ferson displayed his characteristic and prophetic sagacity when he uttered the valuable warning that we should sedulously inquire in reference to every candidate for important position,-Is he honest? The man in reference to whom an affirmative reply to this question cannot be clearly given does not deserve and should never receive the support of any patriotic citizen. A nominee for President, the highest and most powerful station in the gift of the people, should be not only pure, but above suspicion. In all matters that have a bearing upon his relations to public affairs, every act of his, bears directly upon the integrity of all those under him. This truth is so universally recognized that in all former campaigns, in the midst of torrents of abuse, heaped upon our candidates for office, I do not recollect one in which it has ever been charged that the Presidential nominee of any important party has betrayed his trust before his election, or has used his personal influence afterward, to enrich himself. Whatever may be said for or against former occupants of the White House, it is conceded that they were untainted, incorruptible, and above all, innocent of the hideous crime of selling themselves or their officers for power or influence.

In fact, down to this day the line of American Presidents, from Washington to Hayes, has been made up of upright, conscientious and simpleminded men. And this may be said, with infinite truth, alike of the statesmen who filled that office

in the first generation, beginning with Jefferson and closing with Jackson, and of the second generation, beginning with Harrison and closing with Grant. The poverty to which some of these Presidents have been reduced by their honest public services, affords a painful and convincing truth of their incorruptibility. Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant, all retired from office poor. Lincoln owed his first election and his re-election largely to the fact that everybody believed him to be "Honest Old Abe." In the doubtful contest of 1876, when the necessity of reforming public abuses was a paramount issue, the personal integrity of Rutherford B. Hayes secured to him the support of thousands. And many would have cast their ballots for Samuel J. Tilden on account of his active participation in the movements by which the great reforms had been instituted in the City and State of New York, if they had not been primarily convinced of the undoubted integrity of his Republican rival. In the struggle of 1880, the question again looms up, whether the government shall be honestly administered? This issue can

never be ignored. The very first and highest duty of every voter is to institute searching inquiries in reference to the integrity of all Presidential candidates.

General Winfield Scott Hancock has an unblemished record. I know of no candidate for the Presidential office that has lived a purer, clearer,

Busy calumfind a single

more unsuspected and spotless life. niators have sought and failed to blemish upon his name. Even the charges invented against him have been abandoned by their authors, or rejected by his political adversaries. One of the most effective cartoons ever printed, represents a horde of hostile Republican writers searching in vain through his bureaus, boots, clothing, and private apartments for a peg on which to hang a single plausible falsehood.

Hancock is as honest as he is brave. Up to this moment he has not encountered a single personal adversary among the members of his own party; in fact he never had an organization to force his nomination at Cincinnati. This unusual circumstance does not spring from want of character, for no citizen ever had clearer views of public duty. Not the dimmest blot on his escutcheon has ever been discovered.

CHAPTER VIII.

A WORD TO LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS REPUBLICANS.

(TRIKE from the column of the present Republi

STRIK

can party the hundreds and thousands of Democrats who joined with the Republicans, attracted by the moderate and conciliatory course of Abraham Lincoln, and the dying injunction of Stephen A. Douglas, and there would not be enough left of the organization around General Garfield to command the electoral vote of a single Northern State. In a word, the purpose to which the modern Republicans now devote themselves, is hatred of the South, malignity that Mr. Lincoln scorned from his soul, and a partisan assault upon a brave soldier of the Republic, because he was born and remained a Democrat, a calumny that would have aroused the utmost indignation of Stephen A. Douglas. How what citizen, who cherishes either of these illustrious names, or remembers the sad fate of Abraham Lincoln, and the illustrious career of Stephen A. Douglas, can remain with a party, who regard

General Hancock as unworthy because he is a Democrat, surpasses belief.

General Hancock, at the time that Mr. Lincoln was murdered, was stationed at Winchester, in command of the Middle Military Division and Army of the Shenandoah. He was unutterably shocked at the atrocity of that dreadful deed, as indeed were all the people of the District among whom he was then temporarily located; for to him, as I have said, Abraham Lincoln was something more than a friend. The kind, quaint President. always had a warm side for patriotic Democrats like Douglas and Hancock. After he was elected in 1860 by a division of the Democratic party, Mr. Lincoln wrote me a letter, very much to my surprise, in which he spoke of my support of Douglas, his successful competitor for Senator of the United States in Illinois, in 1858, and wanted to know if he could do anything to serve me. I wrote back, deeply impressed by his unexpected compliment. Remembering as I did to his dying day, the simple and kindly nature of Horace Greeley, I ventured to mention Mr. Greeley as a fitting member of his cabinet, stating at the same time that Mr. Greeley had written to Mr. Buchanan nearly four years before, in February of 1857, recommending me to that favorite son of Pennsylvania as a member of his cabinet. By return of mail I had a letter from Mr. Lincoln, announcing that my request had been received, but that he had already selected