THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN
GENESEE EVANGELIST.
A Religious ana Family Newspaper,
IN TH# INTEREST OP THE
, Constitutional Presbyterian Church.
PUBLISHED EVERT THURSDAY,
AT THE PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE,
1334 Chestnut Street* (2d story,) Philadelphia.
Rev* John W. Kears, Editor and Publisher.
Rev* B. B. Hotchhin, Editor of News and
Pamily Departments.
Rev* C. P* Bnsli, Corresponding' Editor,
Rochester, N. T.
flmmtait Jmfctjtmau.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1865.
CONTENTS OF INSIDE PAGES.
Second Page—The Family Circle :
The Tower of Bottreaux —The Pic-nic in Violet
Valley—A Reminiscence of my Prison Life—How to
Win a Child's Heart—Paradise.
For the Little Folks: Familiar Talks with the
Children.
Third Page—Miscellaneous :
Scripture Confirmed—Joyous Life of the Birds—
Drinking in Switzerland and Italy—The Bible—
Punishing Treason —The Germans on Reconstruc
tion.
Sixth Page—Correspondence :
Style of Culture needed by American Theologians—
Letter from Rev. E. P. Hamihond—Rev. A. M.
St S,u ar 4 m “A? Oil Regions—Gleanings by the Way
—The Year-Day Theory.
Seventh Page—Rural Economy :
The Blessed Harvest —Provocation to General
Thanksgiving—Profits of Strawberries —Beef Mono
poly.
Scientific: Submarine Cables—Launch of the
Dunderberg—Petroleum in Locomotives—Experi
ments with Electric Light at Sea.
FAITH AND VIRTUE.
“To live according to nature/’ was the
highest ideal of ancient philosophy. The
end .of all Marcus Aurelius’ philosophy, ac
cording to his late American editor, is “to
live conformably to nature, both a man’s
Own nature and the nature of the universe.”
Bishop Butler, in his Sermon on Human
Nature, has come to the rescue of these,
moralists, and actually borrows their for
mula in treating of conscience, violations
of which he, as they, declares to be “ against
nature.” He notices the objeotion, made
in his own time by an “ author of great
and deserved reputation,” which indeed
would be likely to occur to almost any one
trained in the principles of the evangelical
saystem, “ that to place virtue in following
nature, is at least but loose talk."
Now, we do not design to attack the
pure, sublime, Christian stoicism of Bishop
Butler’s philosophy. Virtue is indeed ac
cordant with human nature in God’s plan
of that nature; virtue is theoretically and
abstractly a following out of that nature, a
return to one’s self, a submission to the
soul’s true law. But to a depraved soul,
fallen from the possession and true knowl
edge of its moral dignity, the beginnings
and the supports of virtue are and must be
supernatural. Supernatural aid and super
natural associations are necessary, in order
to enable us to live truly according to na
ture, Even to know what virtue really is,
we need supernatural illumination. Some
stray gleams of true light indeed shine
from the broken fragments of man’s moral
nature, and with their cold lustre light up
human systems of morals, and there seems
to have been inf some instances, a real de
votion to comparatively pure ideals of char
acter among the better class of heathen
minds. But these isolated cases may have
been produced by the working of that
Spirit whose movements are as much be
yond our calculation as the currents of the
wind, and at any. rate they are too few to
affect the gospel rule that evangelical faith
is the true ground of virtuous character.
Single virtues, especially on their external
side, are current enough in the community,
outside as well as inside of the circle of
truly regenerated persons. Honesty, chas
tity, patriotism, generosity, amiability,
neighborly oonduct, family affection, do not
require a regenerated nature as an indis
pensable foundation. But the truly virtu
ous disposition, virtue in its fullest, widest
sense, is the outgrowth ot faith alone.
That which does right fcr right’s sake and
for God’s sake, from an inward conviction
and hearty approval of the right; that
spirit which is ready, girded, trained, and
in constant further training for every good
deed and necessary endurance; that which
is above all mere “ best policy” virtue, and
i which searches the hidden motive of all its
I outwardly fair performances before it as
cribes to them any moral value—this sort
lof virture has no lower origin than faith :
Add to your Faith, Virtue."
