ruling spirit in the Committee on Resolutions. It was a suggestive incident that Ex-Governor Wickliffe of Kentucky presented letters from two delegates chosen to represent that State, explaining their absence by the fact that they were imprisoned by the Union Government, without cause, as they alleged, but presumably for disloyal conduct. Various individual propositions were then brought forward. The temper and purpose of the Convention may be judged from the offer of a resolution by so conservative and moderate a man as Ex-Governor Hunt of New York, declaring in favor of an armistice and of a convention of States "to review and amend the Constitution so as to insure to each State the enjoyment of all its rights and the constitutional control of its domestic concerns,"--meaning in plainer words the perpetuation and protection of slavery. This policy aimed to stop the Rebellion by conceding what the rebels fought for. Then came a characteristic proposition from Alexander Long of Ohio. Mr. Long was a member of Congress, and next to Mr. Vallandigham had been most active in resisting war measures. For a speech which was treasonable in tone he had been publicly censured by the House. His proposition provided for the appointment of a committee to proceed at once to Washington, and urge President Lincoln to stop the draft until the people could decide the question of peace or war. These various propositions, following the usual course, were referred to the Committee on Resolutions.

THE PEACE POLICY PROCLAIMED.

Governor Horatio Seymour of New York was chosen president, and on taking the chair made the most elaborate and important address of the Convention. He was exceedingly popular with his party, and was justly recognized as among the ablest defenders of its views. By virtue both of his official position and of his personal strength he was looked to more than any other leader for the exposition of Democratic policy. Singularly prepossessing in manner, endowed with a rare gift of polished and persuasive speech, he put in more plausible form the extreme and virulent utterances of intemperate partisans. He was skilled in dialectics, and his rhetorical dexterity had more than once served him and his friends in good stead. He was well-nigh the idol of his party, and no other man could so effectively rally its strength or direct its policy. His address as presiding officer was intended to be free from the menacing tone which marked most of the speeches of the Convention, but it veiled the same sentiment in more subtle and specious phrase. He charged both the cause and the continuance of the war upon the Republican party. "Four years ago," he said, "a convention met in this city when our country was peaceful, prosperous, and united. Its delegates did not mean to destroy our government, to overwhelm us with debt, or to drench our land with blood; but they were animated by intolerance and fanaticism, and blinded by an ignorance of the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and the condition of our land. They thought they might safely indulge their passions, and they concluded to do so. Their passions have wrought out their natural results." Governor Seymour had no criticism for those who had drawn the sword against the government; he did not impute to them any responsibility for the war; but he charged the wrong upon those who were defending the Union. In advocating an armistice which would involve a practical surrender of the contest he said: "The Administration will not let the shedding of blood cease, even for a little time, to see if Christian charity or the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a method to save our country. Nay, more, they will not listen to a proposal for peace which does not offer that which this government has no right to ask." It was the abolition of slavery which "this government has no right to ask." As he advanced towards his conclusion Governor Seymour grew more pronounced and less discreet. "But as for us," he said, "we are resolved that the party which has made the history of our country since its advent to power seem like some unnatural and terrible dream, shall be overthrown. We have forborne much because those who are now charged with the conduct of public affairs know but little about the principles of our government." The entire speech was able, adroit, and mischievous.

In the preparation of the platform the champions of the peace policy had their own way. The friends of General McClellan were so anxious to secure his nomination and to conciliate the opposition that they studiously avoided provoking any conflict with the predominant peace sentiment. The substance and vital spirit of the platform were contained in the second resolution as follows: "That this Convention does explicitly declare as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which under the pretense of a military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with a view to an ultimate convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." The few remaining resolutions pledged fidelity to the Union, condemned the alleged interference of the military authority with certain State elections, denounced what were recited as arbitrary acts of Administrative usurpation, reprobated "the shameful disregard of the Administration of its duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who now are and long have been prisoners of war," and declared the sympathy of the Democratic party with the soldiers of the Republic.

The extreme Peace party having carried the platform, the less radical section of the Convention secured the candidate for President. But General McClellan was not nominated without a vehement protest. The presentation of his name was the signal for a stormy debate. Mr. Harris of Maryland passionately declared that one man named as a candidate "was a tyrant." "He it was," continued the speaker, "who first initiated the policy by which our rights and liberties were stricken down. That man is George B. McClellan. Maryland which has suffered so much at the hands of that man will not submit in silence to his nomination." This attack produced great confusion, and to justify his course Mr. Harris read General McClellan's order for the arrest of the Maryland Legislature. He proceeded, "All the charges of usurpation and tyranny that can be brought against Lincoln and Butler can be made and substantiated against McClellan. He is the assassin of State rights, the usurper of liberty, and if nominated will be beaten everywhere, as he was at Antietam."

General Morgan of Ohio warmly defended McClellan. He declared that there was a treasonable conspiracy in Maryland to pass an ordinance of secession, and that McClellan had thwarted it. Mr. Long espoused the other side. "You have arraigned Lincoln," he said, "as being guilty of interfering with the freedom of speech, the freedom of elections, and of arbitrary arrests, and yet you propose to nominate a man who has gone even farther than Lincoln has gone in the perpetration of similar tyrannical measures. McClellan is guilty of the arrest of the Legislature of a sovereign State. He has suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and helped to enforce the odious Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln, the wiling instrument of a corrupt and tyrannical administration. He has aided while possessing military power all its efforts to strip American freemen of their liberties."

The heated debate lasted till darkness forced an adjournment, and on re-assembling in the morning a ballot was immediately taken. General McClellan received 162 votes, and 64 votes were divided among Horatio Seymour, Thomas H. Seymour of Connecticut and others; but before the result was announced several changes were made, and the vote as finally declared as 2021/2 for McClellan and 231/2 for Thomas H. Seymour. For Vice-President two ballots were taken. On the first, James Guthrie of Kentucky had 651/2 votes; George H. Pendleton of Ohio, 541/2; Governor Powell of Kentucky, 321/2; George W. Cass of Pennsylvania, 26. Mr. Guthrie had been identified with the war party; Mr. Pendleton as a member of Congress had opposed the war and was the favorite of the Peace party; and on the second ballot Mr. Guthrie's name was withdrawn and Mr. Pendleton unanimously nominated. This act completed the work of the Convention.

RE-ACTION AGAINST THE DEMOCRACY.

The response of the country to the action of the Democratic representatives was an immediate outburst of indignant rebuke. There were thousands of patriotic Democrats who deeply resented the hostility of the Convention to the loyal sentiment of the people, and who felt that it was as fatal as it was offensive. The general expression of condemnation, and the manifestations on all sides foreshadowed the doom of the Chicago ticket. General McClellan and his friends felt the necessity of doing something to placate the aroused sentiment which they could not resist, and he vainly sought to make his letter of acceptance neutralize the baneful effect of the Democratic platform.

In truth General McClellan practically disavowed the platform. He ignored the demand for a cessation of hostilities and the declaration that the war was a failure. "The re-establishment of the Union," he said, "in all its integrity is and must continue to be the indispensable condition in any settlement. So soon as it as clear, or even probable, that our present adversaries are ready for peace upon the basis of the Union, we should exhaust all the resources of statesmanship practiced by civilized nations and taught by the traditions of the American people, consistent with the honor and interests of the country, to secure such peace, re-establish the Union, and guarantee for the future the constitutional rights of every State. The Union is the one condition of peace. We ask no more." While thus proposing to "exhaust the resources of statesmanship" to secure peace, he indicated that if such efforts were unavailing the responsibility for consequences would fall upon those who remained in arms against the Union. But the letter failed to attain its object. Its dissent from the dangerous and obnoxious propositions of the platform was too guarded and reserved to be satisfactory. The people felt moreover that the deliberate declarations of the Convention and not the individual expressions of the candidate defined the policy of the party.

One of the first results of the Democratic position was the withdrawal of General Fremont from the canvass. As a loyal man he could not fail to see that his position was entirely untenable. Either Mr. Lincoln or General McClellan would be the next President and his duty was made so plain that he could not hesitate. The argument for Mr. Lincoln's re-election addressed itself with irresistible force to the patriotic sentiment and sober judgment of the country. Apart from every consideration growing out of the disloyal attitude of the Democratic Convention, it was felt that the rejection of Mr. Lincoln would be regarded by the rebels as the condemnation of the war policy and would encourage them to renewed, prolonged, and more desperate resistance. This conviction appealed to patriotic men of all parties. Mere political feeling largely subsided, and the people were actuated by a higher sense of public duty. Especially was every effort made to remove all grounds of difference which had divided members of the Union party. The Baltimore platform indicated some dissatisfaction with the Cabinet, and, acting upon this suggestion, the President requested and received the resignation of Postmaster-General Blair. It is but just to Mr. Blair to say that he gave to Mr. Lincoln his earnest and faithful support in the election.

