Reformers, they have got a mighty distance from their army headquarters? They are but the "Quaker guns of this battle, and are allowed to display a little on the outposts, but the real battle of to-morrow will be fought behind them by systematic pollution and fraud.

Has it ever occurred to these gentlemen that the people of Philadelphia are turning their eyes from the miserable hired ballot-stuffers and forgers of returns to the men who shield crime with reputable names, and pay the price of our degradation? Will they not learn, until the evil day comes upon them, that when the aroused majesty of the people arms itself to destroy those who have defied the public will and mocked the laws, the most pitiless contempt of the community will be reserved for those who lent honored names to protect dishonored power. True, the Union League may be counted on for certificates of character to such unfortunate brethren, but it is not the Union League of other days, when the most beneficent and patriotic deeds were to be performed. The Mysterious Pilgrims have come upon it, as the unknown barbarians swarmed from the Northern forests upon Rome, and they have erected their strange altar in the inner temple. "John P. Verree went back on us!" was the Pilgrim battle-cry. He had refused to appoint any but honest election officers, and that was an offence for which there could be no forgiveness. They therefore invaded the League, erected their whipping-post, and, in presence of the dumb multitude, lashed him out of the organization because he dared to be just. Whether the Pilgrims have swallowed the League, or whether the League has swallowed the Pilgrims, or whether both are engaged in the laudable effort to swallow each other is a problem I cannot solve; but certain it is that the League can now soar no higher than the Pilgrims, and the Pilgrims cannot get below the level of the League. Every foe of the new Constitution has been met and vanquished, excepting fraud, and it will die only in the midst of its fallen worshipers.

THE UNION LEAGUE AND

GRANT.*

FELLOW-CITIZENS :-I learn from the newspapers that I am partly or fractionally committed to the support of Grant in this campaign, and that I owe divided or double political allegiance. I am a long time member of the Union League, and I see by an account of what purports to be the action of that body, that we are unanimously for Grant. Hundreds of its members will be surprised to find that they do not know their own political convictions or their Presidential preferences, and they may be amused as well when they understand that less than one in thirty of the members participated in that momentous deliverance. It was a happy imitation of the two celebrated tailors of Tooley street, London, who held a mass meeting and prefaced their resolutions with "We, the people of England," etc. I would not speak irreverently of this important organization, part of which I am myself. We, of the League, do not speak as common men, nor do we pass common resolutions-in our own estimation. It is wonderful how we have directed great events, particularly after their inevitable direction was palpable. We declared for the renomination of Lincoln whenever his renomination was secured beyond a reasonable doubt, and thereby Lincoln was made our candidate in 1864. When Johnson's betrayal of the Republicans was pronounced perfidious by the unanimous vote of the Republicans in Congress, we unanimously resolved that the country was betrayed. When Grant, after much hesitation, decided that he would prefer the Republican to the

* Delivered in Morton Hall, Philadelphia, June 26, 1872.

Democratic nomination for President, and his nomination was so clearly accomplished that he was without a competitor, we solemnly declared for Grant, and thereby nominated Grant in 1868. It was therefore eminently proper, and due to our own consistency, that as soon as thirty of thirty-seven States had unanimously instructed for Grant's renomination, we should at once give proper direction to public sentiment on that subject by unanimously declaring that Grant should be renominated. We did so, and the question was settled-Grant is the Republican candidate for 1872.

It is true that in some of our deliverances we have not been altogether fortunate. We once tried to do and say something original in politics, and it was a misventure. But what great warrior did not lose some battles? What statesman has not sometimes erred? What great element of power has not now and then failed in omnipotence? After contributing largely for a long time to debauch our politics, we resolved to regenerate and rejuvenate our political system. We marshaled our committee of fifty in battle array, and notified the scurvy politicians by solemn proclamation that we would smash their slates and rings, and hereafter make only respectability, according to our own high standard, eligible to office. We proclamated, carved our canvas-backs, and flashed our wine over the victory we had achieved over the small politicians, but by some remarkable oversight the rings went on, and the slates went through just as before. We then unanimously resolved that politics was no longer our mission, the good sense of which startled the community; but as we have now unanimously resolved that we were then unanimously mistaken, we have justly escaped the hasty suspicion that years and experience had brought us wisdom.

We had great expectations from the present administration. We had given freely of our money and respectability -what we most possessed-for houses, endowments an d

status for the President, and not less than a score of us expected to go into the Cabinet, and as many were confident of Foreign Missions. We dined the man we had made President in our inner circle, but he was unappreciative. He appointed the only one of us who felt and frankly admitted that he had no fitness for the place, and our expected missions wandered hither and thither, flitting by us like the mists of the morning. But we were not always to be neglected. After everybody else had got what they wanted, a second-class mission was awarded us, and the winter of our discontent was made glorious summer. We banqueted, resolved and proclaimed that, while none of us wanted office, we were nevertheless most thankful for any small favors in that line, and hopeful that they would multiply. We now favor a reorganization of the Cabinet and diplomatic corps under the next term, and will be likely to hit the mark about where we missed it before.

And we have even gone farther. We proposed to take the Vice-Presidency, but our slate never reached the measure of importance that entitled it to be smashed. We had a very classical essay prepared, and published in the journal of our honored President, demonstrating to a mathematical certainty, I am told, that Pennsylvania must have the candidate for Vice-President. In order that the public might ascertain that such an essay had been printed, it was carefully advertised by abstract through the Associated Press. It is said that it did not name the honored son of our State who should go on the ticket to carry Grant through-the constitutional modesty of the president of our League forbidding that the name should be given in full in his own paper. When the rumor reached the people that the second office was to be claimed for Pennsylvania, but one name leaped from their hearts to their lips, and that was an unwelcome one. Absence and distance had failed to make them forgetful

of the cherished leader whose tall plume had been their battle flag when they struggled for their soldiers, their homes and their country. Finding that we could not get the Vice-Presidency, we unanimously resolved not to take it, and the convention very cordially agreed not to give it to us. The Pennsylvania delegation to the convention was subjected to various pressures of venality and ambition on the Vice-Presidency, but the only thing they could agree upon was that her delegation was eminent mainly for befouling her own people. In caucus Mr. McMichael recited his newspaper essay in favor of a Pennsylvanian, but again forgot to name the man, and a remarkable coincidence was that everybody else forgot to name the man he expected to have named. My worthy friend McMichael forgot to suggest McMichael, and the name seems not to have occurred to anybody else. Finally, in despair, the delegation resolved to go for Wilson. Our justly honored president of the League made a speech reflecting the decision of the delegation. It was as logical as brilliant. Its eloquent and impassioned sentences proved conclusively that Pennsylvania should have the VicePresidency, and could have the Vice-Presidency, and that only in Boston had the proposition been met with sneers and derision; therefore, in vindication of the conceded claims of Pennsylvania, and to resent the insolence of Boston newspapers, he nominated Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, for the position. It was once said that the two greatest men Pennsylvania had ever produced were Benjamin Franklin, of Boston, and Albert Gallatin, of Geneva; and Mr. McMichael had doubtless remembered it, and as Pennsylvania was now undisputably entitled to the Vice-Presidency, he borrowed a Massachusetts statesman to fill the bill. Of course he complained about it, as he had a right to do, and as our wounded League pride required; but his complaints were confined solely to the strictly confidential columns of his own journal. "The