that knew neither rest nor relaxation, for principles he so thoroughly believed in, he died at last from overwork at his post of duty. And millions of our people, for years to come, will mourn the loss of so faithful a public servant, so unselfish a patriot, and so true-hearted a citizen as Henry Wilson."

Every word of this compact eulogy might at his death. have been spoken with appropriateness of him who uttered it.

The Lincoln lecture grew in popularity. "Mr. Colfax had a very large and enthusiastic audience,' said the Boston Post in December, "and the platform was occupied by many distinguished citizens. Mr. Colfax spoke informally, as though familiar with his subject; and though his voice was hoarse and husky kept his audience in rapt attention to the end of the lecture." A Lecture Bureau made him tempting offers to deliver the lecture one hundred times in the East, while requests for it from the West steadily increased in frequency. Within one hundred and forty days of its preparation he delivered it ninety-four times in thirteen States, passing meanwhile twenty times from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic seaboard, or vice versa. Writing to Mr. Wetherbee in December, 1876, 'I have lost thirty thousand dollars in the shrinkage of values, break-down of investments, etc., in the past three years, although my investments were scattered some five thousand dollars in a place. This was almost half of what I was worth. By what seems to me a lucky accident, I have made up my losses by lecturing, including what I shall realize this season." In 1878 he wrote his wife's sister: "I am really very tired of it, and nothing but its revenue keeps me from quitting it, save in exceptional cases." In 1880 he wrote the author: "I have quit working at the high pressure speed of the last few years; limit myself except in January, the high-tide of the lecture season, to two or three lectures a week; and hence am at home about three days per week instead of Sundays only."

he says:

The next year, the Lincoln lecture having been modified to include Garfield, he wrote: "Am awfully busy this season-a perfect flood of invitations to lecture-season

nearly full now [October 30th], lecturing four times a week." In 1882: “I had a delightful week in Kansas; spoke to several thousands at a fair, and had a banquet given me by the Indianians around there, attended by six hundred, some coming thirty miles to attend." In April, 1883 "I am still wandering over the country, devastating it with lectures, but the season is almost ended. Wife asks me sometimes, When does it end, really?' But I tell her there are always a few more ahead. How can you refuse when she wants a Worth dress, and the associations shake their money at you, and urge you to come?" In a letter to Mr. Eddy, of Chicago, written December 5th, 1884, he says:

"Publishers have urged me to undertake some kind of a work, which you also so kindly suggest. But I lack the taste and the ambition. I have even declined very lucrative offers for one hundred nights of a lecture on My Twenty Years in Congress,' for many reasons, a few of which are that I am drawing my lecture absences from my family into a narrower compass (but two or three per week, so as to spend half the week besides Sundays, as of old, with my wife); that it would look egotistical to me, if it did not to others; that it would seem like copying the idea struck out by another; and that I have made so much money lecturing (over one hundred thousand dollars), I really don't care for any more, strange as that may seem.' But my business investments since I have been in private life have generally turned out well besides. My present life is a very enjoyable one. It is wonderful to me how my lecture wears, as I supposed it would long ago have been exhausted. But the demand still continues, far greater than I am willing (and able) to supply. It prevents me from rusting out, gives me plenty of travel and adventure, a series of delightful visits over the country, tea-parties with old Congressional and political friends, and as here [Geneseo, N. Y.], I am compelled to return a second time to the same place. At Huntington, Pa., last week, I had the largest lecture audience ever known there, and found a table full of old friends I had never met before. But I am not a book-maker, have no taste for it, and could not work up any such thing con amore. I am under engagement to furnish the Boston Congregationalist with articles, at fifty dollars each, but the spirit doesn't move me to write half a dozen a year. I enclose you the last one. I fear my roving, wandering life has made me lazy!''

