Paper money is held by the Supreme Court to be a lawful substitute for gold and silver coin, partly on the ground that this is the prerogative of European governments.1 This is strange constitutional doctrine to those who were brought up in the school of Marshall, Story, and Chancellor Kent.

The administration of cities has grown more and more extravagant and corrupt, thus leading to the creation of immense debts which oppress the people and threaten to become unmanageable.

The national Congress, instead of faithfully administering its trust, has become reckless and wasteful of the public money. But, notwithstanding all this, I rejoice to believe that there is a reserve of power in the American people which has never yet failed to redress great wrongs when they have come to be fully recognized and understood.

A striking instance of this is to be found in the temperance movement, which, extreme as it may be in some respects, shows that the conscience of the entire country is aroused on a subject of vast difficulty and importance.

And other auspicious signs exist, the chief of which I think are that a new zeal is manifested in the cause of education; that people of all creeds come together as they never did before to help in good works; that an independent press, bent on enlightening, not deceiving, the people, is making itself heard and respected; and that younger men, who represent the best hopes and aspirations of the time, are pressing forward to take the place of the politicians of a different school, who represent chiefly their own selfish interests, or else a period of hate and discord which has passed away forever. These considerations give me hope and confidence in the country as it exists to-day.

1 1 Legal Tender Case, Vol. 110 U. S. Reports, p. 421.

Baltimore is the place of my birth, of my home, and of my affections. No one could be bound to his native city by ties stronger than mine. Perhaps, in view of the incidents of the past, as detailed in this volume, I may be permitted to express to the good people of Baltimore my sincere and profound gratitude for the generous and unsolicited confidence which, on different occasions, they have reposed in me, and for their good will and kind feeling, which have never been withdrawn during the years, now not a few, which I have spent in their service.

APPENDIX I.

The following account of the alleged conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on his journey to Baltimore is taken from the "Life of Abraham Lincoln," by Ward H. Lamon, pp. 511-526:

"Whilst Mr. Lincoln, in the midst of his suite and attendants, was being borne in triumph through the streets of Philadelphia, and a countless multitude of people were shouting themselves hoarse, and jostling and crushing each other around his carriage-wheels, Mr. Felton, the President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railway, was engaged with a private detective discussing the details of an alleged conspiracy to murder him at Baltimore. Some months before, Mr. Felton, apprehending danger to the bridges along his line, had taken this man into his pay and sent him to Baltimore to spy out and report any plot that might be found for their destruction. Taking with him a couple of other men and a woman, the detective went about his business with the zeal which necessarily marks his peculiar profession. He set up as a stock-broker, under an assumed name, opened an office, and became a vehement secessionist. His agents were instructed to act with the duplicity which such men generally use; to be rabid on the subject of 'Southern Rights'; to suggest all manner of crimes in vindication of them; and if, by these arts, corresponding sentiments should be elicited from their victims, the 'job' might be considered as prospering. Of course they readily

It

found out what everybody else knew-that Maryland was in a state of great alarm; that her people were forming military associations, and that Governor Hicks was doing his utmost to furnish them with arms, on condition that the arms, in case of need, should be turned against the Federal Government. Whether they detected any plan to burn bridges or not, the chief detective does not relate; but it appears that he soon deserted that inquiry and got, or pretended to get, upon a scent that promised a heavier reward. Being intensely ambitious to shine in the professional way, and something of a politician besides, it struck him that it would be a particularly fine thing to discover a dreadful plot to assassinate the President-elect, and he discovered it accordingly. was easy to get that far; to furnish tangible proofs of an imaginary conspiracy was a more difficult matter. But Baltimore was seething with political excitement; numerous strangers from the far South crowded its hotels and boardinghouses; great numbers of mechanics and laborers out of employment encumbered its streets; and everywhere politicians, merchants, mechanics, laborers and loafers were engaged in heated discussions about the anticipated war, and the probability of Northern troops being marched through Maryland to slaughter and pillage beyond the Potomac. It would seem like an easy thing to beguile a few individuals of this angry and excited multitude into the expression of some criminal desire; and the opportunity was not wholly lost, although the limited success of the detective under such favorable circumstances is absolutely wonderful. He put his 'shadows' upon several persons whom it suited his pleasure to suspect, and the 'shadows' pursued their work with the keen zest and the cool treachery of their kind. They reported daily to their chief in writing, as he reported in turn to his

employer. These documents are neither edifying nor useful: they prove nothing but the baseness of the vocation which gave them existence. They were furnished to Mr. Herndon in full, under the impression that partisan feeling had extinguished in him the love of truth and the obligations of candor, as it had in many writers who preceded him on the same subject-matter. They have been carefully and thoroughly read, analyzed, examined and compared, with an earnest and conscientious desire to discover the truth, if, perchance, any trace of truth might be in them. The process of investigation began with a strong bias in favor of the conclusion at which the detective had arrived. For ten years the author implicitly believed in the reality of the atrocious plot which these spies were supposed to have detected and thwarted; and for ten years he had pleased himself with the reflection that he also had done something to defeat the bloody purpose of the assassins. It was a conviction which could scarcely have been overthrown by evidence less powerful than the detective's weak and contradictory account of his own case. In that account there is literally nothing to sustain the accusation, and much to rebut it. It is perfectly manifest that there was no conspiracy-no conspiracy of a hundred, of fifty, of twenty, of three-no definite purpose in the heart of even one man to murder Mr. Lincoln at Baltimore.

"The reports are all in the form of personal narratives, and for the most relate when the spies went to bed, when they rose, where they ate, what saloons and brothels they visited, and what blackguards they met and 'drinked' with. One of them shadowed a loud-mouthed drinking fellow named Luckett, and another, a poor scapegrace and braggart named Hilliard. These wretches' drinked' and talked a great deal, hung about bars, haunted disreputable houses,