not only before, but after national elections; and nothing will tend so strongly towards it as the principle of progressiveness and catholicity of opinion which has come to prevail among Republican statesmen, (especially in the journalistic estate and in the lower house of Congress) and which is now recognized as one of the quickening elements of the Republican creed.

THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION.

Still fresher than the acts of Congress, however, and perhaps more authoritative, as being the more direct expression of the popular sentiments of the party, are the acts and declarations of the National Republican Convention of 1872, held at Philadelphia, on the 5th and 6th of June. And the proceedings of this body we must now record.

The Philadelphia Convention was called by the National Republican Committee, in accordance with party usages, after a prolonged session of the Committee at Washington. The call bears date January 11th, 1872. It enumerates the achievements and the leading present tenets of the Republican party, and closes with this invitation:

"To continue and firmly establish its fundamental principles, we invite the co-operation of all citizens of the United States."

The National Committee, in a special resolution, sent by telegraph to all parts of the country, urged all holders of office under the national administration to abstain from participating in local conventions, or officiating as delegates; and the injunction was

so generally obeyed that, notwithstanding the fact that the Opposition freely stigmatized it as the "Federal Office-holders' Convention," and Mr. Greeley's paper usually called it "Grant's Convention," there were not two dozen such office-holders in the Convention—¿. e. a little more than one per cent. of the whole number of delegates and alternates.

THE POPULAR FEELING.

Even before this call was issued, the Senators, journalists and other public men who were displeased with General Grant's administration, or who had reasons, personal or otherwise, for desiring a change in the government, had begun to agitate the subject of such a change. This had been done chiefly by indirection, however; the only method resorted to being free criticism of Grant's administration, and a studied tone of disrespect, or a habit of sly innuendo when speaking of the President. What these Anti-Grant journalists, etc., did after discovering the drift of popular feeling within the party will be told in a subsequent chapter. That the drift was decidedly and irresistibly toward Grant as the nominee for another term of four years, was soon plainly manifest.

GRANT ENDORSED.

The Republicans of Connecticut were the first to meet after this call was issued. At their convention, at Hartford, January 24th, they avowed their "undiminished confidence in the patriotism, integ

rity and ability of President Grant." Those of Florida followed, on April 11th, with a resolution, unanimously adopted, instructing delegates to use "every effort to secure his [Grant's] renomination."

The Indiana Republicans, commemorating with their meeting, as usual, the sacred birthday of Washington, declared in their resolutions that the administration of General Grant had been "consistent with the principles of the Republican party, and eminently just, wise and humane"; and they accordingly instructed their delegates at Philadelphia to "vote for the renomination of Grant and Colfax."

Iowa, at her convention, at Des Moines, on the 27th of March, was no less explicit and positive in her declarations and instructions.

South Carolina had already done the same, at Columbia, on the 19th of February. And Missouri, favorite nesting-place of the so-called Liberals, declared, on the same day with Indiana, her “unswerving confidence in the integrity, patriotism, and zealous devotion of the present Chief Magistrate."

Maine, Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and other States joined in the chorus of approval until it echoed from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf to the Lakes.

THE CONVENTION MEETS.

When, therefore, the Republicans of the nation

met at Philadelphia, they had a simple task before them, so far as the nomination of a Presidentali candidate was concerned. They assembled at noon, on the 5th of June, in the spacious Academy of Music, at Philadelphia, which building had been gorgeously draped and decorated for the occasion. Never did a finer and more thoroughly representative body of men assemble for a similar purpose in this country. Coming fresh from the people, they were possessed by an intense and unanimous enthusiasm for the cause which they came to organize-the reflected and concentrated glow of that great popular heart, from which all the acts of the convention seemed to spring.

It was evident that the Republican masses did not intend to be trifled with in the present crisis, and that they sent up, therefore, to Philadelphia, delegates composed of their strongest men. It was a general remark among those who came as lookers-on, and many of whom were avowedly hostile to the object of the convention, that the array of well known men-men of authority and influence, not derived from their present office-had never been excelled, if equalled, in any similar gathering. When William E. Chandler, as Secretary of the National Republican Committee, called the assemblage to order, at 12 o'clock, on Wednesday, his gavel was obeyed by nearly a score of Governors of States, by twenty-four ex-Senators of the United States, by fifteen members of Congress, two retired Cabinet officers, forty or fifty

generals of the great Union army, and other dignitaries of wide public recognition too numerous to particularize. Among the Governors of States, with or without the ex, we can now call to mind sixteen or seventeen; viz., Claflin, of Massachusetts; Smyth, of New Hampshire; Smith, of Vermont; Hawley, of Connecticut; Burnside, of Rhode Island; Orr, of South Carolina; Parsons, of Alabama; Oglesby, of Illinois; Noyes and Hayes, of Ohio; Lane and Baker, of Indiana; Morgan, of New York; Fairchild, of Wisconsin; Howard, of Michigan; and Wells, of Virginia. Among the heroes of the War for the Union were Generals Logan, Woodford, Fairchild, Hawley, Burnside, Sol. Meredith, Thos. S. Allen, E. F. Noyes, and a host of others, many of whom have, since doffing their army blue, been honored by a grateful country with official stations, the title of which has superseded the military " handles" of their names.

But it was not of generals and politicians alone that the convention was made up. Learning had its representatives there in goodly numbers, and prominent among them were President White, of Cornell University, and Prof. Steele, of Vermont, the latter of whom had the honor of writing the most acceptable of the many platforms submitted for the use of the convention. Philanthropy and

reform were there in the person of the venerable Gerrit Smith, Nestor of the Anti-Slavery army, and a man whose milk of human kindness had never been soured by personal jealousy, like that