adequate and discriminating relief to
the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans. Such
occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to their
valor and sacrifice.

It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect of the
admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and Washington
Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably delayed in the
case of some of them. The people who have settled these Territories are
intelligent, enterprising, and patriotic, and the accession of these
new States will add strength to the nation. It is due to the settlers
in the Territories who have availed themselves of the invitations of
our land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their titles
should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries confirmed by
patent.

It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being
manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have been for
years calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing about the
ballot box and about the elector further safeguards, in order that our
elections might not only be free and pure, but might clearly appear to
be so, will welcome the accession of any who did not so soon discover
the need of reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken control
of elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it
jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of the
several States, provided penalties for their violation and a method
of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the State laws or an unfair
partisan administration of them could suggest a departure from this
policy.

It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the
Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was
wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our
national life, and no power vested in Congress or in the Executive to
secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion. The people
of all the Congressional districts have an equal interest that the
election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority
of the qualified electors residing within it. The results of such
elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing in
other districts that they shall be pure and free does not savor at all
of impertinence.

If in any of the States the public security is thought to be threatened
by ignorance amo