country had a just cause of war in the escape of the
Florida and the Alabama. After the panic of 1873, when financiers and
capitalists lost their heads, and Congress with the approval of public
sentiment passed an act increasing the amount of United States notes in
circulation, Grant, by a manly and bold veto, prevented this inflation
of the currency. The wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in giving
the President the veto power was exemplified. Congress did not pass the
act over the veto, and Grant has been justified by the later judgment of
the nation. His action demonstrated what a President may do in resisting
by his constitutional authority some transitory wave of popular opinion,
and it has proved a precedent of no mean value. Johnson's vetoes became
ridiculous. Grant's veto compensates for many of his mistakes.

Said Chancellor Kent in 1826: "If ever the tranquillity of this nation
is to be disturbed and its liberties endangered by a struggle for power,
it will be upon this very subject of the choice of a President. This is
the question that is eventually to test the goodness and try the
strength of the Constitution, and if we shall be able for half a century
hereafter to continue to elect the chief magistrate of the Union with
discretion, moderation, and integrity we shall undoubtedly stamp the
highest value on our national character." Just fifty years later came a
more dangerous test than Kent could have imagined. Somewhat more than
half of the country believed that the states of Florida and Louisiana
should be counted for Tilden, and that he was therefore elected. On the
other hand, nearly one half of the voters were of the opinion that those
electoral votes should be given to Hayes, which would elect him by the
majority of one electoral vote. Each of the parties had apparently a
good case, and after an angry controversy became only the more firmly
and sincerely convinced that its own point of view was unassailable. The
Senate was Republican, the House Democratic. The great Civil War had
been ended only eleven years before, and the country was full of
fighting men. The Southern people were embittered against the dominant
party for the reason that Reconstruction had gone otherwise than they
had expected in 1865 when they laid down their arms. The country was on
the verge of a civil war over the disputed Presidency--a war that might
have begun with an armed encounter on the floor of the Senate or the
House