From the hour of the Chicago Convention the whole course of events steadily strengthened the canvass for Mr. Lincoln. The turn of the political tide came with sudden and overpowering force. The news of the capture of Fort Morgan burst upon the Democratic Convention while it was declaring the war a failure, and the day after its adjournment brought the still more inspiring intelligence that Sherman had taken Atalanta. The swift successes of Farragut in Mobile Bay, following the fall of the rebel stronghold in the South, filled the country with joy. Within two days from the hour when the Chicago delegates separated with the demand for a practical surrender to the rebellion, President Lincoln was able to issue a proclamation for thanksgiving in all the churches for the great Union triumphs; and this was followed by national salutes from every navy-yard and arsenal and from all military headquarters. The political effect of the victories was instantaneous and overwhelming. As Secretary Seward expressed it in a public speech, "Sherman and Farragut have knocked the planks out of the Chicago platform."

GREAT VICTORY FOR MR. LINCOLN.

The tide of victory swept on. While Grant was holding Lee as in a vise at Petersburg, and Sherman was breaking the shell of the Confederacy at Atlanta, Sheridan was dashing through the Shenandoah Valley. Three striking victories crowned his bold and brilliant progress. The battles of Winchester and Fisher's Hill came within three weeks of Atlanta and within three days of each other. The third exploit at Cedar Creek was still more dramatic and thrilling. The succession of matchless triumphs was the theme of every journal and every orator, and the North was aflame with the enthusiasm it kindled. In the light of the answer flashed back from a score of battle-fields, the Chicago declaration that the war was a failure was not only seen to be unpatriotic and mischievous but was made contemptible by universal ridicule and obloquy.

The political effect of these victories was precisely what Mr. Lincoln had foreseen and foretold. Speaking of the issue to a friend, he said, "With reverses in the field the case is doubtful at the polls. With victory in the field the election will take care of itself." And so it was. Vermont and Maine in September, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in October, registered in advance the edict of the people in regard to the Presidency. The result in November was an overwhelming triumph for Mr. Lincoln. Of the twenty-two States participating in the election, General McClellan received the electoral vote of but three. It is perhaps a still stronger statement to say that of the eighteen free States he received the vote of but one. New Jersey gave him her electors, and Kentucky and Delaware, angered by the impending destruction of Slavery, turned against the Administration and against the prosecution of the war. Maryland had escaped from all influences connected with Slavery by its abolition the preceding October, and now cast her vote for Mr. Lincoln. Missouri and West Virginia, the only other slave States loyal to the Union, stood firmly by the President. Mr. Lincoln received two hundred and twelve electoral votes and General McClellan received twenty-one.

The chief interest of the whole country for the last month of the campaign had centred in New York. As nearly as Mr. Lincoln was willing to regard a political contest as personal to himself, he had so regarded the contest between Mr. Seymour and Mr. Fenton. Governor Seymour's speech in the Chicago Convention had been an indictment of a most malignant type against the Administration. The President felt that he was himself wholly wrong or Governor Seymour was wholly wrong, and the people of New York were to decide which. They rendered their verdict in the election of Reuben E. Fenton to the Governorship by a majority of thousands over Mr. Seymour. Without that result Mr. Lincoln's triumph would have been incomplete. For its accomplishment great credit was awarded to the Republican candidate for the admirable thoroughness of his canvass and for the judicious direction of public thought to the necessity of vindicating the President against the aspersions of Mr. Seymour. The victory in the Nation was the most complete ever achieved in an election that was seriously contested.

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Chapter XXV

President's Message, December, 1864.--General Sherman's March.-- Compensated Emancipation abandoned.--Thirteenth Amendment.--Earnestly recommended by the President.--He appeals to the Democratic Members. --Mr. Ashley's Energetic Work.--Democratic Opportunity.--Unwisely neglected.--Mr. Pendleton's Argument.--Final Vote.--Amendment adopted.--Cases arising under it.--Supreme Court.--Change of Judges at Different Periods.--Peace Conference at Fortress Monroe.-- Secretary Chase resigns.--Mr. Fessenden succeeds him.--Mr. Fessenden's Report.--Surrender of Lee.--General Grant's Military Character.-- Assassination of President Lincoln.--His Characteristics.--Cost of the War.--Compared with Wars of Other Nations.--Our Navy.--Created during the War.--Effective Blockade.--Its Effect upon the South.-- Its Influence upon the Struggle.--Relative Numbers in Loyal and Disloyal States.--Comparison of Union and Confederate Armies.-- Confederate Army at the Close of the War.--Union Armies compared with Armies of Foreign Countries.--Area of the War.--Its Effect upon the Cost.--Character of Edwin M. Stanton.

Sustained by so emphatic a vote of popular confidence, President Lincoln greeted Congress on the first Monday of December, 1864, with a hopeful and cheerful message. He reported that our armies, holding all the lines and positions gained, "have steadily advanced, thus liberating the regions left in the rear." The President regarded "General Sherman's march of three hundred miles directly through an insurgent country" as the "most remarkable feature in the military operations of the year." It was in progress when the President delivered his message, and "the result not yet being known, conjecture in regard to it cannot be here indulged." The President reported that the actual disbursements in money from the Treasury for the past fiscal year were $865,234,087.86.

Mr. Lincoln had finally abandoned the project of compensating the Border States for their loss of property in slaves. The people of those States had, through their representatives, blindly and willfully rejected the offer when it was urged upon them by the Administration, and had defeated the bill embodying the proposition on the eve of its passage in the House when it had already passed the Senate. The situation was now entirely changed. Maryland, without waiting for National action and regardless of compensation, had in the preceding October taken the matter under her own control and deliberately abolished slavery. Mr. Lincoln now announced the State as "secure to liberty and union for all the future. The genius of rebellion will no longer claim Maryland. Like another foul spirit being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will woo her no more." There was no reason why the other Border States should not follow her example--and there was the strongest argument against compensating another State for doing what Maryland had done of her own free will and from an instinct of patriotism, as the one act which would conclusively separate her from all possibility of sympathy with the rebellion.

Freed thus from what he may have regarded as the obligations of his Border-State policy and upheld by the great popular majority which he had received in the election, the President warmly recommended to Congress the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. He called attention to the fact that it had already received the sanction of the Senate, but failed in the House for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote. There was no doubt that the large Republican majority, already elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress, would adopt the Amendment, but such adoption implied postponement for a whole year, with loss of the moral influence which would be gained by prompter action. It implied also that the Amendment would depend solely upon Republican votes, and the President was especially anxious that it should receive Democratic support. Still another reason wrought upon the President's mind. He believed the rebellion to be near its end, and no man could tell how soon a proposition might come for the surrender of the Confederate Armies and the return of the Rebel States to their National allegiance. If such a proposition should be made, Mr. Lincoln knew that there would be a wild desire among the loyal people to accept it, and that in the forgiving joy of re-union they would not insist upon the conditions which he believed essential to the future safety and strength of the National Government. Slavery had been abolished in the District of Columbia by a law of Congress, and in Maryland by her own action. It still existed in the other Border States and in Tennessee, and its abolition in the remaining States of the Confederacy depended upon the validity of the President's Proclamation of Emancipation.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.

Without discussing the validity of the Proclamation Mr. Lincoln incidentally assumed it, with an emphatic assertion of his own position, which came nearer the language of threat than his habitual prudence and moderation had ever permitted him to indulge. "In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war," said the President, "I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. . . . While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proclamation or by any of the Acts of Congress. If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.." This was fair notice by Mr. Lincoln to all the world that so long as he was President the absolute validity of the Proclamation would be maintained at all hazards.

This position enabled the President to plead effectively with Congress for the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment and the consequent avoidance of all possible conflicts between different departments of the Government touching the legal character of the Proclamation. Recognizing the fact that he was addressing the same House of Representatives which had already rejected the anti-slavery amendment, he made a special appeal, though without using partisan names, to the Democratic members. "Without questioning the wisdom or patriotism of those who stood in opposition," said the President, "I venture to recommend the reconsideration and passage of the measure at the present session. Of course the abstract question is not changed, but an intervening election shows almost certainly that the next Congress will pass the measure if this Congress does not. Hence there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment will go to the States for their action, and as it is to go at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the better?" He urged the argument still more closely upon the Democratic members. "In a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable, almost indispensable, and yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority." Mr. Lincoln found much encouragement in the fact that in the national election "no candidate for any office whatever, high or low, ventured to seek votes on the avowal that he was in favor of giving up the Union. . . . In the distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people."

