enlightenment of the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust of
the people must now be done with a full knowledge that the people expect
and require it. The members go to Washington fresh from the inspiring
presence of the people. In every considerable public meeting, and in
almost every conceivable way, whether at court-house, school-house, or
cross-roads, in doors and out, the subject has been discussed, and the
people have emphatically pronounced in favor of a radical policy.
Listening to the doctrines of expediency and compromise with pity,
impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into demonstrations
of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been spoken in favor of
equal rights and impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so far from being
odious, is not the popular passport to power. The men most bitterly
charged with it go to Congress with the largest majorities, while the
timid and doubtful are sent by lean majorities, or else left at home.
The strange controversy between the President and the Congress, at one
time so threatening, is disposed of by the people. The high
reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously, and
haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly
repudiated; while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.

Of the spirit and magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said. The
appeal was to the people, and the verdict was worthy of the tribunal.
Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice and approval of
his astute Secretary, soon after the members of the Congress had returned
to their constituents, the President quitted the executive mansion,
sandwiched himself between two recognized heroes,--men whom the whole
country delighted to honor,--and, with all the advantage which such
company could give him, stumped the country from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi, advocating everywhere his policy as against that of
Congress. It was a strange sight, and perhaps the most disgraceful
exhibition ever made by any President; but, as no evil is entirely
unmixed, good has come of this, as from many others. Ambitious,
unscrupulous, energetic, indefatigable, voluble, and plausible,--a
political gladiator, ready for a "set-to" in any crowd,--he is beaten in
his own chosen field, and stands to-day before the country as a convicted
usurper, a political criminal, guilty of a bold and persistent attempt to
possess himself of the legislative pow