1. The appraised value of his estate, after his death, was one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

Like his politics, his lecturing was always to be laid down that he might enjoy rest and quiet with his family at home. But "quiet to quick bosoms is a hell." Partly from choice, partly from necessity, lecturing was not abandoned. He died in the act. Managing for himself involved a heavy correspondence. He entered the minutes of it all for twelve years on about thirty sheets of notepaper, which he carried with him. It is so closely written and so much interlined, and he used so many signs known only to himself, that it is almost impossible to decipher it. But part of it is a summary, recording the appointments filled, when, where, and what the occasion. May 1st, 1883, he summed up the lectures delivered as follows: "Illinois, 137; New York, 114; Iowa, 106; Michigan, 103; Indiana, 92; Ohio, 90; Pennsylvania, 71; Wisconsin, 39; Massachusetts, 22; Kansas, 22; Missouri, 18; Minnesota, 14; Nebraska, 12; Colorado, 8; Connecticut, 5; Vermont, 5; Rhode Island, 5; Canada, 4; Maine, 3; Maryland, 3; West Virginia, 3; District of Columbia, 2; California, 2; New Hampshire, 2; Virginia, 1; Delaware, 1; Utah, 1; Kentucky, 1; Dakota, 1 ;-thirty States and Territories-total, 910." Afterward, as near as can be made out, he lectured just one hundred times.

His addresses at Odd Fellows' anniversaries and festivals; at foundations, dedications, college commencements, temperance, day and Sunday-school gatherings, soldiers' reunions, political meetings, farmers' and mechanics' fairs, in aid of churches and charities, in response to serenades, and his 4th of July orations, exclusive of his lectures proper, numbered full three hundred in these twelve years. And these figures give but a faint idea of the work involved. One must take the list and a map, and trace him over his whole field, at least once every month of the lecture seasons. Each one of the thirteen hundred lectures and addresses represents, perhaps, three hundred miles of travel. He always made it a point to spend the Sabbath at home; he never missed an appointment unless his train was delayed; he never met with an accident in his hun

dreds of thousands of miles of lecture travelling. Following are the last four entries on his programme:

"Chicago, Ill., Thursday, January 8th, 1885; Business College..... 40 “Rock Rapids, Ia., Tuesday, January 13th, 1885; Mr. H. B. Pierce. 75 Olivet, Mich., Monday, January 19th, 1885; G.A.R., W. A. Barnes. 60 "Ithaca, Mich., Tuesday, January 20th, 1885; W. R. Wright....... 60"

The last three he did not live to fill.

CHAPTER XVI.

OUT OF OFFICE (Continued).

1873-1885.

DECLINES TO RUN FOR CONGRESS IN 1876.-RECEPTION OF THE GRAND LODGE OF THE UNITED STATES AT INDIANAPOLIS.-CONTESTED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.-THE WHITE MEN OF THE NORTH ACCEPT THE BADGE OF INFERIORITY.-DEMANDS THE REMONETIZATION OF SILVER. ALWAYS AGAINST POLYGAMY.-PRISON LABOR.-SIX WEEKS' CANVASS IN 1880. INDIANA WINS THE PRESIDENTIAL BATTLE. DEclines to Run for United States SENATOR.-MURDER of President Garfield.-RECEPTION BY THE TWO HOUSES OF THE INDIANA LEGIslature.-DeCLINES TO RUN FOR CONGRESS in 1882. -CAUSES OF THE REPUBLICAN REVERSES.-TRIBUTE TO SENATOR MORTON.-UNIVERSAL CENSOR.-IN THE FAR NORTH-WEST.-IN COLORADO, FAMILY REUNION. - LAST POLITICAL SPEECH. - ON BLAINE'S DEFEAT.-IN NEW YORK.-HIS DEATH.

THE Centennial year was also the Presidential year. The Republican Party, through defection in the North, had been substantially suppressed in the South. Under the lash of the "Liberal" Republican press, the lower House of the Forty-third Congress had refused to sustain the Administration in protecting the Southern loyalists. President Grant had therefore been unable to do more than keep the peace while the reactionary party effected a counter-revolution in the South. The Forty-fourth Congress met in December, 1875. The House of Representatives elected a Democratic Speaker for the first time in twenty years. Mr. Blaine infused a little spirit into his moribund party by his attack on the proposition to amnesty the ex-rebels, inclusive of Mr. Jefferson Davis, yet under the ban of political disability. But the outlook for the Republicans was not brilliant. Indiana held her election in October, a month in advance of the general elec