The proposed Constitutional amendment was brought before the House on the 6th of January by Mr. Ashley of Ohio, upon whose motion to reconsider the adverse vote of the preceding session, the question continued to have a parliamentary status. He made a forcible speech in support of the amendment, but the chief value of his work did not consist in speaking, but in his watchful care of the measure, in the quick and intuitive judgment with which he discerned every man on the Democratic side of the House who felt anxious as to the vote he should give on the momentous question, and in the pressure which he brought to bear upon him from the best and most influential of his constituents. The issue presented was one that might well make thoughtful men pause and consider. The instant restoration to four millions of human beings of the God-given right of freedom so long denied them, depended upon the vote of the House of Representatives. It addressed itself to the enlightened judgment and to the Christian philanthropy of every member. Each one had to decide for himself whether so far as lay in the power of his own vote he would give liberty to the slave, or forge his fetters anew. The constitutional duty of not interfering with slavery in the States could not be pleaded at the bar of conscience for an adverse vote. There was no doubt that under the terms of the Constitution such interference was unwarranted. But this was a question of changing the Constitution itself so as to confer upon Congress the express power to enlarge the field of personal liberty and make the Republic free indeed. It came therefore as an original and a distinct question whether millions of people with their descendants for all time should be doomed to slavery or gifted with freedom.

It was a singular opportunity for the Democratic party. Its members had always professed to be endued with a broader spirit of liberty than their opponents who under various organizations had confronted them in the political contests of the preceding half-century. In their evangelization of Liberty the Democrats had halted at the color-line, but, as they alleged, only because the solemn obligations of the Constitution forbade a step beyond. Here by the converging exigencies of war it became of vast interest to the white race that slavery should be smitten and destroyed. Its destruction was indeed the deadliest blow that could be given to the Rebellion which was threatening destruction to the Republic. It was not unfair to say, as was said by many during the crisis, that it was brought to every man's conscience to decide whether he would continue to imperil the fate of the Union by refusing the enfranchise the slave.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.

It fell to Mr. George H. Pendleton to play an important part in this crisis. His leadership on the Democratic side of the House had been confirmed by the popular voice of his party in the nomination for the Vice-Presidency, and though he had been defeated in the election he returned to the House with increased prestige among his own political associates. The argument he had made the preceding session was now repeated with earnest spirit and in plausible form. He maintained that "three-fourths of the States do not possess the constitutional power to pass this amendment." A colleague from Ohio (Mr. S. S. Cox) had made a radical argument in the other direction, asserting that "three-fourths of the States have the right to amend the Constitution in every particular except the two specified in the instrument; they have the right to do any thing, even to erect a monarchy!" Without carrying the argument so far, Mr. Cox might well have reminded his colleague that four years before, in the winter of compromise preceding the war, the one point sought to be gained by all who asked additional guaranties for slavery was that the power to abolish the institution by constitutional amendment should be taken from the States. It would have been a precious consolation at the time to Mr. Pendleton's Southern friends, to hear from him the argument that no such power existed and that slavery was in no danger from its attempted exercise. Such action by the Federal Government was the one thing which the South had especially dreaded and which all the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Congress of 1861 aimed to prevent. Mr. Pendleton omitted his argument therefore at the most pertinent time for its submission, but he made it now with freshness and vigor and with evident effect upon his political associates.

Mr. Pendleton was very effectively answered by many members on the Republican side of the House; by General Garfield elaborately, by Mr. Boutwell briefly but most pointedly. The debate was prolonged and able. At least one-third of the entire House took part in it. The ground was somewhat beaten, but many of the arguments were of permanent historic interest. Among the most valuable were the speeches of Mr. Glenni W. Scofield of Pennsylvania, Mr. John A. Kasson of Iowa, and Mr. James S. Rollins of Missouri. As the representative of a slave-holding constituency the argument and vote of Mr. Rollins were of special weight. The tone and temper of the speeches exhibited assurance on one side and failing confidence on the other. The moral pressure was steadily for the Amendment and its strength grew rapidly both in Congress and the country. It had been borne into the minds of the people that slavery had produced the war, and it seemed a righteous retribution that slavery should end with the war. It had drawn the sword; let it perish by the sword.

When the hour arrived for the final struggle, on Tuesday, January 31, 1865, the galleries of the House were filled in every part, largely no doubt by friends of the measure. There were eight absentees, without pairs. They were all Democrats. It may be assumed that they assented to the amendment, but that they were not prepared to give it positive support. This list comprised Jesse Lazear of Pennsylvania, John F. McKinney and Francis C. Le Blond of Ohio, Daniel W. Voorhees and James F. McDowell of Indiana, George Middleton and A. J. Rogers of New Jersey, and Daniel Marcy of New Hampshire. The members of the Democratic party who gave their votes for the amendment, and thus secured its passage by the Thirty-eighth Congress, were James E. English of Connecticut, Anson Herrick, William Radford, Homer A. Nelson, John B. Steele and John Ganson of New York, A. H. Coffroth and Archibald McAllister of Pennsylvania, Wells A. Hutchins of Ohio, and Augustus C. Baldwin of Michigan. Mr. Nelson had not voted at the first session, but all the others are recorded against the proposition. With the aid of these eleven, the vote was 119 yeas to 56 nays--more than the constitutional two-thirds. When the announcement was made, the Speaker became powerless to preserve order. The members upon the Republican side sprang upon their seats cheering, shouting, and waving hands, hats, and canes, while the spectators upon the floor and in the galleries joined heartily in the demonstration. Upon the restoration of order Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois rose and said, "Mr. Speaker, in honor of this immortal and sublime event, I move that this House do now adjourn." The Speaker declared the motion carried, but Mr. Harris of Maryland demanded the ayes and noes, and the House adjourned by a vote of 121 to 24.

The great act of Liberation, so far as Congress could control it, was complete. The amendment was at once submitted to the States, and by official proclamation of December 18, 1865,--less than eleven months after Congress had spoken,--the Secretary of State announced that it had been ratified by the Legislatures of twenty-seven States and was a part of the Constitution. The result was attained by the united action of one party and the aid of a minority of the other party. The co-operation of the Democratic members had gained for the cause of emancipation a whole year. The action was of transcendent importance,--lofty in conception, masterful in execution. Slavery in the United States was dead. To succeeding and not distant generations its existence in a Republic, for three-quarters of a century, will be an increasing marvel.

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT IN COURT.

The language of the Thirteenth Amendment is so comprehensive and absolute that vital questions of law are not likely at any time to arise under it. The Article is in two parts. First, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Second, Congres shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation." By this Amendment the relation between the National and State Governments, respecting the question of Human Liberty, was radically changed. Before its adoption slavery could be established or abolished in any State at the will of the majority. The National prohibition now extended everywhere that the flag floated; freedom of the person became thenceforth a matter of National concern. The power of the State was subordinated to the continuing and supreme authority of the Nation.

The Supreme Court has had occasion in a few cases only to deal with the Thirteenth Amendment, and in those cases the questions raised did not touch the validity or scope of the Article. In the case of White v. Hart, reported in 13 Wallace, the Court held that a note given for slaves at a time prior to emancipation was a valid contract and could be enforced. This judgment was rendered in the face of the fact that the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Georgia, where the contract was made, contained a provision that no Court should have or take "jurisdiction in any case of debt the consideration of which was a slave or the hire thereof." The Court held that the provision in the Georgia Constitution was invalid as to all agreements made prior to its adoption, upon the ground that it was a violation of the Constitution of the United States which provides that no State shall make any law "impairing the obligation of contracts." In the case of Osborne v. Nicholson, 13 Wallace, where the cause of action was a note given for a slave in Arkansas, March 20, 1861, the Court held that the Thirteenth Amendment did not constitute a bar to the claim. These cases serve to show the narrow and restricted character of the issues made under the Article --issues long since passed by the limitation of time.

One point in the adoption of the Amendment caused much speculation at the time, not unaccompanied with anxiety. The whole number of States was thirty-six. The assent of three-fourths of that number was required to amend the Constitution. Twenty-seven States voted through their Legislatures in favor of the Amendment--precisely the requisite number. But of these, nine had been in rebellion and had not at the time been restored to the enjoyment of their rights as States in the Union. They had not been re-admitted to representation either in the House or the Senate. The majority of these States were not considered to be entitled to representation in Congress for three years after they had given their formal assent to the Thirteenth Amendment. The question as to whether they could give valid assent to an amendment to the Constitution was one which might possibly be raised. If they were not in condition to enjoy representation in Congress, it might be asked how they could be in condition to perform a much higher function. If they could not participate in the enactment of Statute Law, how could they participate in the far weightier duty of framing the Organic Law of the Republic?

