But on the 25th and 26th of September was held at Pittsburgh the fourth national convention, that of the Union "Soldiers and Sailors." Those who had fought for their country were there in overwhelming numbers, both officers and privates. Of the latter no less than twenty-five thousand were present. The Union soldiery were determined to let their true position upon reconstruction be known. General Harriman attended this convention, was of its committee on resolutions, and contributed to the deliberations an effective two hours' speech. The resolutions reported from the committee were adopted with enthusiastic unanimity. They gave unqualified support to the Fourteenth Amendment, dealt Andrew Johnson an effective blow in declaring "that his [Johnson's] attempt to fasten his scheme of reconstruction upon the country is as dangerous as unwise; that his acts in sustaining it have retarded the restoration of peace and unity; and that they have converted conquered rebels into impudent claimants to rights which they have forfeited, and to places which they have desecrated." "If," continued they, "the President's scheme be consummated, it would render the sacrifice of the nation useless, the loss of our buried comrades vain, and the war in which we have so gloriously triumphed a failure, as it was declared to be by President Johnson's present associates in the Democratic National Convention. of 1864."

General Harriman used to say it was the best convention ever held in the country. An able and candid historian has said of it:1 "In its membership could be found representatives of every great battle-field of the war. Their testimony was invaluable. They spoke for the million comrades with whom they had stood in the ranks, and their influence consolidated almost en masse the soldier vote of the country in support of the Republican party as represented by Congress. . . . From their ranks came many of the most attractive and most eloquent speakers, who discussed the merits of the constitutional amendrent before popular

1 Hon. James G. Blaine, in Twenty Years of Congress, vol. ii. pp. 232, 233.

audiences as ably as they had upheld the flag of the Union through four years of bloody strife."

As one of those "most attractive and most eloquent speakers," General Harriman was, during the autumn, upon the platform in Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania. While yet in attendance upon the Pittsburgh Convention. he had addressed one evening ten thousand people assembled on the public square in Allegheny. The Pittsburgh "Gazette," in noticing the effort, said :

"General Walter Harriman, one of New Hampshire's noblest and ablest men, addressed a vast meeting of Republicans in Allegheny last evening. He fully sustained the reputation that preceded him of being one of the most eloquent and effective popular orators in New England. Thoroughly master of the great issues now presented for adjudication before the American people, imbued with the free spirit of his Northern mountains, and fired by the manifest treachery of the President to the cardinal principles to which he was pledged, and the party by whom he was trusted and elected, General Harriman convinced his hearers by his facts and arguments, charmed them by the graces of refined imagination, and electrified them by flashes of honest indignation. Being in attendance on the Soldiers' and Sailors' Convention, we trust he may be pressed into service until after the election in this section of the Commonwealth."

Of similar commendation of his efforts on that electioneering tour, that bestowed by the "Evening Journal" of Albany, N. Y., in the following notice of his speech in that city, must at present suffice as a specimen :

"General Harriman was the first speaker, and spoke in a strain of impassioned eloquence which held his audience. entranced for an hour and a half. There was not a weak sentence in his whole speech; and we are glad to know that he is to be kept busy until election day. Those who hear him will be delighted, for both in manner and matter he is up to the spirit and temper of the hour."

General Harriman had the special satisfaction of witness

ing the sweeping success of the Republican ticket in every State in which he had addressed the people. The Republican candidates for governor were elected by overwhelming majorities General Joshua L. Chamberlain, the ripe scholar and gallant soldier, in Maine; General John W. Geary, another gallant veteran of the recent war, in Pennsylvania; Reuben E. Fenton, in New York. In Pennsylvania three fourths of the members of Congress elect were Republican ; in New York, two thirds. Indeed, the result at the polls was, throughout the North, a complete anti-administration. triumph. In the secession States, the state and local offices by fraud and terrorism went to Democrats; while of the Border States, West Virginia and Missouri were carried by the Republicans. The Fortieth Congress contained, as the result of this election, one hundred and forty-three Republican representatives to forty-nine Democratic. Andrew Johnson felt "much cast down," but he was slow to learn wisdom from adversity.

Says the historian already cited from: "The importance of the political struggle of 1866 cannot be overestimated. It has perhaps been underestimated. If the contest had ended in a victory for the Democrats, the history of the subsequent years would in all probability have been radically different. There would have been no further amendment to the Constitution; there would have been no conditions of reconstruction; there would have been such a neutralization of the anti-slavery amendment as would authorize and sustain all the state laws already passed for the practical reenslavement of the negro, with such additional enactments as would have made them cruelly effective. With the South readmitted, and all its representatives acting in cordial coöperation with the Northern Democrats, the result must have been a deplorable degradation of the national character, and an ignoble surrender to the enemies of the Union, thenceforth to be invested with the supreme direction of its government." 1

It was in so important a contest that General Harriman 1 Blaine's Twenty Years of Congress, vol. ii. p. 243.

put forth effectively his characteristic powers as a political orator. Incessantly day after day, in efforts of two or three hours each, without manuscript, with a strong, clear voice, of wonderful compass, with natural gesture befitting thought, with commanding person and a mien of easy and winning dignity, he delivered his eloquent message of political truth, a message matter-full and logical, chaste of rhetoric, brightened by wit, incisive but not vituperative, enchaining the attention, winning admiration, and convincing the reason.

"Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway."

CHAPTER XX.

CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR.

A SHARP FIGHT AND BRILLIANT VICTORY.

1867.

GENERAL HARRIMAN was upon his second year's service as secretary of state. The acceptable administration of Governor Smyth was also in the second term, — the limit assigned by New Hampshire usage to the tenure of the gubernatorial office. The question of succession arising, the secretary of state, who had approved himself so well both in peace and war, was naturally preferred by many at once as an eminently fit and available candidate for governor in the coming election. But a new candidate for nomination to this office may not usually expect to have the field entirely to himself. General Harriman had an antagonist, and the question of nomination excited more than ordinary interest in the Republican party. The State Convention of that party met in Concord on the 8th of January, 1867. It was the largest delegate convention of the kind that, up to that time, had been held in New Hampshire. Every city and town in the State was fully represented. A nomination by such a body could but be the irresistible expression of the will of the majority of the party. The strong "soldier element" was appropriately recognized in the selection of General Simon G. Griffin, of distinguished service in the war, as president of the convention. The question of the candidacy for governor was settled on the first and only balloting, and General Harriman was nominated. The ballot stood: Whole number of votes cast, six hundred and seventy-five; scattering eight; Onslow Stearns had three hundred and eighteen;