The virtue which follows faith is a desire
and a pursuit after all Christian excellence;
an advance in grade after grade, of all
experience; a hungering and
thirsting after all righteousness; a panting
"ter the personal realization of all the noble,
int, the holy traits of Christian
as drawn by the pen of inspira
ustrated in the life of Christ and
faithful followers, of primitive
times. It is a readiness for the
the character of all the train of
iribed by Peter, as originating in
.dd to your faith, virtue; and
knowledge; and to knowl
lerance; and to temperance, pa
istancy); and to patience, godli
to godliness, brotherly kindness;
itherly kindness, charity.” All
named in the train of virtue are
ibodied in that trait, which is the
imposition.
the necessary supernatural spring
ISTew Series, Vol. 11, ]ST O . 34.
of virtue, because it involves humility.
Before we trust totally and implicitly to a
higher power, we renounce confidence in
self. The humble believer has become
-conscious of his ruined moral condition by
nature; is convinced of the terrible sweep
of the facts of his case, and ceases to rely
upon himself for deliverance or for even
the beginning of a virtuous character. He
renounces philosophy, and every cunning
device of unassisted human reason for self
improvement. All these means and mea
sures, of course, are tainted with the cor
ruption of the nature from which they
sprung. The humble acknowledgment of
this fact and the renunciation of these all,
as false, insufficient, and misleading, is
indispensable to the first movement in the
direction of true holiness.
Faith lays hold of the divine arm; it ap
plies to the Holy Spirit; it offers the soul,
and lost, to the Redeemer of the
fallen world. Dead in trespasses and sins,
it seeks to .be born again, born from
above, horn of the Spirit. Contempla
ting the miracle of blended mercy and
justice, of law magnified and offenders par
doned, in the atonement, one’s moral
nature undergoes a transformation, the
majesty of holiness hreaks like light from
a new sphere upon the soul, through the
sacrifice, the condescension, the compassion
of the Infinite Father, the incarnation, the
humiliation, the agonies, the grace and
love of the Infinite Son.
Faith knowing her own weakness, trusts
a higher power. It is not merely an abso
lute feeling of dependence, but an active,
intelligent commitment of oneself, one’s
interests, and one’s character to God. It
is looking to him for gracious, life-giving
influences, for the communicating of holy
impulses from his own nature. It is lean
ing upon his promises and confidently
seeking his aid in the every day struggles
of the soul aspiring to “ glory and virtue.”
There is one word which distinguishes
evangelical virtue from every other; one
word whose full significance is unknown
beyond the reach of gospel light; one
word implying such an enlargement of our
moral ideas as only faith in a supernatural
source of virtue could give; and that is
Holiness. Holiness is the moral quality of
God; holiness is that atribute which chiefly
manifests itself in exalting truth, righte
ousness, and goodness, above all other ob
jects, in honoring the law of God and
demanding reverence for the moral perfec
tions of his character. Holiness trembles
at the the least sin. Horror takes hold on
the holy man because of the wicked that
forsake God’s law. The holy have an in
expressible love for God’s law and find in
it their choicest treasure and constant de
light. The chief attractions of the hea
venly world to the holy, are the infinite
moral perfection of God, and the perfect
characters and pursuits of the inhabitants.
Thus morality is ennobled, sanctified, and
brought within the sphere and under all
the great sanctions of religion by faith, in
stead of remaining in the cold and disas
trous divorce in which we see them in
heathenism; the one never rising above
Stoicism, the other sinking to a most de
degrading and demoralising superstition.
Faith, evangelical faith, is the healthful
spring of all true virtue.
THE REVENUE FROM LIQUOR.
One of the most frequent and effective
arguments hitherto employed by liquor
dealers against prohibition,, is the revenue
derived by the Government from their
business. This argument has gained great
strength in the view of the dealers and their
friends, since the National Government has
made the manufacture of ardent spirits
such a prominent item in its tax schedule.
Counted a matter of grave importance in
the Ways and Means of a great government,
its very dignity should suffice to protect it
from the rude schemes of temperance re
formers. To destroy a business so much
relied upon in meeting the unexampled ex
penses of the Government, what is it but
sheer robbery of the National Treasury ?
The temperance men must not only bear
the odium of interfering with the free in
dulgence of a powerful and popular appe
tite, but that also of curtailing the public
revenues at a time of unparalleled necessity.
Could a secessionist do more P May we
not expect to see Fernando Wood, \rallan
digham, Cox, the Ingersolls, and Vandykes,
and all the unrepentant rebels of the South
hastening to join the prohibitory law move
ment, with the N. T. World and Daily
Mews as its organs, on account of the fine
opportunity it affords of accomplishing an
object so dear to them as damaging the
credit of the National Government ? One
would think so; yet these gentlemen are
very tardy in demonstrating that way.
