and the public credit maintained against every assault, and even from time to time improved in the great commercial marts of Christendom. Nor has there been any considerable revulsion in the business of the country. The material wealth of the Republic has been constantly augmenting; its great cities have been all the time prosperous; the agricultural capacities of the nation have never ceased to grow; labor has been well paid, and the laboring man has constantly grown in the public esteem and in power; the development of all the material interests of the land has simply been stupendous. Even the South, which suffered most of the calamities resulting from the war, is in a situation of rapid recuperation, and will surely be more wealthy and progressive than ever before, ere the first centennial of American Independence.

These plain facts, which are known and read of all men, demonstrate the general success of President Grant's administration, and show that the Republican party continues to be entitled to the confidence of the American people.

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

(CONTINUED.)

The Campaign of 1872-Action of the Forty-Second Congress at its Second Session-$60,000,000 Taxes Taken Off-Amnesty Extended Greatly— Force Bill Discontinued-The House Votes to Abolish the Franking Privilege-Everything Investigated-Call for a National ConventionSpirit of the Party-Unanimous for Grant-The Convention is HeldIts Doings in Detail-Harmony and Enthusiasm-Platform of 1872Grant's Letter Accepting the Nomination.

"What are you going to do in Congress next winter?" the writer asked of one of the most distinguished Senators, nearly a year ago.

"O, make Presidents," was the answer.

Such being confessedly the main purpose of both political parties during the session next preceding each Presidential election, we may properly reckon the political campaign of 1872 as having commenced with the assembling of the second session of the Forty-second Congress, on the first Monday of December, 1871.

The meaning of the Senator's expression is obvious, viz that the Congressmen of each party would endeavor to shape legislation so as to secure the success of their party in the ensuing campaign; and this means, of course, where voters are as free and intelligent as in America, that the dominant party will endeavor to enact good and wholesome

laws, such as the people will approve, while the minority will strive, in the debates and in multitudinous investigations and newspaper attacks, Senatorial "philippics," etc., to create the impression among the people that all the virtue resides in their ranks, all the vice in that of the majority and in the existing administration.

ATTACKS ON THE ADMINISTRATION.

Of this sort of tactics were the attack on the Navy Department in the House, the tirade of Charles Sumner in the Senate and other similar demonstrations against the Executive and his cabinet, and against the majority party in Congress. No less than fifteen different investigations, founded on this or that man's allegations against the conduct of the Government, in one department or another, were asked by the Democrats or the disaffected Republicans during the session. These investigations were promptly ordered by the consent of the majority-the only case where any debate occurred being on the resolution concerning the sale of arms to French agents, introduced by Mr. Sumner in the Senate, and preceded by a preamble which contained a virulent attack on the administration, and which assumed as proven all the allegations made by the enemies of the Government. This the Senate would not pass, but it did order the investigation, and gave Mr. Schurz, the instigator of the charges, the privilege of examining or cross-examining all witnesses. The investi

gations were, for the most part, conducted openly, and all the testimony was published; and the results (which are given at some length in a subsequent chapter) were found to strengthen, rather than weaken the position of the administration in the hearts of the people. Never was there so cogent an illustration of the proverb, "great cry and little wool," as was furnished by these investigations and the clamors which preceded them.

ACTS OF CONGRESS.

The laws enacted by the Forty-Second Congress at this session were also of a nature to strengthen the dominant party. Among the most important of these were the act reducing the taxes, internal and import, by $53,000,000 a year, estimated upon the receipts of last year; the act conferring additional civil rights upon the colored class of citizens, hitherto discriminated against by society, in despite of the manifest spirit of the recent amendments to the national Constitution; the act granting complete amnesty to 25,000 rebels of the late war, who had hitherto labored under certain political disabilities; the act extending to soldiers, widows and orphans, the benefit of the bounty laws, and the act for facilitating the entry of land by soldiers entitled to bounty; all of which became law by the President's signature. Nor is the present Republican Congress less praiseworthy for what it has left undone than for what it has done. The still rampant spirit of outlawry in many sections of the South,

as proven before the Joint Committee on Southern Outrages, offered a great temptation (which was pressed by many Southern members) to continue the bill authorizing the suspension of the habeas corpus by the President-a privilege which terminated by limitation with the expiration of the late session. The enemies of the Republican party would have liked very much to see the majority vote to continue this law, so that an outcry against "federal usurpation" could be made. They would also have liked to see the majority committed to a bill for the federal regulation of the Southern elections, with the authorization of such measures of enforcement as should furnish grounds for some clamor about "bayonet rule." But the party refused to commit itself to such acts, and also refrained in a provoking way from doing much that was indiscreet in the way of land grants and private appropriations, out of which the Opposition orators and journals could forge any effective weapons for the campaign. In short, the freshest acts of the Republican party, even as shown in its representation in Congress the place where, if anywhere, vulnerable points may usually be found-are probably less partisan, and no less just, moderate and virtuous than those of any political party, similarly represented, in any previous period of our history-even in the "good old days” of Andrew Jackson, or any other canonized politician whom we are accustomed to laud in our allusions. Such a record of course fortifies a party, and should always be striven after,