perity than ever before,-with its paying capacity twenty-five years ago, and calculate what it will be twenty-five years hence, who can doubt the feasibility of paying every dollar then with more ease than we now pay for useless luxuries?

Why, it looks as though Providence had bestowed upon us the strong box-the precious metals locked up in the sterile mountains of the far West, which we are now forging the key to unlock-to meet the very contingency that is now upon us. Ultimately, it may be necessary to increase the facilities to reach these riches, and it may be necessary, also, that the general Government should give its aid to secure this access, but that should only be when a dollar of obligation to pay secures precisely the same sort of dollar to use now, and not before.

"When the question of specie payment is in abeyance, the prudent business man is careful about contracting debts payable in the distant future. The nation should follow the same rule. A prostrate commerce is to be rebuilt, and all industries should be encouraged. The young men of the countrythose who from their age must be its rulers twenty-five years hence have a peculiar interest in maintaining the national honor. A moment's reflection as to what will be our commanding influence among the nations of the earth in their day, if they are only true to themselves, should inspire them with national pride. All divisions, geographical, political, and religious, can join in this common sentiment.

"How the public debt is to be paid, or specie-payment resumed, is not so important as that a plan should be adopted and acquiesced in. A united determination to do, is worth more than divided counsel upon the method of doing. Legislation upon the subject may not be necessary now, or even advisable, but it will be when the civil law is more fully restored in all parts of the country, and trade resumes its wonted channels.

"It will be my endeavor to execute all laws in good faith, collect all revenues assessed, and to have them properly accounted for, and economically disbursed. I shall, to the best of my ability, appoint to office those only who will carry out this design.

"In regard to a foreign policy, I would deal with nations

equitably, as the law requires individuals to do with each other, and I would protect a law-abiding citizen, whether of native or of foreign birth, wherever his rights are jeopardized or the flag of our country floats. I would respect the rights of all nations, demanding equal respect for our own. If others depart from this rule in their dealings with us, we may be compelled to follow their precedent.

"The proper treatment of the original occupants of the land -the Indians-is one deserving of careful study, and I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization, Christianization, and ultimate citizenship.

"The question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now. I entertain the hope, and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the 15th article of amendment to the Constitution.

"In conclusion, I ask patient forbearance, one toward another, throughout the land, and a determined effort on the part of every citizen to do his share toward cementing a happy union, and I ask the prayers of the nation to Almighty God in behalf of this consummation."

The President's voice was quite audible except to persons on or near the front of the platform; but at every pause the satisfaction manifested by those who were near at hand was responded to by cheers and shouts from the crowd more distant, and some of the points of the address were circulated from mouth to mouth, and made the occasion for applause even some time after their utterance.

During the delivery of the address little Nellie Grant was lifted over the shoulders of the intermediate spectators and reached the side of her father, where she stood some time unseen and unnoticed,

but so smiling and happy, and brightly innocent in her presence, seemed to lend a gleam of sunshine to the scene, and the incident called forth many expres sions of pleasure and admiration.

The power of U. S. Grant over the heart of this country is one of the phenomena of the times which it is profitable to study. Called by the voice of the people, with such majorities as to make its mandate unmistakable, to the Presidency of this great Republic, it is well that men whose life has been spent in planning and scheming how to climb to the highest eminence should pause and consider how he, who sought it not, has been placed upon it. There are, there must be, lessons in such a man's history, which will repay the reading, and traits of character worth the analyzing. How he has carried the people's affections, we who have wit nessed can testify,- in the ovations which greeted him when he came home victorious from before Richmond, and who have heard the shouts of the mighty masses who ordained that the Great Captain should be the trusted Ruler. How he impresses calm, scholarly men, may be seen by reading a paragraph or two from the pen of J. Lathrop Motley, the famous historian. He who has studied and written Philip of Spain, and William of Orange, is not to be deceived by wax-work great- . ness, or sham patriotism; yet Motley thus writes:

"Who is General Grant? Suppose the question had been asked ten years ago. Haply some swain from the far West might have told us of a retired

captain of infantry, some thirty-six years of age, who had served through the Mexican war, after graduating at West Point, had subsequently retired to a farm near St. Louis, but who, just before the outbreak of the rebellion, had gone into the leather business at Galena-a plain man in his manner, who was sometimes seen driving a team, but never a balky one,' into the streets of St. Louis, but who never told his neighbors that he had been in every battle of the Mexican war, save Buena Vista, and that he had been promoted twice on the field for gallantry. These things being matters of course in our brave little army, the leather dealer saw small cause for taking airs thereupon, and if he nourished any ambition, as he seems to have let out in a moment of weakness, he had visions of a sidewalk, to be built from his own modest mansion to the railway station at Galena.

"Suppose the question asked a century hence. Will there be so many persons so ignorant of history as to falter in their reply?

"For one, I confess that the sentiment I find most necessary to guard against when contemplating his wondrous career, and the strange simplicity and repose of his character, is a tendency to over-enthusi asm. Through the misty atmosphere which belongs to the past, conspicuous personages are apt to dilate into more than mortal proportions, while we are, not unreasonably, inclined to scan very closely the defects and the pretensions of contemporary great ness. In truth, the very simplicity of General

Grant's character makes the great things which he did seem simple too. There can be no surer test of power than the ease with which it accomplishes Herculean tasks; yet the spectator, deceived by symmetry itself, often mistakes the colossal for the common-place."

But this sketch must deal with facts, though briefly. Mrs. Stowe has taken pains to prove that he comes of New England Puritan stock, through which his ancestry may be traced far back to England. It boots little whether that be so or not. "New men" are often God's men, and the nation's men. He was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont Co., Ohio, April 27, 1822. In 1839, when nineteen years of age, he was admitted to the Military Academy at West Point. He passed honorably through the course of study, graduating in 1843, receiving a brevet commission as second lieutenant in the Fourth U. S. Infantry. He entered real service in Mexico, and participated in all the important battles except that of Buena Vista, exhibiting those same traits which subsequently made him famous. He was made first lieutenant on the field of Molino del Rey, for gallant conduct, and for bravery at Chapultepec received the brevet of captain. The Senate attempted to confirm his first lieutenancy as a brevet, but he promptly declined, and three days after receiving his brevet as captain, his full commission as lieutenant arrived. Subsequently he, with a battalion of his regiment, occupied an obscure northern fort, and again was