If the same judges who pronounced the Dred Scott decision had been still on the Bench, serious trouble might have arisen. But there had been a radical change in the Judicial Department, not simply in the personnel of the judges but in the views they entertained touching the functions, powers, and duties of the Federal Government. It fell to Mr. Lincoln's lot to appoint a majority of the judges and thus practically to constitute a new Court. Washington, the elder Adams, and Jackson were the only Presidents before him who had appointed a Chief Justice, and when he nominated Mr. Chase, there had been only one other chief justice named for sixty-three years. He appointed as associate justices Noah Swayne of Ohio, Samuel F. Miller of Iowa, David Davis of Illinois, all in 1862, and Stephen J. Field of California the year following. Mr. Lincoln's sound judgment was apparent in this as in other great duties. There are single judges in our history who, in point of learning, rank higher in the estimation of the legal profession, but perhaps never a majority of the court who were superior in all the qualities which adorn the Judicial character.

THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT.

Considering that the tenure is for life, it seemed as if an extraordinary number of Judicial appointments fell to one President. But as the eminence which fits a man for the high station is not attained until past the middle period of life, the changes are necessarily somewhat rapid. Washington in his Presidency of eight years nominated, for a Court of six members, eleven judges who served, besides one who declined and one who was rejected. Down to this period in our history (1884) it has fallen to the lot of each of our twenty-one Presidents except Harrison, Tyler, and Johnson, to nominate at least one associate justice. Under Jackson and Van Buren the entire Court was revolutionized. A Chief Justice and six associates were appointed, selected exclusively from their political supporters. From that time onward until the Administration of Mr. Lincoln, every judge was selected from the Democratic party, with the exception of Benjamin R. Curtis who was appointed by President Fillmore. When Mr. Lincoln entered upon his official duties, the Judicial Department of the Government differenced in every conceivable way from his construction of the Constitution in so far as the question of slavery was involved. But one judge could be expected to look with favor upon the course he would pursue. The venerable John McLean, though placed on the Bench by Jackson, had changed his political views and relations, and he alone of all the justices sympathized with Mr. Lincoln.

The Southern States prior to 1860 had secured a large majority of appointments on the Supreme Bench. In originally constituting the Court Washington had equally divided the judges between the slave States and the free States. After his Administration and until the incoming of President Lincoln, the Court uniformly contained a majority of Southern men. From the beginning of the Government until the election of Mr. Lincoln, there had been eighteen associate justices appointed from the slave States, and but fifteen from the free States. The average term of service of the judges from the South had been about fourteen years; from the North about twelve years. From 1789 to 1860, the Chief Justice had been from the South during the whole period with the exception of twelve years. It is a fact worth noting that neither the elder nor the younger Adams appointed a Northern man to the Bench. They appointed three from the South. It is not among the least of the honors belonging to the elder Adams that he gave to the country the illustrious Chief Justice Marshall.

Directly after the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment came a wide- spread rumor that negotiations for peace were in progress which might interfere with the anti-slavery action of Congress. On the 8th of February Mr. Thaddeus Stevens moved and the House unanimously adopted a resolution requesting "the President to communicate to the House such information as he may deem not incompatible with the public interest relative to the recent conference between himself and the Secretary of State and Messrs. Alexander H. Stephens, Robert M. T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell in Hampton Roads." Mr. Lincoln replied at once, giving in detail every step which had led to the conference, and all that was accomplished by it. It was brought about by the elder Francis P. Blair, who under a flag of truce had visited Richmond early in January. Mr. Lincoln had steadily insisted on three preliminary conditions: First, the absolute restoration of the national authority in all the States; second, no receding from the positions taken on the slavery question; third, no cessation of military operations on the part of the Government till the hostile forces surrendered and disbanded. On these conditions the Confederate agents could not treat, and the conference came to no agreement. In his message Mr. Lincoln made one significant remark. "By the other party it was not said that in any event or on any condition they would ever consent to re- union; and yet they equally omitted to declare that they would not so consent." The proceedings left no special interest, except one characteristic anecdote of Mr. Lincoln. The Confederate agents desired the recognition of the power of "President" Davis to make a treaty. Mr. Lincoln would not consent to this, would not in any event or in any way recognize another "President" within the territory of the United States. Mr. Hunter cited the example of Charles I. treating with rebels in his own kingdom. Mr. Lincoln replied that his only distinct recollection of that matter was that Charles lost his head!

MR. FESSENDEN IN THE TREASURY.

Soon after the Baltimore Convention, Mr. Chase resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury. The relations between himself and the President had become personally somewhat unpleasant, but that there had been no loss of confidence or respect was proven by the President's nomination of Mr. Chase to be Chief Justice of the United States as the successor of the venerable Roger B. Taney, who died on the 12th of October (1864). William Pitt Fessenden succeeded Mr. Chase in the Treasury, and entered upon his duties on the fifth day of July. He was admirably fitted by every mental and moral quality for the position, but he did not possess the physical strength necessary for the arduous labor which it imposed. He consented in response to the very earnest request of Mr. Lincoln to accept the trust for a brief period. It was of great importance to the country, to the Administration, and to Mr. Lincoln personally that Mr. Chase should be succeeded by a man of no less eminent character.

In his report of December 6, 1864, Mr. Fessenden discussed the financial situation with comprehensive ability. He urged additional taxation, some plan for making the public lands available as a source of revenue, and arrangements for carrying out the laws for a sinking-fund. He opposed the suggestion of resorting to foreign loans for any part of the money needed. He said, "This nation has been able thus far to conduct a domestic war of unparalleled magnitude and cost without appealing for aid to any foreign people. It has chosen to demonstrate its power to put down insurrection by its own strength, and furnish no pretense for doubt of its entire ability to do so, either to domestic or foreign foes. The people of the United States have felt a just pride in this position before the world. In the judgment of the secretary it may well be doubted whether the national credit abroad has not been strengthened and sustained by the fact that foreign investments in our securities have not been sought by us, and whether we have not found a pecuniary advantage in self-reliance." Reciting the steps which he had taken for placing loans, he declared; "These negotiations have afforded satisfactory evidence not only of the ability of the people to furnish at a short notice such sums as may be required but of the entire confidence felt in the national securities. After nearly four years of a most expensive and wasting war, the means to continue it seem apparently undiminished, while the determination to prosecute it with vigor to the end is unabated."

Liberal response was made by Congress to Mr. Fessenden's request for enlarged power to borrow money. The internal revenue was made more stringent, the tariff was amended and made still more protective, and to facilitate the raising of troops the Conscription Act was made more severe and exacting. Congress proceeded as if the war were still to continue for years. Nothing was neglected, nothing relaxed. But every one could see that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall. Sherman's magnificent march across Georgia, to which the President referred as in progress when he sent his message to Congress, had been completed with entire success, with an eclat indeed which startled Europe as well as America. He had captured Savannah, and was marching North driving the army of General Joseph E. Johnston before him. General Grant meanwhile was tightening his hold on Richmond and on the army of General Lee. From his camp on the James he was directing military operations over an area of vast extent. The great victory which General Thomas had won over Hood's army in the preceding December at Nashville had effectually destroyed the military power of the Confederacy in the South-West, and when Congress adjourned on the day of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration there was in the mind of the people everywhere a conviction that the end was near.

The President himself spoke guardedly in his Inaugural address. He simply said that "the progress of our armies is reasonably satisfactory and encouraging. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured." The tone of the address, so far from being jubilant as the mass of his hearers felt, was ineffably sad. It seemed to bear the wail of an oppressed spirit. The thought and the language were as majestic as those of the ancient prophets. As if in agony of soul the President cried out: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

The fall of the military power of the rebellion was in the end more rapid and more complete than the most sanguine had dared to expect. The month of March was one of great activity with our military forces. Three weeks after his inauguration the President went to City Point, Virginia, partly to escape the pressure of duty at Washington and party to be near the scene of the final triumph to settle any important questions that might arise, if an offer of surrender should be made by the Confederate commander. On the day before his inauguration he had directed the Secretary of War to say to General Grant that he wished him to "have no conference with General Lee unless for the capitulation of his army or for some purely military matter." The President did "not wish General Grant to decide, discuss or confer upon any political question." He would not submit such questions "to military conferences or conventions." He returned to Washington on the 8th of April and on the succeeding day the Army of Lee surrendered to General Grant.

THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE.

The rejoicing throughout the Loyal States cannot be pictured. Congratulation was universal. The end had come. Sympathy with the South in her exhausted and impoverished condition mingled largely with the exultant joy over a restored Union, a triumphant flag, an assured future of National progress. Admiration was not withheld from the soldiers of the Confederacy, who had borne their banner so bravely against every discouragement on a hundred fields of battle. The bearing of General Grant and General Lee at the final surrender was marked by a spirit of chivalric dignity which was an instructive lesson to all their countrymen--alike to the victor and to the vanquished.

