the 28th of August, accompanied by Secretary Welles, Postmastergeneral Randall, General Grant, Admiral Farragut, by a considerable number of army officers and by a complement of private secretaries and newspaper reporters, - apparently intending to convert the journey into a political canvass. Mr. Seward joined the company in New York. The somewhat ludicrous effect produced by combining a series of turbulent partisan meetings to be addressed by the President with the solemn duty of paying respect to the memory of a dead statesman, did not fail to have its effect upon the appreciative mind of his countrymen, and from the beginning to the end of the tour there was a popular alternation between harsh criticism and contemptuous raillery of Mr. Johnson's conduct.

His journey was by way of Philadelphia and New York, to Albany; thence westward to Chicago. At all the principal cities and towns along the route large bodies of people assembled. Democrat and Republican, Administration and anti-Administration, were commingled. The President spoke everywhere in an aggressive and disputatious tone. It has been the decorous habit of the Chief Magistrate of the country, when upon a tour among his fellow-citizens, to refrain from all display of partisanship, and to receive popular congratulations with brief and cordial thanks. President Johnson, however, behaved as an ordinary political speaker in a heated canvass, receiving interruptions from the crowd, answering insolent remarks with undignified repartee, and lowering at every step of his progress the dignity which properly appertains to the great office. At Cleveland the meeting resembled occasions not unfamiliar to our people, where the speaker receives from his audience constant and discourteous demonstrations that his words are unwelcome. The whole scene was regarded as lamentable and one which must have been deeply humiliating to the eminent men who accompanied the President.

He made the tour the occasion for defending at great length his own policy of Reconstruction, and arraigned with unsparing severity the course of Congress in interposing a policy of its own. The most successful political humorist of the day,' writing in pretended support of the President, described his tour as being undertaken "to arouse the people to the danger of concentrating power in the hands of Congress instead of diffusing it through one man." Wit and sarcasm

1 Petroleum V. Nasby.

were lavished at the expense of the President, gibes and jeers and taunts marked the journey from its beginning to its end. "My policy" was iterated and reiterated, until the very boys in the streets, without knowing its meaning, knew that it was the source and subject of ridicule, and made it a jest and a by-word at Mr. Johnson's expense. The whole journey came to be known as "swinging around the circle," and its incidents entered daily into the thoughts of the people only as subjects of disapprobation on the part of the more considerate, and of persiflage and ribaldry on the part of those who regarded it only as matter of amusement. With whatever strength or prestige the President left Washington, he certainly returned to the Capital personally discredited and politically ruined. Upon the direct public issue which he had raised he would undoubtedly have been beaten in nearly all the Northern States, but when his weakness had brought him within fair range of ridicule, he became powerless even in the place of power.

Meanwhile, during the National Conventions referred to and during the remarkable tour of the President, the cause of his opponents was urged in every State and in every district, with extraordinary energy on the part of leaders, with corresponding interest on the part of the people. The contest for the governorship of New York between Reuben E. Fenton and John T. Hoffman, and for the governorship of Pennsylvania between John W. Geary and Hiester Clymer, excited deep interest far beyond the borders of either State. The vote for these candidates was looked to as giving the aggregate popular expression touching the merits of the Administration, and carried with it the united interest which attached to all the Congressional districts. When at last a test was reached and the people had an opportunity to speak the Administration was overwhelmingly defeated. Vermont, usually so strong in its Republican vote, now increased the ordinary majority by thousands. Maine elected General Chamberlain governor by twenty-eight thousand majority.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa were then all known in current phrase as October States. They voted for members of Congress and State officers on the second Tuesday of that month. The result was a significant verdict against the Administration. In Pennsylvania Geary, on a much fuller vote than was cast at the Presidential election two years before, led Clymer by nearly as large a majority

as that by which Lincoln led McClellan. The Congressional election resulted in the choice of eighteen Republican to six Democratic representatives. Ohio, on her State ticket, gave forty-three thousand majority against the Administration, and elected sixteen Republican representatives in Congress, leaving only three districts to the Democrats. In Indiana, a State always hotly contested, the Republicans secured the popular vote by a majority of nearly fifteen thousand and carried every Congressional district except three. Iowa gave a popular majority of thirty-six thousand and carried every Congressional district for the Republicans.

Under the impulse and influence of these great victories in October the November States recorded a like result. New York, of course, absorbed the largest share of public interest. Two years before, Lincoln had beaten McClellan by less than seven thousand votes. Fenton had now double that majority over Hoffman and the Republicans carried two-thirds of the Congressional districts. Throughout the West, Republican victory swept every thing before it. Michigan gave thirty-nine thousand popular majority and a unanimous Republican delegation in Congress. Illinois gave fiftysix thousand popular majority, with nearly all the representatives. Wisconsin gave twenty-four thousand popular majority and elected every Republican candidate for representative except one. Northern States which had been tenaciously Democratic gave way under the popular pressure. New-Jersey Republicans elected a majority of the members of Congress and a majority of each branch of the State Legislature. Connecticut was carried by Governor Hawley against the most popular Democrat in the State, James E. English. California gave seven thousand majority for the Republicans, while Oregon elected a Republican governor and Republican representative in Congress.