But leaving their inactivity unexplained
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1865.
for the present, and admitting that the Go
vernment would lose, in a mere calculation
of dollars and cents, by the success of pro
hibition, shall this be sufficient to deter its
friends from further efforts in behalf of the
cause ? Shall the practicability of raising
a revenue from an essentially injurious
business reconcile us to its continuance,
and procure for it the express sanction and
protection of law ? If we recognize this as
a principle, where shall we end ? Shall we
not find every nefarious practice 'and every
criminal course striving to recommend
itself in the same manner to the Govern
ment ; shall we not find the administration
of the laws rapidly sinking to a mere im
position of fines and collecting of taxes ?
We cannot, the public in this Christian
country will not, accept such a principle.
We cannot see the ravages of intemperance,
the destruction of our young men, the im
poverishment and degradation of our work
ing people, the crowding of our alms houses,
penitentiaries and prisons, the corruption
of our politics from primary elections con
cocted in taprooms, up to shameful brawls,
imbecilities, intrigues, and briberies in legis
lative halls, we cannot see the inebriety of
military leaders in hours of awful import,
when myriads of Jives and the highest
earthly interests of generations hang upon
their conduct, and hear with patience the
mockery of those who think to console. us
or to drown our remonstrances by showing
what these vicious and perilous indul
gences contribute in dollars and cents to
the National revenue ! Away with these
hypocrites in political economy! who have
thought to calculate the value of national
habits of sobriety, the value ol the physical
and mental health of a whole people, the
value of purity, of thrift among the work
ing classes, of honor, fidelity, and patriot
ism, and of conscientiousness under high
responsibilities, among the public servants,
high and low, civil and military. The na
tion without these is poor amid countless
revenues; poor as old Rome in the height
of her imperial magnificence, but without
solid virtue among her people or her public
servants; poor as Spain of the middle ages
with the wealth of the New World in her
coffers; poor and insecure as any nation or
dynasty must be, which puts revenue above
honor or character among its people.
However, we refrain from touching the
facts of this revenue business too long.
Whafis it then, in dollars and cents to the
National Revenue, that we are offered for
a consolation, as we contemplate the vast
wastes ot life, and health, and wealth, and
mind, and character wrought in our coun
try-by the use of intoxicating drinks?
What sum is it which these friends of the
national exchequer deem sufficient to awe
the clamorous Jeremiahs of the temper
ance reform into silence ? Ten or twelve
millions per annum! Twenty-eight mil
lions the last year, when the tax was one
dollar and fifty cents a gallon, ten or twelve
millions only it is believed this year,
though the tax is nominally fifty cents a
gallon higher ! Twelve millions, or let us
say twenty-five millions a year, is then of
more value to the nation than the happy
results moral, physical, social, intellectual,
which would flow from the deliverance of
the people, high and low, from the habitual
use of intoxicating liquors! Even upon
the narrowest calculations of profit and loss
the utter absurdity of your anti-Maine Law
economy is apparent. Half of your twenty
five millions would be saved every year in
the better management of our public affairs
by sober rulers, designated and chosen by
sober electors. The other half would be
made good to the national exchequer by
the increased taxes paid from flourishing
incomes once dilapidated by rum-drinking,
but now restored and added by the return of
i sober habits, to the sinews of the State. Who
can tell whether the war itself, with all its
financial burdens, might not have been en
tirely avoided, if the management of our
public affairs, from the primary election
to the nomination of President, had been
less an affair of the dram-shop; or whether
the war itself once begun, might not have
been brought to an earlier close and have
left us in a far less embarrassed state, but
for the drinking habits of high officials,
unfitting them for duty in the field at
critical moments, or delaying equipments,
and embarrassing movements, until' 4 they
were robbed of the decisive character they
otherwise were plainly meant to have?*
Not one cent of our large debt is chargeable
to the sobriety of officials, or of the tem
perate portion of the army, or of the
people. How many hundred millions of it
are fairly due to rum in the army, rum in
the navy, rum in the departments of Wash
ington, rum in the refreshment saloons and
the committee rooms of the Capitol itself?
* The water-drinking army of Cyrus would
undoubtedly have gained the day at Bull Run.