General Grant's active service in the field closed with the surrender of Lee. All the commanders of Confederate forces followed the example of their General-in-Chief, and before the end of the month the armed enemies of the Union had practically ceased to exist. The fame of General Grant was full. He had entered the service with no factitious advantage, and his promotion, from the first to the last, had been based on merit alone,--without the aid of political influence, without the interposition of personal friends. Criticism of military skill is but idle chatter in the face of an unbroken career of victory. General Grant's campaigns were varied in their requirements and, but for the fertility of his resources and his unbending will, might often have ended in disaster. Courage is as contagious as fear, and General Grant possessed in the highest degree that faculty which is essential to all great commanders,-- the faculty of imparting throughout the rank and file of his army the same determination to win with which he was himself always inspired.

One peculiarity of General Grant's military career was his constant readiness to fight. He wished for no long periods of preparation, lost no opportunity which promptness could turn to advantage. He always accepted, without cavil or question, the position to which he might be assigned. He never troubled the War Department with requests or complaints, and when injustice was inflicted upon him, he submitted silently, and did a soldier's duty. Few men in any service would have acquiesced so quietly as did General Grant, when at the close of the remarkable campaign beginning at Fort Henry and ending at Shiloh, he found himself superseded by General Halleck, and assigned to a subordinate command in an army whose glory was inseparably associated with his own name. Self-control is the first requisite for him who aims to control others. In that indispensable form of mental discipline General Grant exhibited perfection.

When he was appointed Lieutenant-General, and placed in command of all the armies of the Union, he exercised military control over a greater number of men than has any general since the invention of fire-arms. In the campaigns of 1864 and 1865, the armies of the Union contained in the aggregate not less than a million of men. The movements of all the vast forces were kept in harmony by his comprehensive mind, and in the grand consummation which insured Union and Liberty, his name became inseparably associated with the true glory of his country.

Six days after the surrender of Lee, the Nation was thrown into the deepest grief by the assassination of the President. The gloom which enshrouded the country was as thick darkness. The people had come, through many alterations of fear and hope, to repose the most absolute trust in Mr. Lincoln. They realized that he had seen clearly where they were blind, that he had known fully where they were ignorant. He had been patient, faithful, and far-seeing. Religious people regarded him as one divinely appointed, like the prophets of old, to a great work, and they found comfort in the parallel which they saw in his death with that of the leader of Israel. He too had reached the mountain's top, and had seen the land redeemed unto the utmost sea, and had then died.

CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Mr. Lincoln had been some time in the Presidency before the public estimate of him was correct or appreciative. The people did not at first understand him. In the glamour of the Presidential canvass they had idealized him,--attributing to him some traits above and many below his essential qualities. After his election and before his inauguration there was a general disposition to depreciate him. He became associated in the popular mind with an impending calamity, and tens of thousands who had voted for him, heartily repented the act and inwardly execrated the day that committed the destinies of the Union to his keeping. The first strong test brought upon Mr. Lincoln was this depressing re-action among so many of his supporters. A man with less resolute purpose would have been cast down by it, but Mr. Lincoln preserved the mens aequa in arduis. Through the gloom of the weeks preceding his inauguration he held his even way. Perhaps in the more terrible crises through which he was afterwards called to pass, a firmer nerve was required, but not so rare a combination of qualities as he had shown in the dismal months with which the year 1861 opened.

Mr. Lincoln united firmness and gentleness in a singular degree. He rarely spoke a harsh word. Ready to hear argument and always open to conviction, he adhered tenaciously to the conclusions which he had finally reached. Altogether modest, he had confidence in himself, trusted to the reasoning of his own mind, believed in the correctness of his own judgment. Many of the popular conceptions concerning him are erroneous. No man was farther than he from the easy, familiar, jocose character in which he is often painted. While he paid little attention to form or ceremony he was not a men with whom liberties could be taken. There was but one person in Illinois outside of his own household who ventured to address him by his first name. There was no one in Washington who ever attempted it. Appreciating wit and humor, he relished a good story, especially if it illustrated a truth or strengthened an argument, and he had a vast fund of illustrative anecdote which he used with the happiest effect. But the long list of vulgar, salacious stories attributed to him, were retailed only by those who never enjoyed the privilege of exchanging a word with him. His life was altogether a serious one--inspired by the noblest spirit, devoted to the highest aims. Humor was but an incident with him, a partial relief to the melancholy which tinged all his years.

He presented an extraordinary combination of mental and moral qualities. As a statesman he had the loftiest ideal, and it fell to his lot to inaugurate measures which changed the fate of millions of living men, of tens of millions yet to be born. As a manager of political issues and master of the art of presenting them, he has had no rival in this country unless one be found in Jefferson. The complete discomfiture of his most formidable assailants in 1863, especially of those who sought to prejudice him before the people on account of the arrest of Vallandigham, cannot easily be paralleled for shrewdness of treatment and for keen appreciation of the reactionary influences which are certain to control public opinion. Mr. Van Buren stands without rival in the use of partisan tactics. He operated altogether on men, and believed in self- interest as the mainspring of human action. Mr. Lincoln's ability was of a far higher and broader character. There was never the slightest lack of candor or fairness in his methods. He sought to control men through their reason and their conscience. The only art the employed was that of presenting his views so convincingly as to force conviction on the minds of his hearers and his readers.

The Executive talent of Mr. Lincoln was remarkable. He was emphatically the head of his own Administration, ultimate judge at all points and on all occasions where questions of weight were to be decided. An unwise eulogist of Mr. Seward attributes to him the origination and enforcement of the great policies which distinguished the Administration. So far is this from the truth that in more than one instance the most momentous steps were taken against the judgment and contrary to the advice of the Secretary of State. The position of control and command so firmly held by Mr. Lincoln was strikingly shown when the Peace Conference was about to assemble at Fortress Monroe. He dispatched Mr. Seward to the place of meeting in advance of his own departure from Washington, giving him the most explicit instructions as to his mode of action, --prescribing carefully the limitations he should observe, and concluding with these words: "You will hear all they may choose to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely consummate any thing." Assuredly this is not the language of deference. It does not stop short of being the language of command. It is indeed the expression of one who realized that he was clothed with all the power belonging to his great office. No one had a more sincere admiration of Mr. Seward's large qualities than the President; no one more thoroughly appreciated his matchless powers. But Mr. Lincoln had not only full trust in his own capacity, but a deep sense of his own responsibility--a responsibility which could not be transferred and for which he felt answerable to his conscience and to God.

CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

There has been discussion as to Mr. Lincoln's religious belief. He was silent as to his own preference among creeds. Prejudice against any particular denomination he did not entertain. Allied all his life with Protestant Christianity, he thankfully availed himself of the services of an eminent Catholic prelate--Archbishop Hughes of New York--in a personal mission to England, of great importance, at a crisis when the relations between the two countries were disturbed and threatening. Throughout the whole period of the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to dependence on God. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted this in a single state paper. In every message to Congress, in eery proclamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July, 1863, after the battle of Gettysburg he called upon the people to give thanks because "it had pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people and to vouchsafe signal and effective victories to the Army and Navy of the United States," and he asked the people "to render homage to the Divine Majesty and to invoke the influence of his Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion." On another occasion, recounting the blessings which had come to the Union, he said, "No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy." Throughout his entire official career,--attended at all times with exacting duty and painful responsibility,--he never forgot his own dependence, or the dependence of the people, upon a Higher Power. In his last public address, delivered to an immense crowd assembled at the White House on the 11th of April, to congratulate him on the victories of the Union, the President, standing as he unconsciously was in the very shadow of death, said reverently to his hearers, "In the midst of your joyous expression, He from whom all blessings flow must first be remembered"!

Not only in life but in treasure the cost of the war was enormous. In addition to the large revenues of the Government which had been currently absorbed, the public debt at the close of the struggle was $2,808,549,437.55. The incidental losses were innumerable in kind, incalculable in amount. Mention is made here only of the actual expenditure of money--estimated by the standard of gold. The outlay was indeed principally made in paper, but the faith of the United States was given for redemption in coin--a faith which has never been tarnished, and which in this instance has been signally vindicated by the steady determination of the people. Never, in the same space of time, has there been a National expenditure so great.

