-"He has pardoned some of the worst rebel criminals, North and South, including some who have taken human life under circumstances of unparalleled atrocity.”

"While declaring against the injustice of leaving eleven States unrepresented, he has refused to authorize the liberal plan of Congress, simply because they have recognized the loyal majority and refused to perpetuate the traitor minority.

-"In every State south of Mason and Dixon's line his policy has wrought the most deplorable consequences, social, moral and political."

Upon these indictments a powerful address was based, giving argument, illustration, fact and indisputable conclusion. The address was framed by Senator Creswell of Maryland, and the style and tone were beyond praise. It was received with great applause in the convention, was adopted with unanimity, and created a profound influence upon the public opinion of the North. It was the deliberate, well-conceived and clearly stated opinion of thoughtful and responsible men, was never disproved, was practically unanswered, and its serious accusations were in effect admitted by the South. The one objective point proclaimed in the address, repeated in the resolutions, echoed and re-echoed by every speaker, both in the Northern and Southern Conventions, was the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was evidently the unalterable determination of the Republicans to make that the leading feature of the campaign, to enforce it in every party convention, to urge it through the press, to present it on the stump, to proclaim it through every authorized exponent of public opinion. They were determined that the Democratic party of the North should not be allowed to ignore it or in any way to evade it. It was to be the Shibboleth of the Republican canvass, and the rank and file in every loyal State were engaged in its presentation and its exposition.

The friends of the Administration, feeling the disadvantage under which they labored by an apparent combination of all the earnest supporters of the war for the Union against them, sought to create a re-action in their favor by calling a soldiers' convention to meet at Cleveland, on the 17th of September. A considerable number of respectable officers responded to the summons; but relatively the demonstration was weak, ineffective and in the end hurtful to the Administration. The venerable General Wool of the regular army, the oldest major-general in the United States at the time, was made

president of the convention and his selection was significant of the proceedings. He had been all his life a soldier and nothing but a soldier. He was a major of infantry in the war of 1812 and had been in continuous service thereafter. He denounced the Abolitionists after the manner that had been the custom in the regular army prior to the war. He thought the convention had been called to protest against another war which he was sure the Abolitionists were determined to force on the country. "Another civil war is foreshadowed," said he, "unless the freedmen are placed on an equality with their previous masters. If this cannot be accomplished, radical partisans, with a raging thirst for blood and plunder, are again ready to invade the Southern States and lay waste the country not already desolated, with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other. These revengeful partisans would leave their country a howling wilderness for the want of more victims to gratify their insatiable cruelty. . . . Let there be peace! Yet there are those among us who are not sufficiently satiated with blood and plunder, and cry for more war." General Wool would have been severely criticised if it had not been remembered that for nearly sixty years he had been a faithful soldier and had loyally followed the flag of the Union in three wars.

Many members of the convention were outspoken Democrats and their presence, therefore, did not indicate any division in the Republican ranks, - the objective point to which all the efforts of the Administration were steadily addressed. Conspicuous representatives of this class were Generals John A. McClernand of Illinois, J. W. Denver of California, Willis A. Gorman of Minnesota, James B. Steedman of Ohio. The delegates who had been Republicans were all of the most conservative type, and it is believed that every one of them became permanently identified with the Democratic party. The most prominent of these were General Thomas Ewing of Kansas, Governor Bramlette and General Rousseau of Kentucky, and Honorable Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio. General Gordon Granger and General George A. Custer of the regular army were very active in organizing the convention. It was evident that the number of soldiers present was small; and the convention really failed in its principal aim, which was to strengthen the President in the loyal States.

A telegram, expressing sympathy with its proceedings, was received by the convention from a number of Confederate officers

who were gathered at Memphis. But it was unfortunate that General N. B. Forrest was a conspicuous signer; still more unfortunate that the convention passed a resolution of thanks to Forrest and his rebel associates for, the "magnanimity and kindness" of their message. Forrest's name was especially odious in the North for his alleged guilty participation in the massacre at Fort Pillow. All other circumstances united did not condemn the convention in Northern opinion so deeply as this incident. Further investigation of the Fort Pillow affair has in some degree ameliorated the feeling against General Forrest, but at that time his name among the soldiers of the Union was as bitterly execrated as was that of the Master of Stair among the Macdonalds of Glencoe, or of Haynau, at a later day, among the patriots of Hungary.

The only noteworthy speech in the convention was delivered by General Thomas Ewing. It was able, but extreme in its hostility to the policy of Congress. He and Mr. Browning were law-partners at the time of Mr. Johnson's accession to the Presidency. Both had supported Mr. Lincoln, and both now resolved to oppose the Republican party. General Ewing's loss was regretted by a large number of friends. He had inherited talent and capacity of a high order, was rapidly rising in his profession, and seemed destined to an inviting political career in the party to which he had belonged from its first organization. In supporting the policy of President Johnson he made a large sacrifice, — large enough certainly to free his action from the slightest suspicion of any other motive than conviction of duty. General Ewing has since adhered steadily to the Democratic party.

