discern quibbles quibbles of of "unconstitutionality" and masked batteries of Federal usurpation where two or three years before, he would have sworn the field was as clear as a June morning. Trumbull's status in July, 1871, is to be learned from an “interview" published in the Chicago Tribune, his special organ, and hence assumed to be authentic. In that interview, he seems to forget the State Rights trouble, which had attracted so much of his solicitude in the Senate, and which has since come to form the only distinctive plank in the platform of the new party. He is reported thus:

Trumbull—“ I think the great question of the Presidential campaign will be the finances, taxation, and civil service reform. These subjects are uppermost in the minds of the people."

Is Secretary Boutwell's policy popular here in the West?"

Trumbull—“Yes, to some extent it is. I don't altogether believe in it myself, but still there are a great many people who feel proud of the manner in which Boutwell is paying off the debt. I think it a mistake to keep so much gold in the Treasury and to use it in buying our indebtedness. It is a wonder somebody has not assailed the policy of the Secretary going into the market and buying the government indebtedness at a discount."

"The last government loan seems to be a failure."

Trumbull—“Yes, I expected as much. You see the trouble is men won't give up a 6 per cent. bond for a 5 or a 4, not if they can help it. Besides, our government should first improve its credit at home before it goes abroad to borrow money. We have a currency consisting of promises to pay, and no provision made to pay them. We should first of all bring these up to the gold standard. That would improve our credit. On the whole, however, Boutwell's management of the Treasury gives very general satisfaction. It will be the trump card of the administration when it comes before the people for a verdict. There is a general conviction that the revenue is more faithfully collected than ever before, and, as I said, the people feel a good deal of pride in this matter of paying off the debt."

He then points out to his amanuensis, the faithful reporter, the evils of the civil service. He is then questioned about the Presidency, and replies

that it looks as if the Republicans had settled down upon Grant for renomination; "but," he adds and here the Trumbullian eye must have twinkled with anticipation of what came so near happening at Cincinnati-"you can't tell what may happen in a year." And he presently adds, after an intervening interrogatory or two, "It is too early in my judgment, to predict who will be the nominee of the Republican party." From this, it is obvious that Trumbull then felt confident that some conservative statesman, whose initials were L. T., could be forced upon the Republican Convention of 1872 by bringing the parallels nearer and nearer, and making the fire of bombardment hotter and hotter through the next session of Congress.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SO-CALLED LIBERAL MOVEMENT.

(CONTINUED.)

The Ring Reinforced—Greeley gets a Bee in his Bonnet, too—The Possum Policy of the Democrats-The Blair Family Smell the Battle Afar Off---The Movement Begins in Missouri-Some of the Pioneers-Sore-headsThe Cincinnati Convention Called The Response-The Spring Elections-The Democracy Weakens Perceptibly-Greeley Smiles upon the Movement.

By this time the newspaper syndicate had been reinforced by several valuable allies. Horace Greeley himself had joined them for one. The The way in which he became converted to their cause, through his own ambition to be President, will be told in that portion of this book which we have devoted to the personal history of Mr. Greeley. The fact must be mentioned here, however, that since the summer of 1871, when Greeley returned from the South, imbued with the idea that he was personally stronger there than any other public man, his Tribune had nothing favorable to say of Grant's Administration; and the vials of wrath which it had so carefully husbanded when Tammany needed denunciation, were emptied out upon the New York Custom House and upon the National Administra

tion, as the responsible guardian thereof. One or two journals, hitherto Democratic, also whispered that they could be counted upon, in whatever hazard, as partners in the formation of a new party under a name other than that which the ancient Democracy has so long abused. These journals were the Missouri Republican and the Louisville CourierJournal, the former of which, at any rate, had a record unquestionably and unvaryingly Democratic.

THE DEMOCRATS PASSIVE.

This promise of passivism on the part of the Democrats was soon acquiesced in by nearly all the influential papers of that party, including the World, of New York, and the Times, of Chicago; by several prominent politicians, also, though the Simon-pure old hunkers-wheelhorses of the party coach—were slow to give in their adherence. John Quincy Adams, Jr., who had served the Democrats once or twice by lending them the name of the Adams family (very much as the profligate Charles Surface proposed to serve a boon companion by selling his ancestors' pictures), wrote an able letter, which was published in the Missouri Republican of the 29th of November, 1871, favoring what had then come to be known as the "Missouri Policy." It was otherwise designated as the Passive Policy, or "Possum Policy"-the latter phrase referring aptly to the habit of the opossum to play dead, as a strategem to escape punishment for his depreda

tions. Montgomery Blair, who, ever since being turned out of Lincoln's cabinet, had yearned for an opportunity to crush the Republican party between his thumb and finger and the thumbs and fingers of the rest of the Blair family, also wrote a letter which was published in the World of December 8th, advocating a passive policy on the part of the Democrats.

THE TOCSIN SOUNDS.

The first note of the " Liberal" campaign of 1872 was sounded in December, 1871. This was the call of William M. Grosvenor and other members of the Missouri Liberal Republican party, so-called, for a convention of that party, to be held at Jefferson City on the 24th day of January for purposes of organization, etc. The idea of a Liberal party had its origin in the disappointment of Gratz Brown and others who were defeated as candidates before the regular State Republican convention of 1870, and who therefore formed a coalition with the Democrats and lately enfranchised Rebels, with Brown as their candidate for Governor. This coalition was merely temporary in its nature and purpose; but it worked so well, and its Republican members were so likely to be ostracised by their party henceforth, that a portion of the members of the central committee, and nearly all the State officers whom the coalition had elected, determined to perpetuate the arrangement, if possible. Grosvenor, who headed the call above referred to, was an earn