The aggregate majority for the Republicans and against the Administration in the Northern States was about three hundred and ninety thousand votes. In the South the elections were as significant as in the North, but in the opposite direction. Wherever Republican or Union tickets were put forward for State or local offices in the Confederate States, they were defeated by prodigious majorities. Arkansas gave a Democratic majority of over nine thousand, Texas over forty thousand, and North Carolina twenty-five thou sand. The border slave States were divided. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky gave strong majorities for the Democrats, while West

Virginia and Missouri were carried by the Republicans. The unhappy indication of the whole result was that President Johnson's policy had inspired the South with a determination not to submit to the legitimate results of the war, but to make a new fight and, if possible, regain at the ballot-box the power they had lost by war. The result of the whole election was to give to the Republicans one hundred and forty-three representatives in Congress and to the Democrats but forty-nine. The defeat was so decisive that if the President had been wise he would have sought a return of friendly relations with the party which had elected him, or at least some form of compromise which would have averted constant collision, with its certainty of defeat and humiliation. But his disposition was unyielding. His prejudices obscured his reason.

It was well known that the President felt much cast down by the result. He had, as is usual with Presidents, been surrounded by flatterers, and had not been advised of the actual state of public opinion. Political deserters, place-seekers and personal sycophants had constantly assured the President that his cause was strong and his strength irresistible. They had discovered that one of his especial weaknesses was an ambition to be considered as firm and heroic in his Administration as General Jackson had proved in the Executive chair thirty years before. He received, therefore, with evident welcome the constant adulation of a comparison between his qualitics and those of General Jackson, and he came to fancy that he would prove, in his contest for the unconditional re-admission of Southern States to representation, as mighty a power in the land as Jackson had proved in his struggle with the Bank monopolists and with the Disunionists of South Carolina. But those who had studied the character of Johnson knew that aside from the possession of personal integrity, he had few qualities in common with those which distinguished Jackson. Johnson was bold and fluent in public speech, irresolute and procrastinating in action: Jackson wasted no words, but always acted with promptness and courage. Johnson was vain, loquacious, and offensively egotistic: Jackson, on the other hand, was proud, reserved, and with such abounding self-respect as excluded egotism. The two men, instead of being alike, were in fact signal contrasts in all that appertains to the talent for administration, to the quick discernment of the time for action, and to the prompt execution of whatever policy might be announced.

The Republicans had found an easier victory over Johnson than

they had anticipated. They were well led in the great contest of 1866. In New England the President really secured no Republican support whatever. Soon after his accession to the Presidency he had induced Hannibal Hamlin, with whom he had been on terms of personal intimacy in Congress, to accept the Collectorship of Customs at Boston, but as soon as Mr. Hamlin discovered the tendency of Johnson's policy he made haste, with that strict adherence to principle which has always marked his political career, to separate himself from the Administration by resigning the office. It was urged upon him that he could maintain his official position without in any degree compromising his principles, but his steady reply to earnest friends who presented this view, was that he was an old-fashioned man in his conception of public duty, and he would not consent to hold a political office under a President from whose policy he instinctively and radically dissented. Mr. Hamlin's course was highly applauded by the mass of Republicans throughout the country, and especially by his old constituents in Maine. His action took from Mr. Johnson the last semblance of a prominent Republican friend in New England and gave an almost unprecedented solidity to the public opinion of that section.

The adherence of Mr. Seward to the Administration, the loss of Thurlow Weed as an organizer, and the desertion of the New-York Times, had created great fear as to the result in New York, but the popularity of Governor Fenton, supplemented by the support of Senator Morgan and of the younger class of men then coming forward, of whom Roscoe Conkling was the recognized chief, imparted an energy and enthusiasm to the canvass which proved irresistible. In Pennsylvania the contest was waged with great energy by both parties. The result would determine not merely the control of the local administration, not merely the character of the delegation in Congress, but the future leadership of the Republican party of the State. Simon Cameron sought a restoration to his old position of power by a return to the Senate. During the five years that had elapsed since he retired from the War Department Mr. Cameron's supremacy had been challenged by the political coterie that surrounded Governor Curtin. They boastfully proclaimed indeed that the sceptre of power was in their hands and could not be wrenched from them. But the reaction against them was strong and did not cease until Cameron had driven his leading enemies to seek refuge in the Democratic party.