as unnecessary and uncalled for, the thousand or ten thousand agents, the increased powers and the augmented treasure which Congress insists on placing in his hands. Congress, on the other hand, thinks that the Freedmen's Bureau is not adequate, and that more patronage, more money, and more power would, like Thompson's door-plate, purchased at auction by Mrs. Toodles, be a good thing to have in a house. I agree with the President in the hope that the extraordinary provision which the bill makes will not be necessary, but that the whole question may be simplified by a simple reference to the existing law. The law of March 3, 1865, which created the Freedmen's Bureau, provides that it shall continue in force during the war of rebellion and one full year thereafter. When does that year expire? In the President's judgment, as I understand the matter, the war of the rebellion has been coming and is still coming to an end, but is not yet fully closed. It is on this ground that he maintains an army, continues the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and exercises martial law, when these things are found to be necessary in rebel states. The existence of the rebellion was legally announced by executive proclamation in 1861. The end of the rebellion ought to be, and may be expected to be, announced by competent declaration of the President or of Congress, or of both. For all practical purposes, the rebellion will, in law, come to an end if the President or Congress, one or both, officially announces its termination. Now, suppose this announcement to be made by the President and by Congress, or by either of them, to-morrow. In that case, the Freedmen's Bureau is continued by virtue of the limitation prescribed in the Act of March 3, 1865, one year after such proclamation shall have been made. Thus the Freedmen's Bureau would continue, by the original limitation, until the 22d day of February, 1867 very proper day on which to bring it to an end. If Congress should then find it necessary to prolong its existence, Congress can at once take the necessary steps, for it will at that date have been in session nearly three months. Ought the President of the United States to be denounced in the house of his enemies — much more ought he to be denounced in the house of his friends, for refusing, in the absence of any necessity, to occupy or retain, and to exercise powers greater than those which are exercised by any imperial magistrate in the world? Judge ye! I trust that this fault of declin a ing imperial powers, too hastily tendered by a too confiding Congress, may be forgiven by a generous people. It will be a sad hour for the Republic when the refusal of unnecessary powers, treasure, and patronage by the President shall be held to be a crime. When it shall be so considered, the time will have arrived for setting up at the White House an imperial throne, and surrounding the Executive with imperial legions. NOTE.- THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. Auburn, October 31, 1868. "Secretary Seward," said the "Auburn Daily Advertiser" of October 31, 1868, "this afternoon addressed one of the largest audiences ever convened in Corning Hall. The bare announcement yesterday that he was to speak to-day created an intense anxiety in the public mind to hear him, and when the doors of the hall were thrown open at half-past one o'clock, it was immediately filled to overflowing, many hundreds being unable to gain admittance. Secretary Seward was introduced by Rev. Dr. Hawley in the following words: : "In the performance of an agreeable duty, fellow-citizens, I was about to extend, on your behalf, a cordial greeting to our distinguished neighbor and personal friend on this occasion. But your prompt and hearty response to his presence once more on this platform, on the eve of a great popular decision, is of deeper significance than any words of welcome. The desire to hear what, from his position, he may counsel at this time is not less earnest and sincere than at other periods of public concern, when he has spoken to his townsmen, and thus to the whole country, and indeed to the whole world. It only remains for me, in interpreting this desire, to say that it springs from recollections and associations which can neither be forgotten nor obscured in the ever-varying phases of political action or popular judgment. And that whatever of merited honor or fame may attach to the career of a public servant, it can never cease to be with him a grateful consciousness that he also holds fast the esteem and affection of those who know him best, among whom stands his home, and with whom, when public service ceases, he expects to mingle in the scenes and duties of ordinary life to its destined close.'"' MY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: My long absence on political occasions and my present appearance here are proper subjects of inquiry on your part. In explaining both, I may be able to say all that is proper or necessary to be said in this pleasant inter view. Upon the first point, I might well enough plead official occupation. Official obligations necessarily and justly take precedence over those of private citizenship. The public may properly say to its appointed servants, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone." Government occupation is increased by civil war, and necessarily increased by returning peace. It increases with ever-increasing population, territory, and commercial and political connections. But, for all this, you are not to suppose, as many assume, that I am purchasing on government account all the outlying territories in the universe, or indeed proposing to acquire dominion anywhere beyond the magic circle of the Monroe doctrine. I might plead inadequate strength. I have reason to thank God, indeed, that neither age, nor indulgence, nor casualty, has brought so great decrepitude as persons have sometimes imagined. Nevertheless, I certainly have some years, perhaps enough for a place on the retired list; and some wounds, perhaps enough for a pension, if I were in the military or naval service. Moreover, every