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.]

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.