There is another leaf to this tax business
which we must look upon for moment. The
frauds and evasions of duty by liquor
manufacturers are enormous almost beyond
conception. Rightly accounted for, their
business should actually pay the entire
interest on the public debt. The eighty
million gallons of whisky manufactured
every year should, at two dollars a gallon,
pay one hundred and sixty millions revenue
into, the treasury. Nine-tenths ot this tax
is fraudulently evaded. A single distiller
in the W est has defaulted to the Govern
ment in the sum of $643,320.’ No business
in the country has presented snch an infa
mous example of utter absence of principle.
It olaims exemption from the assaults of
the ground of its value to the
Government, and then with the plea warm
on its lips, it turns around and withholds
nine-tenths of its lawful dues from the Go
vernment ! Surely the reformer is greatly
needed here. If no further damage were
done, the demoralizing effect of the business
on the manufacturers is so dreadful, that,
in pity to themselves, the efforts of the
temperance men should be prosecuted, until
rum-makers and rum-sellers are driven into
a business less perilous to their souls, and
less destructive to the primary elements of
good character and citizenship. It is worse
than useless to treat their business tenderly.
It needs heroic treatment. So far as it is
not a part of the arts and medicine, it must
be reformed out. of existence. The country
will be so much richer for it that all the
rumsellers turned arithmeticians would be
insufficient to compute the gains; and the
debt itself would soon melt away under the
clear management; the thrift, and the en
larged resources of a nation of sober men
governed by sober rulers.
PROGRESS OF EMANCIPATION.
- The great movement in the interest of
freedom of which our country for four
years past has been the scene, is not sin
gular or isolated, but is part of a wide his
toric movement, in which the whole Chris
tian world is sharing, and which has been
going forward parallel with the progress of
the century. In England, the slave trade
was suppressed in 1807, and a year after
wards, the limits assigned to it by our'
Government in 1778, were passed. France
finally abolished the traffic in 1820. The
slaves in the British Colonies were freed
August Ist, 1834; those in tthe French
Colonies in 1848. Let us, however, put
the facts- in chronological order as more
convenient for the eye and the memory :
1807. Slave trade suppressed by Great Britain.
1808. Slaye trade suppressed by United States.
1818. Slavery abolished by the Netherlands.
1820. Slave trade abolished by France.
1834. Slavery abolished by Great Britain.
1846-^47.' Slavery abolished by Sweden.
1848. Slavery abolished by France.
1848. Slavery abolished by Denmark.
1860-61. Slavery abolished by Holland.
1862. Serfdom abolished by Russia.
1863. Emancipation proclaimed by President
Lincoln.
1865. Emancipation promised by the King of
Portugal.
Besides this, Spain and Brazil have both
made promises and passed laws looking to
an early removal of slavery under their
jurisdiction, without any practical result.
They are the only remaining countries in
Christendom which continue to uphold the
system, with which, however, the Common
wealths of Delaware and Kentucky, in our
own land, may be reckoned in dishonorable
companionship; and New Jersey—well,
she maintains the extra-mundane position
-frequently ascribed to her, by being a free
State opposed to the Constitutional aboli
tion ot slavery! Brazil, however, is show
ing signs of a new awakening on this sub
ject, a oill providing for gradual emancipa
tion having been recently introduced by a
leading Statesman into her Senate. Ken
tucky and Delaware are fast approaching
an anti-slavery position through the emi
grating and immigrating processes of which
they are the subject, on the consummation
of which New Jersey and Spain will alone
remain to keep each other in countenance.
The reader will observe that there have
been five eras in the century-progress of
this movement for liberty:—that of
1807-08 ; that of 1818-20; that of 1834;
that of 1848, and that of 1861-65. Each
of these eras has been marked by one or
more very decided steps on the part of
prominent nations in regard to slavery and
the slave trade. They have been separated
from each other by periods of ten to twelve
or fifteen years. After Sweden, France,
and Denmark abolished slavery in 1846-48,
there were no active movements for twelve
years, when Holland had the honor of
leading the last and greatest era of them
all, in which the crash of fetters has been
heard half round the globe. It is in these
last four years that the greatest and most
Grenesee Evangelist* o.
rapid strides ever taken in the cause of
freedom have been witnessed. Never were
such multitudes of oppressed and wronged
fellowmen so speedily restored to long
denied rights. Never was a long, sad
night of ignorance, of bondage and of
despair so suddenly broken by the golden
dawn of liberty’s morning. Never were
such providences unfolded by a God of
Justice and a Lord of Hosts, in whose ears
the cry of the oppressed had long ascended
never since the Bed Sea closed over
the dry pathway of his escaped people to
swallow up their enraged and pursuing
taskmasters. The great convulsion in our
own land has been felt all over the globe,
and scarcely the humblest victim of tyranny
anywhere, but has understood that it was
the war of the slavemaster of the South
against the freemen of the North, and has
felt that his own cause triumphed when
Richmond fell.
