was my first entry to political life, followed by
re-election for succeeding term.

The exercise of the franchise at the polls was by "viva voce," the voter
proclaiming his vote by stating the name of the candidate for whom he
voted in a distinct voice, which was audited on the rolls by clerks of
both parties.

Alike all human contrivances, this mode of obtaining the popular will
has its merits and demerits. For the former it has the impossibility of
ballot-stuffing, for the by-stander can keep accurate tally; also the
opportunity for the voter to display the courage of his conviction,
which is ever manly and the purpose of a representative Commonwealth. On
the other hand, it may fail to register the desire of the voter whose
financial or other obligation may make it impolitic to thus openly
antagonize the candidate he otherwise would with a secret ballot, "that
falls as silently as snow-flakes fall upon the sod" and (should)
"execute a freeman's will as lightning doth the will of God." This is
its mission, the faithful execution of its fiat, the palladium of
liberty for all the people. Opposition to the exercise of this right in
a representative government is disintegrating by contention and suicidal
in success. It has been, and still is, the cause of bitter struggle in
our own country. Disregard of the ultimatum of constitutional
majorities, the foundation of our system of government, as the cause of
the civil war, the past and ever-occurring political corruption in the
Northern and the chief factor in the race troubles in the Southern
States, where the leaders in this disregard and unlawful action allow
the honors and emoluments of office to shut out from their view the
constitutional rights of others; and by the criminality of their conduct
and subterfuge strive to make selfish might honest right.

That slavery was a poor school to fit men to assume the obligations and
duties of an enlightened citizenship should be readily admitted; that
its subjects in the Elysium of their joy and thankfulness to their
deliverers from servitude to freedom, and in ignorance of the polity of
government, should have been easy prey to the unscrupulous is within
reason. Still the impartial historian will indite that, for all that
dark and bloody night of reconstruction through which they passed, the
record of their crime and peculation will "pale its ineffectual rays"
before the blistering blasts of official corruption, murder, and