Year: 1868

Republicans have distrusted the soundness
of his faith in the tenets of the party, and
have turned their unenthusiastic eyes upon
him only as an uninteresting necessity to


be secured by them against the triumph of


the Democrats. Not until the publication


of his private letters to President Johnson


on the removal of Sheridan and Stanton,
did he. as man, seem to quicken the pub
| lie pulse to one thrill of enthusiasm Yet
these letters only proved what his acts
| long ago attested-that, when he has any
thing to do he does it; when he has any
thing to say, he says it, However dumb
| before, when the occasion comes he speaks


without hindrance and without fear. He
isloyal to his friends, he is loyal to his duty
| and you feel in every line, however calmly,
that his heart throbs deeply and truly for
! his country.


Republics are not always ungrateful
And the grand armies Of this western land
feel that they owe more to the soldier who


led them from defeat to victory than to
any other man. The soldiers of the Re-
public know that their own renown is indis-
solubly linked with his fame; that he who
led the national armies through "the
Wilderness" of death to triumphant peace,


is the man who should receive the highest
| recompense in the gift of this nation.


| Further than being one more proof of
public favor and confidence, the election


of Schuyler Colfax to the Vice Presidency


would add very little to his honors He


is already the chief of the great house of


that Congress affectionately called by
| Wendell Phillips the "dawdling Con-


gress;" which, nevertheless, in idea and


action, has always been in advance of the


people. AS man, there is everything to


be said in favor of his election to an Office


of higher trust He is one whose power


rises spontaneously to equal opportunity.


Thirteen years in Congress--elected over


and over again by large maiorities, and


great enthusiasm, against bitterly contest
| ing opponents; three consecutive times


elected Speaker of the House of Repre-
| sentatives, through every promotion of


public service he has given the impression,


not of exhausted but of buoyant, progress


sive, patient power, equal to profounder


demand and higher occasion.


| Mr. COlfaX is pre-eminently adapted to
| fill a national Office, because in the largest


sense he is a representative American. OF


the people and with the people, it is i'm


possible for him to be purely sectional in
his sympathies orin his ideas of legislation


He has greater personal familiarity with


the resources and interests Of the whole


country than any other public man, having


travelled in every State from Oregon to


Maine, hailed everywhere by the masses OF
| the people as beloved friend. He is in
| corruptible; he has remarkable executive
| talents, besides an individual acquaintance
with public men of all parties, knowl-
| edge of presiding and of parliamentary
| law not exceeded, if equalled, by any other
American in public life


| The chief objection offered by the politi-
| cans of rival States against the nomination


of Mr. Colfax was that of locality. They


assert that the West is usurping the old


prestige of the Soush i'll the monopoly of
public emolument 1t is time to take a
broader view. How puerile is the self


assertion of one State when it attempts to
claim as its own man born on its soil, or
living within its precincts, whose name


and influence is national. Grant was born


in Ohio, has lived in Missouri and Illinois /;


his home, whether he be made President


or not, is in Washington. ColfaA was


born in New York, has lived in Indiana,


and in sympathy belongs to one side of the


continent no more than to the other.


Grant, if elected, independent of all


locality will be elected by the whole


people. He is not of The North, nor of
| the South. He is of the whole nation,


rejecting in his person the triumph of its
arms and vindication of its principles.
Let every sectional murmur cease in the ac-
claim of the entire people pronouncing the
names of their rulers. Is the fancied pre-
rogative of any one State a grain of dust
in the balance, compared with the veal of
a vast nation, as administered through its
Chief Executives ?-Neao York badependent