opinion or sentiment of mine, that has a bearing upon the present hour, was spoken long ago; spoken, as I thought, in due time; spoken, either concurrently with, or in advance of political events. So true is this, that no one has mistaken my abiding attitude, or pretends now to doubt either my official views or my political relations. The case, however, is now somewhat changed. I am at home for indispensable private business. I find you in an election to constitute a new administration of the government of the United States.2 A theory obtained in the early revival of science that an elixir could be compounded, by the use of which the human constitution could be renewed at the end of every hundred years, and so man become immortal. The quadrennial national election of President and Congress in the United States is just such a periodical renewal as this of the national life, whereby the nation in fact becomes immortal. The casting of my vote in great elections of this sort is equally 1 Alluding to the recent purchase of Alaska and the proposed annexation of certain West India islands. ' General Grant and Horatio Seymour were the opposing candidates for President. the exercise of an inestimable privilege and the performance of a high and sacred duty. Mutual explanation of votes is the only means by which mutual confidence can be preserved among citizens, while it saves suffrage itself from profanation, intrigue, and corruption. In an experience of eighty years under the Constitution which makes us a nation, we have renewed the Republic, in the same prescribed way, by twenty national elections. I have voted and explained in the last eleven; these being all of those national elections that have occurred since I came to the franchise. The present election is the twenty-first of the entire series, and my twelfth one. In this election, just as I expressed myself at the time of each preceding one, I feel that this one may be my last. Every Presidential election necessarily has a real, although an abstract importance. We have here a republican system instead of the monarchical one. An ultimate adoption of this system by all the American nations is necessary for our security. Every new republic established anywhere constitutes a new bulwark of the Republic of the United States. Our republican government has some peculiar devices of local adaptation and equivalent, designed to operate by way of check and balance. Nevertheless, our Constitution has four essential elements, perhaps no more. These elements are, first, the actual choice of the presiding magistrate by the direct vote of the whole people; second, equal suffrage of all citizens in that election; third, equal representation of all constituent communities in the Republic; and, fourth, conditions and periods of power well defined and absolutely fixed. The casting or the withholding of a vote by any citizen inconsiderately actually impairs, although perhaps imperceptibly, the vigor and energy necessary to the continuance of the Republic, just as the casting or the withholding of all the votes of the people inconsiderately would bring it abruptly to an end. Standing as we do now at the close of the twentieth administration, I can well conceive that the first election was the most important of all, inasmuch as a mistake then committed in the choice of the first President of the United States, or of the first Congress, might have involved the failure of the system at the very beginning. It was just such a mistake that the French people committed in 1848, when they lost their new republic by electing a Bonaparte instead of a Cavaignac. That mistake having been avoided here, the It soon government promptly went into successful operation. acquired vigor by custom, and continually gained strength from increasing popular reverence and affection. The nation encountered no crisis until 1860. The election of Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, occurred at a time when a sectional faction, with extensive ramifications, had prepared a formidable rebellion. The election in 1864 was still more critical. Abraham Lincoln, who had been elected in 1860, had been effectually excluded by the rebellion from recognition or acceptance in one third of the states. It only remained for the still adhering states to reject Lincoln, as President, in 1864, to effect a speedy, if not an immediate, dissolution of the Union. On the other hand, it was reasonably expected that the reaffirmation in 1864 of the choice made in 1860 would so consolidate the loyal and patriotic hopes of the country in support of the administration, as to enable President Lincoln to prosecute the war as no other President could, and to improve returning peace as no other President could, by combining conciliation with. decision, until the Constitution should be reëstablished throughout the whole Union. Within four months after the election of 1864 the strength of the rebellion was effectually broken, and on the 4th of March, 1865, Abraham Lincoln entered upon his second term of the Presidency, for the first time with full possession of the rebel states; de facto as well as de jure the recognized and accepted Chief Magistrate of the whole Republic. With him the Congress and the other departments of the Federal Union were equally recognized and accepted. The duty which devolved upon the government in the second administration of Abraham Lincoln was to save the Constitution and the Union from further revolutionary violence, and by just, generous, and judicious measures to bring the distracted and desolated rebel states back to their constitutional relations with the Federal Union. We have reached at last the end of that second administration, begun by Abraham Lincoln, and we unfortunately find that its great work, as I have described it, remains as yet only incompletely and unsatisfactorily accomplished. Parties now vehemently dispute whether this failure is the fault of one department or of another; the fault of the President, or the fault of Congress; the fault of the executive system of reconciliation, or of the congressional system of |