whole country, by extending over the whole country and nationalizing the principles established by the war. I acted according to my best judgment, confirmed by that of men to whose wisdom and patriotic devotion to the public good I have been accustomed to defer during the whole of my public life. If I erred in this I am consoled for my error by your kindly construction of its motive, and by your recognition of some degree of independence as not unbecoming your Representative in Congress.

"You have assumed, and with perfect justice, that I am now as I was when elected two years ago, as I have always been, and shall always remain, a member of the Union party, holding the faith as declared in its conventions, seeking its welfare, and striving for advancement and reform, in everything touching the public good, through its agency. With the Democratic party, as it has been organized and directed since the rebellion broke out, Ihave nothing in common, and should regard it, and should regard its re-established ascendency in the government of the country, State or national, as a public calamity. There are no perils impending over the country which demand resort to so desperate a remedy, or which can be averted by it; and I have implicit faith that the people, while checking the excesses of rash and extreme men in the Union party, will still commit to its hands the restoration of the Union which its courage and devotion have saved.

"I am greatly obliged to you for your request that I would allow my name to be used as a candidate for re-election. But there are many considerations which would render this unwise. My past action does not command the approval of a large body among those who originally gave me their votes; and apart from such approval, so far as it can be had consistently with proper independence of personal opinion, a seat in Congress ceases to have for me any attraction, or to offer any opportunity for useful public service; and I shall hest consult my own self-respect, as well as the sentiments of my constituents and the interest of the Union cause, by withdrawing my name from the canvass altogether. This involves no special sacrifice on my part, as I shall easily find opportunities, whether in office or out, for promoting Union principles, and for evincing my gratitude to you for the kindness and confidence with which you have sustained my efforts hitherto.

"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

"HENRY J. RAYMOND."

As a part of the history of the time, and also in explanation of the bitter hostility which followed Mr. Raymond to his grave, the editorial comments of the Tribune on the foregoing letter should be preserved. Mr. Greeley, in 1866, represented the extreme Northern sentiment, and the Tribune was the mouthpiece of the party which threw Mr. Raymond overboard. The expression of that journal was, therefore, the expression of the most relentless of Mr. Raymond's opponents. While the War lasted, Mr. Greeley had counselled the necessity of making peace with the rebels, and had fallen into a tremor

of apprehension in 1863; but when the sun again shone from behind the cloud, he grew brave, and attacked Mr. Raymond in the following terms:

"MR. RAYMOND AGAIN WITH US.

"Mr. H. J. Raymond's elaborate letter declining a nomination to the Fortieth Congress is before us; and, if it were simply an apology for his course, the Union party would cheerfully accept it. But, in attempting to excuse his errors, Mr. Raymond aggravates them. He has chosen to rehearse his recent career, when he might far better have left so delicate a matter alone. A partial confession is worse than none.

That Mr. Raymond frequently voted in Congress with the Union party, we know; and that is the very fact which made his subsequent opposition to its principles a political crime. Had he been elected as a Copperhead, no one could have complained that he acted as a Copperhead, and had Judas been one of the Pharisees instead of one of the disciples, he would not be the worst example that Presidents and Congressmen can follow. It will hardly do to plead past fidelity to a party as an excuse for present treachery. Yet this Mr. Raymond does without blushing. He voted for the Freedman's Bureau Bill, because he believed its object of the utmost importance; he sustained the President's veto, because the existing law will not expire till 1867. How easily an excuse is found when it is needed! Mr. Raymond, on the same principle, voted for the Constitutional Amendment, affecting now to believe its provisions necessary to the safety of the Union, and yet sought to obtain the admission of the Rebel States without requiring that they should ratify it. Did he not know that they would never ratify it, could they get back into the Union without? We thought it was only Mr. Johnson who used the stultifying argument that the Rebel States should have a voice in determining the penalties of Rebellion, as if a criminal at the bar should also be a member of the jury. The Constitutional Amendment owes Mr. Raymond nothing; but its enemies are indebted to him for the direct encouragement he gave them at the Philadelphia Convention. When his address declared that Congress had no right to require its adoption of the Rebel States, he yielded the vital point in the whole struggle.

"But Mr. Raymond's letter is more of a desultory narration than an argument, and need not be more closely followed. The gentlemen who offered him the chance of a nomination complimented his statesmanship before they had read his reply, or they might have been more chary of their praise. Statesmen rarely vote for a bill, and then to sustain a veto thereof, and the country has not yet forgotten that, in 1864, Mr. Raymond opposed the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery, on the ground that it would divide the Union party. That was the grand measure that recreated it, and placed it high above all danger of dissolution. His present regrets that the party is divided are unnecessary; for the desertion of Mr. Johnson and his car-load can scarcely constitute a division, even in the opinion of their warmest admirers. That he believes the success of the Democratic party would be a national calamity, we are glad to know, and only wish that he had thought

so when he tried to secure Gen. Dix's nomination at Albany. Finally, in the enumeration of his reasons for declining a nomination for Congress in the Sixth District, we are compelled to think he has omitted the most potent, that he had not the slightest chance of getting it.

"Yet we rejoice, for his sake as well as the country's, that Mr. Raymond's unquestioned talents and industry are henceforth to be employed to sustain and strengthen the great and patriotic party he so recently sought to destroy. Of that party, the Republic has still urgent need; nor will its mission be complete till the full rights of citizenship are secured to every native and every naturalized citizen of the United States, and from the St. John to the Rio Grande, from the Bay of Fundy to Puget's Sound, there shall be no degraded caste, no unfranchised people, but the rights of the whole American people shall have been forever placed under the protection and safeguard of the votes of each and all."

A careful comparison of Mr. Raymond's letter with the hostile criticism upon it, shows, on the one hand, that while Raymond was actuated by motives unquestionably pure, his natural tendency to temporize led him into acts more merciful than just; and, on the other hand, that the very frankness of his admissions, and the earnestness of his apology, were received with derisive mirth by those who exulted over his political downfall. If there was error on one side, there were also discourtesy and injustice on the other. Acknowledgment of a fault is, by common courtesy, accepted as the end of controversy; but, in the case of Mr. Raymond, his enemies refused him even this grace.