wak k pleted the rout and dispersion of the panic- | ed, by voice and vote, first for the election

It was on this memorable field that Sheridan, clasping the hand of Hayes, exclaimed: "Colonel! from this day forward you will be a brigadier general." Ten days later the commission arrived: a little later that of major general. Wounded four times, and a hundred days under fire, ex-ism and gallant services in the field, he no posed to death in a series of brilliant actions, his promotions were but the well-earned meed of merit in the field.

RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES.

whatever benefits or elevates mankind; libraries, colleges, hospitals, and churches: and gave a notable example of his sincerity by inducing his uncle, Mr. Sardis Birchard, in his will, to bequeath $75,000 to the citizens of Fremont for a public park heir: the bequest was consequently at his and free library! He was his uncle's sole own expense.

letter to a friend in Ohio, dated "Sheri- | earnestly encouraged all measures dan's Camp, August 24th, 1864," he says: means tending to humanize the masses"Your suggestion about getting a fur- elevate or improve their condition, or s lough to take the stump was certainly to their happiness or comfort. He w made without reflection. An officer fit for thus the zealous champion of our pub duty, who, at this crisis, would abandon school system. He advocated the establish his post to electioneer for a seat in Congressment of parks, fountains, galleries of art. ought to be scalped. You may feel fectly sure I shall do no such thing." perHis wish for success was strong, but his sense of duty to his country in the field in the supreme hour of her peril was stronger. Against it he would tolerate no privite wish-no selfish ambition. triotism was crowned with success. His pasoldiers, already idolizing him, and gloryHis ing at this new manifestation of his selfsacrificing spirit, cried out at the Opequan, at the brunt of the fight: "One more charge, Colonel-Victory and Congress!" He was elected, triumphantly elected, in despite of the lying caricatures and ribald lampoons of the Democracy, by a majority of 2,450 votes, over their strongest man. After the fall of Richmond, after the surrender at the Appomattox, and all armed resistance to the national authority had ceased, Gen. Hayes, in December, 1865, took his seat in the House.

He advocated and encouraged all meas resources, or productive industry, of Ohio ures for the development of the industrial and the nation-of agriculture, manufac tures, and commerce, and of internal improvements by the State and nation. is the friend of cheap transportation-the zealous champion of civil service, and the enemy of debts and high taxes.

He

Upon all the great questions touching the public debt, or the finances, of the Re

lying "Reconstruction "-freedom, equalHe sustained the great principles underIn Congress, before the people, and as cable guarantees of these by amendments ity, human rights! He demanded irrevoGovernor, by his votes, speeches, and in- to the organic law, basing representation, fluence, he maintained the good faith, the not upon population, but voters; and honor, and the interests of the nation. His secured, in conjuction with Orth, of Indicomrades of the "Old Kanawha " never ana, and Cullom, of Illinois, the ratificawanted an advocate: his time was ever at their disposal in Congress and before nessee, which was necessary to render tion of the new amendments by Tenthe departments at Washington. As chair- them valid. man of the Committee on the Library, he was the great enemy of all shoddy or sham in art, but zealously, and with a judg-public, he was patriotic, inflexible, and ment based upon an enlightened and a sound. He believes that "honesty is the liberal culture, encouraged all works of best policy." real merit. He was the author's friend. tion was As the debt of the RevoluHe was chiefly instrumental in adding two cost of independence-so the debt of the "the price of liberty "-the wings to the library section of the Capitol, Rebellion was the price of nationality—of in adding to the volumes of the Congres- national existence. sional Library those of the celebrated "Force Historical Collection,” the Smith- paid, principal and interest: it could only "sacred and inviolable." It ought to be It was consequently sonian Library, copies of all books, pamph- be repudiated or scaled in national dishonlets, maps, &c., copyrighted in the United or. States, and in extending the privileges of tion as expedients only of demagogues or He denounced all attempts at inflathe Library to a larger class of public of- traitors. ficers. Inflation was dishonor: inflaBoth in Congress and as Governor he feat the pretended purpose for which it tion was ruin. Its adoption would de

ocated thee sgalleries

RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES.

ed all mea)
was advocated-a relief of "hard times.'
manize them
Instead of relieving trade, instead of per-
eir condition manently stimulating traffic or business,
comfort.
or of facilitating their revival upon a per-
pion of or
manent or solid basis-instead of relieving
the masses by giving them permanent or
remunerative employment, or rendering
the burdens of taxation more tolerable-its
adoption, by depreciating the intrinsic value
of the dollar by unsettling all values while
nominally advancing them to an artificial
standard, would inevitably result in cheap-
ening labor, robbing the laborer, and in-
volve all in one common financial ruin and
in national disgrace.

tals, and ch

levates max

ple of his Mr. Sard eath $75.00

a public is uncle's quently a

ment of the States, it failed to serve the purposes for which it was created. Originally it was the doctrine of simple malcontents, disappointed theorists, having no reference to slavery; in later years it became the formidable engine of pro-slavery traitors. Again and again it convulsed the nation in perilous contention. Overthrown in argument, in the battle of brains, by Webster and Clay in their conflicts with Hayne and Calhoun, knocked hors du combat by Jackson in his suppression of nullification, it assumed all its malignant proportions under Rhett and Jeff Davis, and its traitorous uses culminated in the deviltry HAYES' of the rebellion. Baffled by the sword, after immense sacrifices, in its attempted de

THE PRESIDENTIAL CONFLICT-
VICTORY A TRIUMPH OF THE NATION.

