her trumpet tongue from the graves of nations that consented to the degradation of their meanest subjects, and if wise we shall be warned by the fatal compromises made by our fathers, and now about to shape the destinies of millions shall not forget His paternal care of those who survived the slavery of Egypt, the perils of the sea, and wanderings in the wilderness, in giving them homes, protection from enemies, and wise and devoted friends.

I regard it as a delusion that representation here by the rebel states will strengthen or assimilate the nation. Congeniality of spirit is a prerequisite. Let the disloyal spirit just evinced at a fair held in this city be exorcised, where the ballots for the rebel general, Lee, were as six to one for our great captain, General Grant; let rebel airs no longer on festive occasions drown our national song, and if there be a loyal pulsation let it bring out the stars and stripes so long overlain with the rattlesnake flag; unlock the cemetery gates closed against the sable patriots who would strew the flowers of affection on the graves of their comrades; bid the Lone Star State desist in her demands for the removal of our dead from their graveyards, that the dust of "hireling soldiers" mingle not with that of her “noble and heroic dead"; make political preferment in city and county possible to a Unionist, and, for the time, penitents should detain their sons from the college lectures on moral philosophy by ex-pirate Semmes,

"The mildest mannered man

That ever scuttled ship, or cut a human throat";

and at least when safe and convenient arrest defiant murderers at large, that the cry "I am a loyal American citizen" be no more the signal for a visitation of cruelty if he be an American citizen of African descent.

Demons stood aghast at the cruelties unatoned for endured by our prisoners, and hell doubtless waits for the coming of those leaders in rebellion whom we seem to have no laws to punish. Strange that they should desire a return on any terms, and more strange our leniency, and that we have not met the expectations of the country and made impartial suffrage a condition. This withheld, my vote for their return will not be given. Never, never!

The shame of so-called patriots in opposing the policies of the war party should have brought confession, but rather angered those who had been defeated at every step. Those amendments which were designed to forbid slavery and to protect the poor were not supported by the anti-war party. This alone was enough to place obstructionists at the North under suspicion as to future acts. Not as prodigals, then, did the South come back, but to affiliate with the most dangerous foes of the Union at the North. Trade and commerce wanted peace and outvoted the radicals.

There was an unholy combination, a purpose to depreciate loyalty and place at the head of the table the McGregors, conferring honor on future dispensers of power. The bugbear of carpet-baggers at the South was kept up after their offenses ceased. Then a cry of civil service was taken up by the artful as a species of Phar

asaic cant to aid a few, too cold-blooded for the crisis, to hold the balance of power and to care for the few of the clan, a minority able to mass their forces in aid of Bourbonism. It was to copy England; keep in the old paths and fill places of trust in disregard of party policies and service under the flag.

It is a part of the history of the last twenty-five years that the fears of radical reconstructionists of the war period have been realized, under the temptations of political power and a morbid idea that the elevation of ex-slaves to positions of honor would be for the degradation of ex-masters. I am not unmindful of a low prejudice North fanning an unholy flame which nothing less than justice and the highest dictates of religion will suppress. In 1872, joining the liberal movement that nominated Horace Greeley, and putting behind me promotion in my own party, I made a conscientious sacrifice to test and win our late enemies, and I now the more regret, in the light of false counts, terror and assassinations, that there had not been a territorial probation before an admission of states to full fellowship in the family. For reasons which are public we detained Utah, knocking for admission. Statesmanship would have kept the reins of power with the party that had saved the union, until time should blend as equals the sons of those who upheld and those who trampled on the flag.

It is too late to moralize, but not for thanks that a tariff, a basis of hope for the soldiers, returned to industrial pursuits, has not been destroyed. The wordy goodyism of the southern Gradys, when avowing the place of a colored man to be under the yoke of sham patriots, does not find a response from those who have trusted in the act of Congress which forbade slavery or involuntary servitude in any of the territories of the United States, or on any soil of which the nation should hereafter become possessed. This greatly embittered the border and democratic representatives, while making appeals to the country which only malignity could inspire.

The curtain falls and the second War Congress disperses. Caution like fear has given way to rapture. The value of the black man as a soldier has been recognized. He has become assured of personal liberty and the ballot, by the devices of Congress and the passage of the constitutional amendments. A great financial scheme and an anchor is found in the national banking system. The American protective policy survives the assaults of ex-rebels

and free-traders. Foreign intervention came to an end with the overthrow of the French in Mexico, and the execution of Arch Duke Maximilian. Victories on land and sea drove the "Knights of the Golden Circle" into secrecy, placing the leaders in the roll of reprobates and in pillory to the scorn of the world. Their favorite for the presidency received but the votes of the states of New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, a total of twenty-one votes, leaving one hundred and ninety-one as Mr. Lincoln's electoral majority. The most conspicuous members of this Congress were re-elected. The rebellion was soon crushed, but there was a sad hiatus in the apostasy of Andrew Johnson, vice-president on the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, April 14th, 1865.

THE PRESS REPORTERS.

