e sovereignty. No assertion of the purely
federative constitution of the Union could equal in force the decision
that, fraud or no fraud, Congress should not go behind the electoral
certificates of the Governors of the various States. Partisanship was
equally binding on both sides. If then all the Republicans on the
Commission always voted one way, with like "solidarity" all the
Democrats always voted the other. To adopt a phrase attributed to the
ex-Confederate General Jubal Early, the seven-spot couldn't take the
eight. One result of the struggle, and of the revelations which it
brought about, was the remarkable one of the destruction of the
prestige of the candidate who came within one electoral vote of the
Presidency. It is safe to say that if a new election had been brought
about, the Democrats would not have ventured to go into it with Mr.
Tilden in nomination.

* * * * *

--THE struggle is over, and the uncertainty is past; and now, according
to very general anticipations, business ought to revive and prosperity
to return. We would gladly believe that such will be the result, but we
doubt it. Business will revive, prosperity will return; for the country
is rich, never more so, and is daily becoming richer. It is impossible
to stop the onward course of a people who have our advantages; but the
causes of our present depression lie too deep to be touched by the
settlement of a mere party contest. We are suffering from the effects
of a political, social, and moral revolution which has been in progress
for nearly twenty years, and which the rest of the world has felt
hardly less than ourselves. We have suffered the most because on the
one hand our financial position is at any time less stable than that of
other people, and on the other because we of all have undergone the
greatest moral deterioration. We have been brought to that sad
condition in which we are afraid to trust each other. So many of us
have been playing the part of adventurers, so many have been playing a
"confidence game," that confidence is gone in another sense than that
in which it is so often said to be wanting. Prosperity will return to
our business circles slowly and surely as our moral tone rises, and as
business is conducted upon stable principles and upon an honorable
basis. We must cease to "swap jackknives" in the shape of railway bonds
and unimproved land; we must do more productive work and keep be