blican Government, cherishing liberty, and obeying law;
upholding the sacredness of the family, the church, and the school;
with school, the library will follow, and in the time to come our
Nation will endure, and its people will cultivate from generation
to generation, a better and higher civilization."

CHAPTER XXXIII
CONSECUTIVE ELECTIONS TO UNITED STATES SENATE

I was twice elected Governor of Illinois, and have been elected to
the United States Senate for five consecutive terms, and as I write
this narrative I have served in the Senate more than twenty-eight
years. I consider this a greater honor than an election to the
Presidency of the United States. I owe the deepest debt of gratitude
to the people of the State of Illinois, who have for so many years
continued me in the public service. To my many friends who have
so loyally supported me during all these years, I am profoundly
grateful.

I have already referred to my first election to the United States
Senate. At the conclusion of my first term, I was, on January 22,
1889, re-elected without opposition.

The country had turned the Republican party out of power and elected
Mr. Cleveland in 1892; and for the first time since 1856, the State
of Illinois went Democratic and elected Mr. Altgeld as Governor.
I returned to Illinois, from Washington, to enter the campaign in
1894, having little or no hope that I could be re-elected to the
Senate, as I supposed, of course, that the State would continue in
the control of the Democratic party. Having been twice elected to
the United States Senate, I deemed it my duty to make the best
fight I could for Republican success, regardless of my own personal
interest in the matter. The Democrats were confident they would
carry the Legislature, and Mr. Franklin MacVeagh, who is now
Secretary of the Treasury under a Republican President, was the
candidate of the Democratic party for the Senate to succeed me.
Mr. MacVeagh made a canvass of the State as a candidate for United
States Senator against me. Very much to his surprise, the State
went overwhelmingly Republican and elected a Republican Legislature,
insuring the election of a Republican to the Senate.

While I had made the canvass of the State, it was not until after
the election, when it became known that we had elected a Republican
Legislature, that opposition to my re-election developed in the
Republican party.

Mr. George E. Adams, and Mr. George R. Davis w