The fourth of the National Conventions which this remarkable year witnessed, was that of the citizen soldiers and sailors, held at Pittsburg on the 25th and 26th of September. Nine out of ten, perhaps even a larger proportion, of those who had defended the Union with arms, were hostile to the President's policy. As soon therefore as it was attempted to secure a political advantage for the Administration by calling the Cleveland Convention, the great mass of Union soldiers demanded that a convention be held in which their true position might be proclaimed. The response was overwhelming both in numbers and enthusiasm. Pittsburg was literally overrun. In addition to the large number of regimental and company officers who had done their duty in the service, there was an immense outpouring of privates. It was said that not less than twenty-five thousand who had served in the ranks of the Union army were

present. A private soldier, L. Edwin Dudley, was chosen temporary president, and a majority of the prominent officers of the convention were privates and non-commissioned officers. Mr. Dudley was a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, and being refused a leave of absence for two days to attend the convention, he promptly resigned his place and joined his brethren at Pittsburg. The incident of the resignation strikingly illustrates the depth of feeling which the contest between the President and Congress had developed among the soldiery of the Union.

Officers of high rank in the volunteer service were not wanting. Generals Butler and Banks of Massachusetts, Palmer and Farnsworth of Illinois, Negley, Geary, Hartranft and Collis of Pennsylvania, Cochrane, Barnum and Barlow of New York, Chamberlain from Maine, Schenck and Cox from Ohio, Duncan and Harriman from New Hampshire, Daniel McCauley of Indiana, and many of their fellowofficers, took active and zealous part in the convention. Every loyal State except possibly Oregon was represented. Far-off California and Nevada, then without the facility of railway connection, sent delegates. The border States of the South were present in full force, and Union men who had borne their part in the civil contest came from every Confederate State. General John A. Logan had been unanimously elected as permanent president of the convention, but at the last moment he found himself unable to attend and his place was filled, with equal unanimity of selection, by General Jacob D. Cox of Ohio. General Cox, on taking the chair, made an address of great firmness. It was even radical in its positions and aggressive in its general tone. He said it was "unpleasant to recognize the truth that it is in the minds of some to exalt the Executive Department of the Government into a despotic power and to abase the representative portion of our Government into the mere tools of despotism. Learning that this is the case, we now, as heretofore, know our duty, and knowing, dare maintain it. The citizen soldiery of the United States recognize the Congress of the United States as the representative government of the people. We know and all traitors know that the will of the people has been expressed in the complexion and character of the existing Congress. . . . We have expressed our faith that the proposition which has been made by Congress for the settlement of all difficulties in the country [the Fourteenth Amendment] is not only a wise policy, but one so truly magnanimous that the whole world stood in wonder that a people could, under such circumstances, be

so magnanimous to those whom they had conquered. And when we say we are ready to stand by the decision of Congress, we only say as soldiers that we follow the same flag and the same principles which we have followed during the war."

The resolutions, read by General B. F. Butler, were explicit and unqualified in their declarations, and were indorsed with absolute unanimity. They declared that "the action of the present Congress in passing the pending Constitutional amendment is wise, prudent and just. That amendment clearly defines American citizenship and guarantees all his rights to every citizen. It places on a just and equal basis the right of representation, making the vote of a man in one State equally potent with the vote of another man in any State. It righteously excludes from places of honor and trust the chief conspirators and guiltiest rebels, whose perjured crimes have drenched the land in blood. It puts into the very frame of our Government the inviolability of our National obligations, and nullifies forever the obligations contracted in support of the Rebellion." The resolutions further declared it to be "unfortunate for the country that the propositions contained in the Fourteenth Amendment have not been received with the spirit of conciliation, clemency and fraternal feeling in which they were offered, as they are the mildest terms ever granted to subdued rebels."

The members of the convention were in a tempest of anger against the President. They declared "that his attempt to fasten his scheme of Reconstruction upon the country is as dangerous as it is unwise; that his acts in sustaining it have retarded the restoration of peace and unity; that they have converted conquered rebels into impudent claimants to rights which they have forfeited and to places which they have desecrated. If the President's scheme be consummated it would render the sacrifice of the Nation useless, the loss of her buried comrades vain, and the war in which we have so gloriously triumphed a failure, as it was declared to be by President Johnson's present associates in the Democratic National Convention of 1864.” Many other propositions of an equally decisive character were announced by the convention, and General John Cochrane declared that "a more complete, just and righteous platform for a whole people to occupy has never before been presented to the National sense."

Of the four conventions held, this, of the soldiers who had fought the battles of the Union, was far the most influential upon public opinion. In its membership could be found representatives of every