As the able press reporters, more influential than many who had seats on the floor, are an important adjunct of Congress, they fitly come in here for some notice. My sympathy with the men of the press has always been strong. Indeed, among my escapes, I came near being an editor. Early, after much hesitation, I declined a newspaper partnership offered by one who had knowledge of my tastes. It has been my lot to write the salutatory for two newspapers, and a valedictory for one, while freely indulging a pen for the airing of my opinions, and pushing on social and political schemes, not to mention the calls for contributions by the various reformers who have arisen the last thirty years.

It is the habit of the press to claim that out of very poor material it has made conspicuous actors, and that it never has been repaid for the blunders it has averted, and the venality of public officials it has exposed. I think I could name a score of public characters whom the scribblers claim to have "got up". Long before entering Congress, while but a visitor, passing down the capitol ground, I heard this colloquy:

"That speech of yours this morning was the best effort of your life, but I thought of some things you could have hung on to it, to brighten the points." The M. C. answered, "Glad you think so; I had not much preparation and am going out of town. Here, I trust you (handing over a gold piece) to fix it up for the Morning Globe." I judged it was a cheap but good investment by the praise which the speech, revised, brought to the author. He is yet

alive, too indolent, it is said, to correct his speeches, but for forty years in the line of special favors.

Popular speech-makers are as rare as born poets or model legislators, and, when a constituency demands an utterance by their member, he must speak; and then appears, not the man tailor, but the professional literary aid, to astonish the readers with the speaker's gifts, until then undiscovered. This is not of necessity a vicious method in moulding public sentiment, since it is often true. that a correct thinker, a royal man, often lacks the skill to clothe his opinions in their proper garb.

Time makes new demands. He was once regarded as a genius who could report a speech in its spirit, before the era of shorthand. The great debaters did not indulge in written speeches, and the polishing by a reporter was a welcome aid. The newer art, which a dull boy with an acute ear can learn, makes less the scholar and rhetorician who is a reporter. It is now the question who can best grasp the subject, group the headland facts, report graphically the actors, and outline future skirmishes and the issue of debates. In conversation with Mr. Greeley, I remember that he said it was his most difficult task to get the right man to sit in the galleries, and one who also had a welcome at the departments to find the freshest news.

From those with whom I became personally acquainted I could make a list. They would make a roll of claimants to a large share of honors, especially in the exposures of the base in politics. If an ambition to reach a seat in Congress cannot be gratified there is another school of opportunity and service in connection with the press. Was it D'Israeli, while a member of Parliament, who said, "I am myself a gentleman of the press and have no other escutcheon"?

Ben Perley Poor, not long since deceased, was a Senate official for thirty or more years, and an amateur Massachusetts farmer, while holding a veteran's rank in Newspaper Row. His conceits were pardonable, for he was loyal to his convictions, if seemingly intolerant. General S. V. Boynton, of the Cincinnati and Western Press, had the rare gifts of a Washington correspondentperseverance in a hunt, and a talent for sharp criticism, but not always of mature and impartial judgment.

Dr. George Alfred Townsend with the nom-de-plume of "Gath", has for a quarter of a century startled the public by discovery, and

been feared and berated as the Bohemian of his time. I think he commanded the largest pay by the column of any correspondent, for his original researches, brilliant sketches and political predictions as to success or defeat. Levi P. Morton, our Vice-President, found in him an elegant biographer and friend, whose rare gifts and delineation are known without passing through a forest of verbiage. Mr. John Bigelow of New York, who was a quiet looker-on from the gallery in the service of Bryant's Evening Post, later became minister to France, serving his country with the skill of a diplomat, and the protégé and executor of his personal friend, Samuel J. Tilden.

Horace White, after college graduation, became a Senate committee-clerk and correspondent in Washington, and later the managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, especially conspicuous in the Liberal Greeley campaign, together with Whitelaw Reid, and Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican. On the death of the poet, William Cullen Bryant, of the New York Evening Post, Mr. White became the purchaser of that sheet, amassing a fortune while retaining the editorship, with the rank of a severe critic rather than a trusted party leader. Colfax of Indiana, Baldwin of the Worcester Spy, and Wood, Brooks and Raymond of New York, sent out editorials from Washington, quoted as of high authority.

Horace Greeley of the Tribune had the sagacity to select and retain as correspondent that accomplished gentleman J. L. Pike of Maine, later our minister to the Netherlands. Samuel Wilkinson, who married the sister of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had held for many years the pen of a graphic writer, and for twenty years was secretary of the Northern Pacific Railway; he was widely copied as a skillful delineator of great characters and passing events. "Richelieu" was the nom-de-plume of the young Irishman Robinson, nearly forty years ago, a severe caricaturist, and taking especial delight in "twisting the tail of the British Lion" for the New York Tribune. With a residence in Brooklyn, he became a sensational democratic member of Congress, where he took little pride in his position, and, as he told me, found less pleasure than in a hunt for news and the characters whom he could describe without a fear of a call to order. His collisions were sharp and frequent on the floor.

"Agate" was the best known, sharp, learned and courteous correspondent of the New York Tribune in the war epoch. He