Other nations have made costly sacrifices in struggles affecting their existence or their master passions. In the memorable campaigns of the French in 1794, when the Republic was putting forth its most gigantic energies, the expenses rose to 200,000,000 francs a month, or about $450,000,000 a year. For the three years of the rebellion, after the first year, our War Department alone expended $603,314,411.82, $690,391,048.66, and $1,030,690,400 respectively. The French Directory broke down under its expenditures by its lavish issue of assignats and the French Republic became bankrupt. Our Government was saved by its rigorous system of taxation imposed upon the people by themselves. Under Napoleon, in addition to the impositions on conquered countries, the budgets hardly exceeded in francs the charges of the United States for the rebellion, in dollars. Thus in 1805 the French budget exhibited total expenditures of 666,155,139 francs, including 69,140,000 francs for interest on the debt. In the same year the minister stated to the Chambers that income was derived from Italy of 30,000,000 francs, and from Germany and Holland 100,000,000, leaving 588,998,705 to be collected from France. In 1813 the French expenditures had risen to 953,658,772 francs, and the total receipts from French revenue were 780,959,847 francs. The French national debt has been measured since 1797 by the interest paid, fixed at that time at five per cent. From 1800 to 1814, the period of the Consulate and the Empire, this interest was increased by 23,091,635 francs, indicating an addition of twenty times that sum to the principal of the debt. The Government of the Restoration added in 1815, 101,260,635 francs to the annual interest. Thus the cost of the Napoleonic wars to France may be stated at about $487,000,000 added to the principal of the debt, or less than one-fifth of the increment of our national obligations on account of the rebellion. The French burdens were extended over the whole period from 1800 to 1814. Our own were concentrated into the space of four years.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURES IN THE WAR.

The total expenditures of Great Britain during the French Revolution and the career of Napoleon were L1,490,000,888, or nearly five times that sum in dollars. The largest expenditures in any single year were in 1815, L130,305,958, or in dollars, $631,976,894. After 1862 our expenditures were not so low as that in any year, and they were more than double that sum in the closing year of the war when the great armies were mustered out of service and final payment was made to all.

The British expenditures in the war against the French during the period of the Revolution were a little more than L490,000,000 and against Napoleon a little less than L1,000,000,000; or $4,850,000,000 in the aggregate, for twenty-three years. The total outlay was therefore larger than our payments on account of the rebellion. But there was no period of ten years in her wars with the French, in which Great Britain expended so much as the United States expended in four years. The loss of Great Britain by discounts in raising money or by the use of depreciated paper was greater than that incurred by the United States. A leading English authority says that of the vast burden up to 1816, the "artificial enhancements due to discounts in raising money were so great that for every L100 received into the treasury a national debt of L173 was created."

No other wars than those of England and France can be compared with ours in point of expenditure. For the war between France and Germany in 1870 the indemnity demanded by the conqueror was 5,000,000,000 francs, equivalent in American money to $930,000,000. This sum was much in excess of the outlay of Germany. The expenses of France on her own account in that contest were 1,873,238,000 francs, or $348,432,068, and this is only from one-half to one- third of the annual outlay of the United States during the rebellion. France added to the interest charge at this time 349,637,116 francs, indicating that the whole sum of the indemnity and other war expenditures has passed into the principal of the permanent debt of the country.

The one grand feature of this lavish expenditure of wealth by the Government of the United States is that it was directed and enforced by the people themselves. No imperial power commanded it, no kingly prerogative controlled it. It was the free, unbiased, unchangeable will of the Sovereign People. They declared at the ballot-box, by untrammeled popular suffrage, that the war must go on. "The American people,"--said Henry Winter Davis in the House of Representatives at one of the most exciting periods of the struggle,--"the American people, rising to the height of the occasion, dedicate this generation to the sword, and, pouring out the blood of their children, demand that there be no compromise; that ruin to the Republic or ruin to the Rebel Confederacy are the only alternatives; that no peace shall be made except under the banner of Victory. Standing on this great resolve to accept nothing but Victory or ruin, Victory is ours!"

At the outbreak of hostilities the Government discovered that it had no Navy at its command. The Secretary, Mr. Welles, found upon entering his office but a single ship in a Northern port fitted to engage in aggressive operations. In the beginning of the great contest which was at once to be waged upon the seas, wherein the Government proposed to close Southern ports, and the South to destroy Northern commerce, the advantage was clearly with the South. From Cape Henry to the Rio Grande the Navy of the United States was called upon to create an effective blockade against all ingress and egress. The conformation of the coast, which along great distances prevented the entrance and exit of ocean-going vessels, materially aided in the task, but it was still such a one as had never before been attempted in the naval history of the world. The line to be subjected to blockade was as long as the line from the Bay of Biscay to the Golden Horn and in many respects it was far more difficult to control.

This blockade was an absolute necessity imposed on the United States. The South relied with implicit faith upon its ability to secure by the sale of cotton the means of carrying on the war. The Confederate Government did not believe that the United States would hazard a conflict with the manufacturing nations of Europe, by attempting a blockade that would prevent the export of the staple; or if they did believe it, they looked upon it as the fatuous step on the part of the National Government that would promptly induce intervention by the combined power of England and France. This reliance was explicitly stated in advance by Mr. Hammond of South Carolina, who three years before the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, on the fourth day of March, 1858, made this declaration in the United-States Senate:--

"Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should the North make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain, England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No Power on earth dares to make war upon cotton. Cotton is King."

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BLOCKADE.

Boastful and impotent as the declaration of Mr. Hammond now seems, it had a better basis of fact to stand upon than many of the fiery predictions in which Southern statesmen were wont to indulge. The importance of cotton to the civilized world could hardly be exaggerated, and yet it was this very importance that forced the United States to the course which was pursued. The National Government could not permit the export of cotton without constantly aggrandizing the power of the rebellion, and it could not prevent its export without tempting the manufacturing nations of Europe to raise the blockade. The Administration wisely prepared to enforce the blockade and to meet all the consequences.

To accomplish its undertaking, the energy of the Nation was devoted to the creation of a navy. By the end of the year 1863 the government had six hundred vessels of war which were increased to seven hundred before the rebellion was subdued. Of the total number at least seventy-five were ironclad. It may be instanced with laudable pride that one enterprising man, honorably distinguished as a scientific engineer, constructed in less than a hundred days an armored squadron of eight ships, in the aggregate of five thousand tons burden, capable of steaming nine knots per hour and destined for effective service upon the rivers of the South-West. When the contractor, Mr. James B. Eads of St. Louis, agreed to furnish these steamers to the Government, the timber from which they were to be built was still standing in the forest and the machinery with which the armor was to be rolled was not constructed.

A year after the first battle was fought the naval force of the United States had practically interdicted all legitimate commerce with the Southern States. No more effective method of warfare could have been devised. At the outbreak of the war the States in rebellion were able to manufacture but few of the articles indispensable to the ordinary life of a people. Their wealth was purely agricultural. Cotton and tobacco were their only exports. For a supply of manufactures the South had depended wholly upon its trade with the North and with Europe. The natural effect of the war was greatly to lessen production, and the blockade made it impossible to find a market for any large portion of the diminished product of cotton. As a striking evidence of the prosperity in the South at the time it complained of oppression, the largest cotton crop which had ever been grown was that of 1860. It numbered more than five million two hundred thousand bales, nearly four and a half millions of which had found a ready market in Europe and the North before the outbreak of the war. The crop of 1861 was little more than one-half that of the preceding year. Of the three and a half millions which remained available for export at the end of 1861 it was estimated that up to August, 1862, not more than fifty thousand bales had been carried to England, the principal foreign consumer.

The demand for food created by the Southern army caused a majority of the plantations to raise corn, and the cotton crop of 1862 did not amount to more than one million bales, very little of which found a foreign market; and the supply and exportation diminished from this time onward. Cotton which sold in December, 1861, in Liverpool for 113/4_d_. per pound had risen in December, 1862, to 241/2_d_. per pound, and as a result, half a million persons in England, dependent for their daily bread upon this manufacturing industry, were thrown out of employment and reduced to beggary. So great was the distress that by April, 1863, nearly two million pounds sterling had been expended for their relief, and this sum does not include the vast amounts expended in local volunteer charities. English manufacturers saw that the supply of the raw product from America could no longer be depended upon, and efforts were made to introduce the manufacture of the inferior staple from India, but the experiment proved in the main unsatisfactory and unprofitable.

The stringency of the blockade which prevented the exportation of cotton, prevented also the importation of manufactured articles. While compelled to acknowledge this fact, the Confederate Secretary of State, Mr. Benjamin, attempted very cleverly to turn it to account by showing the advantages which would accrue to the commercial and manufacturing classes of England by the speedy triumph of the rebellion. Writing to Mr. Mason, who represented the Confederacy in England, Mr. Benjamin said, "The almost total cessation of external commerce for the last two years has produced the complete exhaustion of all articles of foreign growth and manufacture, and it is but a moderate computation to estimate the imports into the Confederacy at three hundred millions of dollars for the first six months which will ensue after the treaty of peace." The unexpressed part of the proposition which this statement covered was the most interesting. The merchants and ship-owners of England were to understand that the sale and transportation of this vast amount of fabrics would fall into the hands of England if the Confederacy should succeed, and that if it should fail, the domestic trade of the United States would absorb the whole of it. It was a shrewd appeal to a nation whose foreign policy has always been largely influenced by considerations of trade.

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BLOCKADE.

