a failure to re-elect to an additional term) was trumpeted to the country by the newspaper syndicate as an act of outrageous tyranny and of Presidential vindictiveness. It so happened that through the peculiar predilections of the press, the country obtained, generally, an erroneous impression of the motives involved in this act. The Democratic press and the syndicate had an obvious interest in representing the act as a heinous one, in order that it might tell against Grant and the Republican leaders in the Senate; and at the same time a majority of the Republican press were misled by their old-time admiration of Sumner as an anti-slavery orator, into sympathizing with him as they would not have done if they had known the many facts which Senatorial courtesy prevented from appearing in the debates. The consequence was that Sumner won out of the affair no little reputation as a martyr a character in which he successfully figured until his morbid, malignant, mis-aimed speech in the Senate, on the 30th of May, 1872, exposed the true character and motives of the man.

THE SIEGE CONTINUES.

The disorganizers continued to construct their parallels of approach to the Republican citadel. Having seized a commanding position in the Senate, they operated there the most energetically. During the last session of Congress, no less than fifteen investigations into the conduct of the government, were under way at Washington or elsewhere, by

direction of Congress. These have been already alluded to in Chapter V. It is also explained there how they resulted in the vindication of the Administration from any serious blame. The most malignant of these investigations were ordered on the motion of the renegade Republicans of the Senate. During the Spring session of 1871, Mr. Sumner had made, in the Senate, no less than eleven speeches on the subject of San Domingo-not counting those which he was continually seeking to smuggle into the proceedings in the shape of preambles to resolutions—a trick in which he was usually successful, through the forbearance of the Senate, he being a "martyr." These were reinforced by others from Schurz, all of which were faithfully echoed by the syndicate.

What San Domingo was to the disorganizers during the session of '71, the French arms sale was during that of '72; the hope, on the part of the "Liberals," being that they might find material, in the sale of damaged or superannuated ordnance to the French, to excite the enmity of the German voters of this country against the Administration.

TRUMBULL.

Senator Trumbull did not fail to put in an appearance, when occasion offered, as a light skirmisher upon the flanks of the Republican army. The hobby upon which Trumbull rode oftenest was State Rights. Mounted upon this, or upon the chair of the Judiciary Committee, he was able to

discern quibbles 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 OffThe 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 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