Those were perilous periods for the nation. Its traitorous foe rejoiced in anticipated success: in imagination they had alAn election ready throttled the nation. tidal wave had swept the Republicans from Congress: the House was Confederate. A financial crisis was upon the nation. "Hard times" cruelly afflicted all ranks and classes; trade languished; productive industry was checked: the farmer had no market for his crops; the merchant had but few customers; and the workingman no demand for his labor; thousands were idle, and destitution and want, all the evils of a general financial revulsion attendant upon

As in the great campaign of 1875 in Ohio,struction of the nation, it, in the campaigns so in the Presidential conflict of 1876, all of 1875-'76, was galvanized by the Democthese important questions of public policy racy into new existence. were involved, as was that of States rightsthe grand question, underlying the existence of the Republic, whether, under the Constitution, our Union is a nation, sovereign or supreme within the limits of its powers, with inherent forces capable of maintaining and vindicating its authority and unity, or a confederacy-a simple league of States-liable to disruption at will by any malcontent State. States rights is coeval with the Constitution. It was the invention of those who in 1788 resisted the adoption of our bond of union—our organic law, and developed its mischievous character in the Cabinet of Washington, in the conflict between Jefferson and Hamilton, the founders respectively of our States rights and national schools of politics. Under the teachings of Jefferson's school, under those of John Taylor, of Caroline, William B. Giles, and John C. Calhoun, and their later satellites, Rhett, Mason, and Jeff. Davis, the early doctrine of States rights was extended through all the forms of nullification into the open doctrine of secession. Only the States were sovereign. They were the judges of their own rights and powers, and of those of the United States. The Union was simply a confederacy, a league of States; the National Government a simple agency created by the States to represent their will, to be dissolved or destroyed whenever, in the judg

reckless over-speculation, stalked over the land. It was the malcontent's hour of reprisal. The patriot's misery was the traitor's jubilee; the travail of the people the demagogue's harvest. Eagerly they seized the opportunities. Tilden, Hen| dricks, Allen, Thurman, and Pendleton, re-enforced by lieutenants and allies in all the States, both in 1875 and 1876, took the field with the grandest hopes. They openly exulted in anticipated victory. They exhausted all the expedients, all the slogans and shams of demagogical craft. They raised the cry of "corruption," stimulated and openly aided the reckless and slanderous abuse of the highest officers of the Government. They shouted "reform," "hard times," "more money," "let us have a

66

of government or the wants of the nation for the revival of prosperity. There was no dodging of issues-no resort to miserable subterfuges or makeshifts; but a manly, square and unflinching battle against the shams and cries and frauds of demagogical craft. It commanded the attention of the great financial centers of Europe. Patriotic men, eloquent and able, rallied to his support. Sherman, Garfield, Taft, Noyes, Foster, Lawrence, and Danforth, a brilliant array of State strength, aided by Morton, Woodford, Schurz, Grosvenor, Oglesby, Windom, Dawes, and Boutwell from abroad, met and routed the Democratic hosts. As at the Opequan, as at Cedar Creek, when all seemed disaster and ruin, the charge of the intrepid leader of the "Old Kanawha" restored the fight and "snatched victory from the jaws of defeat." In 1875 the stars of Allen and Thurman set forever: in 1876 that of Tilden! The nation had again triumphed in the victory of Hayes.

change of rulers," "the people want a of all men of all races and colors before the change," organized systematic murder, vio- | law-all these he ably maintained as the duty lence, and fraud throughout the States, and, through the House, assessed the national purse for a campaign fund for the collection and circulation of the slanderous perjuries of mercenary informers in the shape of Congressional reports against the highest and purest in the land. All the probabilities were against the nation. In both campaigns the Republicans, at first, were dispirited. The fruits of the victory for which, as the representatives of the nation, they had contended in the rebellion, at such unparalleled sacrifices, were in peril. The most patriotic doubted. Brave men, strong men wavered. All eyes turned to Rutherford B. Hayes. The crises demanded the prestige of his name, a tower of strength. These were calls like that which in 1861 had carried him into the field. That of 1875 he received while at home, unsuspectingly playing base-ball with his children, and rejoicing that he had escaped from the active toils of politics-that he was relegated to the cultivation of his land and the delights of his domestic hearth. It was the call of duty-duty to country, to his party, and the great national principles, upon the success of which depended the salvation of both. His hesitation was brief. He entered the field at once, and under his lead the confidence and enthusiasm of his party soon revived. He boldly raised the national banner. The United States was a nation, not a league—a nation with powers inherent in its organism capable of maintaining its legitimate sovereignty, of enforcing its constitutional authority, and of coercing and punishing all who resisted either or menaced its life; hard money, the earliest possible resumption of specie payments, was the great need of business and the people; the absolute good faith of the Republic demanded the honorable liquidation of all its obligations in the payment of the national debt, principal and interest; the inviolability of our public school system; the development of the wealth and resources of the country; the encouragement of manufactures and commerce by all proper legislation for their protection and support; freedom, justice, and the equality

THE CUBAN SLAVERY QUESTION.-The Havana Voz de Cuba, February 24th, referring to President Grant's message, and his statement that Cuba is the only country in which slavery now exists, says while slavery on a large scale exists in Brazil, the Spanish law of gradual abolition will result in ending slavery in Cuba earlier than in Brazil. If foreign government insist that slavery be abolished in Brazil, while it exists in Cuba, then let the Spanish law be exchanged for the Brazilian one, thus doing away with fault-finding and the pretexts of other nations compelling them to blame Brazil, when blaming Cuba. Whether under Spanish or Brazilian law we shall have a pass through a transformation of the greatest importance. Nobody ignores this, yet nobody takes the provisory steps. We cannot understand this indiffer

ence on the solution of which the future of the Island largely depends. There is no other country where individual efforts are so strong, and where collective efforts are unknown. *** Nothing exists outside of war of equal importance to the future of the Island as this labor question.

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COUNTING OF THE ELECTORAL VOTE.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GRAND COMMISSION.