The economic condition of the South at this time may be compared to that of a man with full purse, lost in a desert. Southern cotton would easily sell in the markets of New York or Liverpool for four times its price in Charleston, while the manufactures of Manchester or of Lowell were worth in Charleston four times the price in Liverpool or New York. Exchange was rendered by the blockade practically impossible. When the profits of a successful voyage from Liverpool to Charleston and return, would more than repay the expense of the construction of the best steamer and of the voyage, the temptation to evade the blockade was altogether too strong to be resisted by the merchants and manufacturers of England. Blockade- running became a regular business with them, and the extent to which it was carried may be inferred from the fact that during the war the American fleet captured or sunk more than seven hundred vessels bound from British ports to ports of the Confederacy. How many vessels escaped our navy and safely ran the blockade may never be known, but for three years it was a steady contest between the navy of the United States and the blockade-runners of England. The persistent course of the latter was stimulated both by cupidity and by ill will to this country. They were anxious to make pecuniary gains for themselves and to aid the Confederacy at the same time. They were checked only by the extra-hazardous character imparted to the trade by the alertness and superior vigilance of our cruisers which sent many millions of English ventures to less profitable markets and many millions to the adjudication of our own Prize- courts.

The establishment and maintenance of a blockade is not accounted by naval officers as the most brilliant service to which in the line of their profession they may be deputed, but it was a service of inestimable value to the cause of the Union, and it was performed with a skill and thoroughness never surpassed. The blockade required an enormous force of men. In addition to the marines, to the large body of soldiers transferred from time to time to the navy, and to the rebel prisoners that joined in the service, there were 121,807 men specially enlisted in the navy during the war. But for the aid thus rendered by the navy, the hard fight would have been longer and more sanguinary. Had not the South been thus deprived of the munitions of war, of clothing and of all manner of supplies which England and France were eager to furnish her, we should not have seen the end of the civil war in 1865, and we should have been subjected to all the hazards implied by the indefinite continuance of the struggle.

The census of 1860 shows that the thirty-three States and seven Territories, which at that time composed the United States, contained a population of 31,443,791. Fifteen of these States with 12,140,296 inhabitants were slave-holding, more than four millions of the population being slaves; eighteen with an aggregate population of 19,303,494 were classed as free. Four of the fifteen slave States, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, whose people numbered three and one-half millions, constituted what were known as the Border slave States--West Virginia being added to the list in 1862. Though a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of these States, from association and interest, sympathized with the South, they contributed to the Union cause an army equal to two hundred thousand men enlisted for three years, and throughout the war they were loyal to the National Government. Many of the inhabitants of these States fought in the Confederate Army, but this loss was more than compensated by the effective aid rendered by the loyal men who joined the Union Army from the rebellious States. Tennessee furnished more than thirty thousand men to the armies of the Union, and from almost every State which formed a portion of the Confederacy men enlisted in the loyal forces. It may with reasonable precision be affirmed that the encouragement which the Confederacy received from the slave States that remained true to the Union, was more than offset by the effective aid rendered by loyal men residing within the limits of the rebellious States.

STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

As the source of supply for an army the Southern Confederacy had eleven States with an aggregate population of nine millions. It is difficult to estimate with accuracy the numerical strength of the army which they organized at the beginning of the war. In a semi-official publication it was asserted that the army numbered more than five hundred thousand men, but as twenty thousand of this army were credited to Maryland and thirty-five thousand to Missouri, the number given was evidently a gross exaggeration. The statement was probably made for effect upon the North rather than in the interest of truth. A member of the Confederate Congress from North Carolina stated in debate in 1864 that the Confederate muster-roll numbered more than four hundred thousand men, "of whom probably one-half were not there." During the entire period of the war it is probable that eleven hundred thousand men were embodied in the Confederate Army, though its effective strength did not at any time consist of more than one-half that number. But this force was obtained by the South at great sacrifice. The necessity of a stringent conscription act was felt as early as April 16, 1862, at which time the first Enrolment Act was passed by the Confederate Congress. Under this Act, which was amended on the 27th of September of the same year, Mr. Davis issued on the 15th of July, 1863, his first conscription proclamation which called into the service of the Confederacy all white men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five who were not legally exempted from military service. The date of the proclamation shows that it was forced upon the Confederates by Lee's abortive invasion of Pennsylvania, and was intended to fill the ranks of the army which had been shattered and beaten on the field of Gettysburg. Further legislation by the Confederate Congress in February, 1864, extended the enrolment so as to include all white male residents of the Confederate States between the ages of seventeen and fifty. In February, 1865, Mr. Davis estimated that more than one hundred and fifty thousand men were added to the Confederate armies by this forced conscription.

Comparing the strength of the Confederate Army with the population from which it was recruited, and taking into account the absolute lack of provision made for the comfort of the Southern soldier, the insufficient provision made for his sustenance and clothing, and the consequent desertion which made it imperative to repair diminished strength, it is evident that the conscription legislation bore with fearful severity upon the people of the South. Comprehensive as was the Enrolment Act, which rendered liable to military duty the entire male population between the ages of seventeen and fifty, the South was compelled to overstep its self-imposed limit. The forces which Lee and Johnston surrendered contained so many boys unfitted by youth and so many men unfitted by age for military service, that a Northern General epigrammatically remarked that for its armies the Confederacy had been compelled in the end to rob alike the cradle and the grave.

Grave misstatements however have been made in regard to the diminished forces of the Confederacy at the cessation of the war. The astounding assertion has crept into statements intended to be historical that Lee surrendered an army of only ten thousand men, and Johnston an army of most insignificant numbers in comparison with that of Sherman. An accurate count made of the forces surrendered by the Confederacy and paroled by the North at the conclusion of the war, shows that the following numbers were embodied in the various Southern armies and were rendering active service in the field:--

The army of Virginia under General Robert E. Lee . . . . 28,356 The army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston . . 37,047 The army of Florida under Major-General Samuel Jones . . . 2,113 The army of Alabama under Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor . 12,723 The Trans-Mississippi army of General E. Kirby Smith . . . 10,167 The Arkansas army of Brigadier-General M. Jeff Thompson . . 5,048

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95,454

These figures are given as the result of actual count made of the paroles signed, and have been verified by officers both of the Union Army and of the Confederate Army. They represent the actual force engaged in the field, and upon the basis of calculation adopted in the North would indicate a Confederate Army of nearly three hundred thousand men at the close of the struggle. When the frequent desertions from the Southern Army are remembered, and their losses in prisoners and those disabled in the fearful fights of the months which preceded the surrender of Lee, it will not be exaggeration to say that the South had at the opening of General Grant's campaign in Virginia the preceding summer more than five hundred thousand men borne upon the rolls of its armies. The waste of the Confederate forces during the sixty days immediately preceding the final surrender was very great. The knowledge of the situation had penetrated the ranks, and the men lost spirit and hope. The result which followed was precisely that which has always happened with armies so circumstanced. The ranks melted away, and there were neither resource nor discipline to fill them again.

THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES.

It would be but poor compliment to the soldiers of the Union to withhold just recognition of the brave opponents who met them on so many hard-fought fields. Nor is there any disposition among loyal men to stint the praise which is always due to courage. Never perhaps was an army organized with fighting qualities superior to those of the army put into the field by the Confederacy. They fought with an absolute conviction, however erroneous, that their cause was just; and their arms were nerved by the feeling which their leaders had instilled deeply into their minds, that they were contending against an intolerable tyranny and protecting the sacredness of home. In a war purely defensive, as was that of the Confederacy, an army such as they raised and maintained can baffle the efforts of vastly superior numbers. The Confederates found from their own experience how changed was the task when they assumed the offensive and ventured to leave their own territory, with their perfect knowledge of its topography and with a surrounding population of sympathizers and helpers. In their first attempt at invasion they did not get beyond cannon-sound of the Potomac, and in the second they were turned back by the result of the first battle. These facts do not impeach the prowess of the Confederate soldiery, but they illustrate the task imposed on the Army of the Union and they suggest the vast difference in the responsibilities which the invading and the defensive forces were called upon to meet.

For so large an army as the Government of the Union was compelled to raise, volunteering could not be relied upon as a steady resource for recruitment. Great as was the ardor among the loyal people at the beginning of the struggle, it was soon found, as it has always been found in other nations, that unaided patriotism could not supply the heavy demands constantly made to repair the waste from the casualties of war and from the ravages of disease. The Act of Congress of March 3, 1863, provided for the enrolment of all able- bodied male citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, while the Act of February 24, 1864, granted freedom to all male slaves between the ages of twenty and forty-five who might enlist in the Northern armies. Reward was made to go with duty, and by the Act of July 4, 1864, Congress ameliorated the rigors of the conscription by paying to each drafted man a bounty for one years' service, at the same time doubling and trebling the amount for two and three years' service respectively. The Secretary of War was by the same law directed to discharge from service at the request of parents all persons under the age of eighteen years who might have enlisted in the army, and it was made an offense punishable with loss of commission for any officer knowingly to enlist a person less than sixteen years of age. Conscription laws have been unpopular in all countries, and though resisted among us on one occasion with riot, they were upheld with strong courage by the mass of the loyal people. Representatives in Congress who had voted for the enactments were returned by large majorities, and Mr. Lincoln was re-elected with an overwhelming expression of popular favor at the very time when he was directing the enforcement of the draft. The vote of 1864 was perhaps the most significant exhibition of patriotism made during the war, and had an extraordinary influence in discouraging those who were directing the fortunes of the Confederacy.