We do not think that another period of
twelve years will pass before Spain and
Brazil decree emancipation; we anticipate
the entire abolition of slavery throughout
the civilized world at the present era.
Whether the freedman shall have his
political rights guaranteed to him now, or
whether the next stadium in the century
shall be one of stormy contention prepara
tory to conceeding him these rights, de
pends much upon President Johnson and
the next Congress. We trust they will be
firm and true, and thus at once complete
the work of enfranchisement, instead of
leaving it to linger and to breed new mis
chiefs when so near its consummation.
THE SARATOGA TEMPERANCE CON-
Of all places in the land, commend us
to Saratoga for a “National Tempqfance
Convention.” With eight glasses of Con
gress Spring before breakfast, and two
glasses of Columbian or Clarendon before
dinner, tea, and bed-time, who could not
speak eloquently in praise of water drink
ing? . With these sparkling and pungent
fountains bubbling from the deeps of the
earth, and free for all to drink, who would
hesitate to abjure drugged whisky and
muddy beer ?
The call for the Convention which has
just finished its three days’ labor here, was
responded to by a full and strong represen
tation of the friends of temperance from
Maine to Oregon. The old veterans in
the cause, with erect form and eye un
dimmed, bearing lightly the burdens of
threescore years and ten, were here to
illustrate in their living, selves the vitality
of the principles which they have defended
so long. All were ready to tell with grati
tude the sacrifices which they had made
for the good cause, and all were inspired
with equal zeal to renew the contest
against the vice which destroys more vic
tims than war, and inflicts a deeper degra
dation than slavery.
It is wonderful how long these water
drinkers live, and how brightly they keep
the fires of thought and feeling burning
without aid from the baleful fires of alco
hol. John Pierpoint, eighty years old,
stood as high and erect as he did a half a
century ago, and he displayed the same
skill in pointing and polishing an argument,
the same severe and satirical discrimination
which made him so terrible to the last gen
eration of rum-selling pewholders in Hollis
Street Church, Boston. Delavan, carrying
almost as many years, commanded attention
less by his power as a public speaker than
by the sincerity of his interest in the
cause, and the widely known labors and
sacrifices which he had put forth to sustain
it. Grerrit Smith lifted his broad forehead
and “Atlantean shoulders” above the
height of common men in the Convention,
shook the house with his deep, mighty,
and melodious voice, thrilled the audience
with many brilliant sentiments, refined ab
stractions, and well-chosen quotations from
Scripture, impressed all with the honesty
of his purpose and genuineness of his. be
nevolence, and yet convinced none of the
practicalness of his judgment in applying
the principles which he advanced. Dr.
Marsh was here, still young at seventy
seven years, with unabated heart and hope,
working on in the good old common-sense
track of reform, which long experience
has proved to be the best. Glovernor Buck
ingham was here, the true type of a New
England statesman, business man, philan
thropist and Christian; ever loyal, labori
ous, and benevolent, just released from a
ten-days’ chairmanship of the Congrega
tional Council, to spend three days of re
creation at the Springs, in presiding night
and day over this Convention, adding all
these to the duties of Chief Magistrate in
VENTION,
[from another correspondent.]
TERMS.
Per annum, in advance:
By Mail, $3. By Carrier, 93 SO,
r ifty cents additional, after three months.
Clubs.—Ten or more papers, sent to one address,
parable strictly in advance and in one remittance:
By Mail, $2 50 per annum. By Carriers,s3per annum.
Minister* and Minister*’ Widows, $2 in ad
vance.
Some Missionaries, $l5O inadvance.
Fifty cents additional after three months.
Bemittanees by mail are at our risk.
Postage,—Five cents quarterly, in advance, paid
by subscribers at the office of delivery.
Advertisements. —12)£ cents per line for the
first, and 10 cents for the second insertion.