In the Loyal States the Government called for more than 2,750,000 men at various time throughout the war. In the South nearly every white person capable of bearing arms rendered at one time or another service in the army. A leading military authority of England, speaking of the strength of the armies of the United States and of the Confederacy, says, "The total number of men called under arms by the Government of the United States between April, 1861, and April, 1865, amounted to 2,759,049, of whom 2,656,053 were actually embodied in the armies. If to these be added the 1,100,000 men embodied by the Southern States during the same time, the total armed forces reach the enormous amount of nearly 4,000,000, drawn from a population of only 32,000,000 of all ages. Before this vast aggregate, the celebrated uprising of the French nation in 1793, or the recent efforts of France and Germany in the war of 1870-71, sink into insignificance. And within three years the whole of these vast forces were peaceably disbanded and the army had shrunk to a normal strength of only 30,000 men."

Germany with a population of 41,000,000 can in time of war furnish an army of 1,250,000 men. France with a population of 36,000,000 claims that she can set more than 1,500,000 men afield. With a population of less than 25,000,0000 from which to levy troops, the Government of the United States had when the war closed more than 1,000,000 men upon the muster-rolls of the army to be paid off and discharged. Of this vast force probably not more than forty per cent. were available for operations on the field. The wounded, the sick, those upon furlough, upon detail in other service, upon military service elsewhere than in the field, together with those in military parlance absent or "not accounted for," would, it is estimated, be equal to sixty per cent. of the entire army.

AREA OF THE WAR AND ITS COST.

The area over which the armies of the Union were called to operate was 800,000 square miles in extent,--as large as the German Empire, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland combined. Those who led in the secession movement relied confidently upon the impossibility of overcoming a population inhabiting so great an expanse of territory. Their judgment was confirmed by that of the best military critics of Europe who looked pityingly upon the folly of the United States for undertaking a task which after years of suffering and great loss of life could end only in defeat, with hopeless bankruptcy for the surviving remnant of the Republic. Could the Government have had the advantage of a small area for its military operations, its power to overcome the rebellion would have been greatly enhanced, and an army not exceeding half of that which was raised could have vindicated the authority of the flag and maintained the integrity of the Union. The National expenditures would have been decreased in even greater ratio, for aside from reducing the number of troops, the enormous cost involved in transportation would have been lessened by hundreds of millions of dollars in the four years of the war.

Another cause of increased expenditure was the haste necessarily attendant upon all the military preparations of the Government. Armies were to be created from the basis of an organization hardly greater than would serve as a police force for the Republic. When Fort Sumter was fired upon, the Army of the United States, rank and file, scarcely exceeded sixteen thousand men. The Government was compelled to equip its vast forces from stores of which hardly a nucleus existed. Arms, ammunition, military supplies, were all to be instantly gathered. The growth of the great host, its equipment, its marshaling, its prodigious strength, are among the marvels and the glories of our history. To admit that mistakes were made is only to say that the work was in human hands. Criticism may well be drowned in the acclaim of success. No National emergency has ever been met with greater courage, promptness, or skill.

The loss to the country and the expenditures from its Treasury could not be estimated when the war closed. We knew that a half- million citizens of the Republic had laid down their lives--three hundred thousand in defending the Union, two hundred thousand in attempting to destroy it. We knew the enormous amounts which had been paid in supporting our armies. But we were not wholly prepared for the millions that must be paid in satisfaction of claims which there had been no mode of reckoning. Nor had there been any standard by which an estimate could be made of the sums required by the pensions which the gratitude and the justice of the Government would be called upon to grant. It was soon apparent that the need of relief was proportional to the magnitude of the struggle, and the Government prepared to respond with a munificence never paralleled.

THE CHARACTER OF EDWIN M. STANTON.

Nine months after the outbreak of hostilities the organization and equipment of the National forces were placed under the direction of Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War. Outside of his professional reputation, which was high, Mr. Stanton had been known to the public by his service in the Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan during the last three months of his Administration. In that position he had undoubtedly exhibited zeal and fidelity in the cause of the Union. He was a member of the Democratic party, a thorough believer in its principles, and a hearty opponent of Mr. Lincoln in the contest of 1860. In speech and writing he referred to Mr. Lincoln's supporters in the extreme partisan phrase of the day,--as "Black Republicans." He had no sympathy with Mr. Lincoln's views on the subject of slavery, and was openly hostile to any revival of the doctrine of Protection. If Mr. Buchanan had been governed by the views of Mr. Stanton he would undoubtedly have vetoed the Morrill Tariff bill, and thus an unintended injury would have been inflicted upon the reviving credit of the nation. A citizen of the District of Columbia, Mr. Stanton was not called upon to make a personal record in the Presidential election of 1860, but his sympathies were well understood to be with the supporters of Breckinridge.

With these political principles and affiliations, Mr. Stanton was not even considered in connection with the original organization of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. But the fact of his being a Democrat was now in his favor, for Mr. Lincoln was anxious to signify by some decisive expression, his appreciation of the patriotism which had induced so large a proportion of the Democratic party to lay aside prejudice and unite in support of his Administration. He had a high estimate of Mr. Stanton's capacity, derived from personal intercourse in a professional engagement some three years before. He had learned something of his powers of endurance, of his trained habits of thought, of his systematic method of labor, and he had confidence that at forty-seven years of age, with vigorous health and a robust constitution, Mr. Stanton could endure the strain which the increasing labor of the War Department would impose. His nomination was confirmed without delay, and the whole country received his appointment with profound satisfaction.

No Cabinet minister in our history has been so intemperately denounced, so extravagantly eulogized. The crowning fact in his favor is that through all the mutations of his stormy career he was trusted and loved by Mr. Lincoln to the end of his days. He was at all times and under all circumstances absolutely free from corruption, and was savagely hostile to every man in the military service who was even suspected of irregularity or wrong. He possessed the executive faculty in the highest degree. He was prompt, punctual, methodical, rapid, clear, explicit in all his work. He imparted energy to every branch of the service, and his vigorous determination was felt on the most distant field of the war as a present and inspiring force.

Mr. Stanton had faults. He was subject to unaccountable and violent prejudice, and under its sway he was capable of harsh injustice. Many officers of merit and of spotless fame fell under his displeasure and were deeply wronged by him. General Stone was perhaps the most conspicuous example of the extremity of outrage to which the Secretary's temper could carry him. He was lacking in magnanimity. Even when intellectually convinced of an error, he was reluctant to acknowledge it. He had none of that grace which turns an enemy to a friend by healing the wounds which have been unjustly inflicted. While oppressing many who were under his control, he had the keenest appreciation of power, and to men who were wielding great influence he exhibited the most deferential consideration. He had a quick insight into character, and at a glance could tell a man who would resist and resent from one who would silently submit. He was ambitious to the point of uncontrollable greed for fame, and by this quality was subject to its counterpart of jealousy, and to an envy of the increasing reputation of others. It was a sore trial to him that after his able and persistent organization of all the elements of victory, the share of credit which justly belonged to him, was lost sight of in the glory which surrounded the hero of a successful battle.

But his weaknesses did not obscure the loftiness of his character. The capricious malignity and brutal injustice of the Great Frederick might as well be cited against the acknowledged grandeur of his career, as an indictment be brought against Stanton's fame on his personal defects, glaring and even exasperating as they were. To the Nation's trust he was sublimely true. To him was committed, in a larger degree than to any other man except the President alone, the successful prosecution of the war and the consequent preservation of the Union. Against those qualities which made him so many enemies, against those insulting displays of temper which wounded so many proud spirits helplessly subject to him for the time, against those acts of rank injustice which, in the judgment of his most partial eulogist, will always mar his fame, must be remembered his absolute consecration to all that he was and of all he could hope to be, to the cause of his country. For more than three years, of unceasing and immeasurable responsibility, he stood at his post, by day and by night, never flagging in zeal, never doubting in faith. Even his burly frame and rugged strength were overborne by the weight of his cares and by the strain upon his nerves, but not until his work was finished, not until the great salvation had come. Persecution and obloquy have followed him into the grave, but an impartial verdict must be that he was inspired with the devotion of a martyr, and that he wore out his life in a service of priceless value to all the generations of his countrymen.

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