One square (one month) $3 00
two months 5 50
„ three " 750
six “ .12 OO
„ , „ .one year 18
aoe touowmg discount on long advertisements, in
spvtod tor three months and upwards, is allowed: —
Over 20 lines, 10 per cent off; over 50 lines, 20 per
cent.: over 100 lines, 33J4 per cent. off.
1005
his native State, and to such engagements
in private life as many would think a suffi
cient excuse for declining all others.
Heaven speed the day when all the States
shall have Governors as good as he. Chan
cellor Walworth, with a natural wig of
white hair, wide-spreading enough to grace
the woolsack of the House of Lords, under
took- to preside for an hour one morning,
and it was not many minutes before confu
sion had the floor. Amid cries of ques
tion and previous question, motions of
amendment and sub-amendment, calls to
order, claims to the floor, and appeals from
the chair to the house, it was difficult to
tell who was most in disorder, the Presi
dent or the members; and all were glad
when the good Governor, came in and re
lieved the perplexed Chancellor and the
excited house by taking the chair and re
storing peace and good nature with a word.
I was surprised to find that a little wiry,
bright-eyed man, in a brown coat, lemon
vest, and gilt buttons, to whom I had been
talking for half an hour at the dinner
table, was Neal Dow, and I was equally
surprised and delighted to see him ascend
the pulpit in a white linen coat at evening,
and entertain a large audience for forty
minutes, in describing his favorite Maine
law in the State of its adoption. George
Trask, the 'irrepressible anti-tobacconist,
was here, self-confident and self-sacrificing,
very queer, and a little coarse, watching
every tum # of debate for an opportunity to
insert his one idea, and yet rejoicing
heartily in everything that promised to
make men purer,, wiser, and better. Dr.
Jewett was here, looking younger and
stronger than he did twenty-years ago, still
earnest, genial, conciliating, full of illustra
tions gathered up in his long service as a
lecturer; still overflowing with humor, and
every muscle of his face ready to take off
the drunkard’s miserable and maudlin wit,
and still ever subordinating his keen sense
ot the ludicrous to the higher demands of
truth, reverence and faith. And here was
our indefatigable Cuyler, taking his usual re
laxation of walking and talking, preaching
and letter-writing, apparently glad to obey
the physician’s prescription of rest by pulling
ten days at the laboring oar in the business
committee, then hurrying off to Boston to
falfill some other engagement, on the same
homoeopathic principle of relieving weari
ness with work, curing disease by that
which causes it.
The Convention was truly national in
representing the utmost extremes of feel
ing and of principle upon the one subject
of equal interest to all. Some maintained
that the temperance reformation was a reli
gious movement in the outset, and had
been carried on mainly by the labors of
ministers and churches, others claimed that
it was merely a social, sanitary, and econo
mical question at first, and that ministers
and churches had always been the greatest
hinderances in the way of reform. Some
said that the Church is the only safe and
efficient instrumentality in promoting tem
perance, and others contended that the
friends of temperance must first reform the
Church before they could receive any help
from that quarter. Some thought it a
Christian duty to use fermented and alco
holic wine at the communion, others de
nounced such use as an abomination, and
others still claimed that the temperance
reformation had nothing at all to do with
the mode of observing that ordinance.
Some insisted that the use of alcoholic
liquors as a medicine is evil, and only evil,
and that the doctors are actually making
half the people drunkards by their pre
scriptions ; others as firmly believed that a
judicious use of alcoholic stimulants might,
in many cases, preserve life, and relieve
many ills that flesh is heir to. Some de
sired the Convention and all friends of
temperance to be bound by a solemn pledge
never to vote for any candidate for civil
office who was not pledged freely and un
conditionally to total abstinence, others
thought that such a course might some
times defeat the very object for which it
was adopted, and that every citizen should
be free to use his suffrage in just that way
he may think most conducive to public
welfare.
With all these heterogeneous elements
present and active in the Convention, the
lessons of experience and the dictates of
enlarged and practical judgment generally
prevailed. It was remarkable that in a
reform-meeting, which generally brings to
gether the elements of extreme radicalism,
there should have been such a predomin
ance of wise, well-balanced, practical men.
And if the meeting accomplished no other
object, it will do something to awaken a
new interest in a subject of the greatest
possible interest in this nation at the pre
sent time, and for all time.
Saratoga, August 5,1865.