on the country after the election of Buchanan, and which, as everybody
knows, was but the calm before the storm of our Civil War. He has this to
say about the election in a letter to the Honorable John Y. Mason, our
Minister to France:--

"I may congratulate you, my dear Sir, on the issue of the late election.
My predictions have been verified. The country is quiet, and, as usual
after the excitement of an election, has settled down into orderly
acquiescence to the will of the majority, and into general good feeling.
Europeans can hardly understand this truly anomalous phase of our
American institutions; they do not understand that it is characteristic
that 'we speak daggers but use none'; that we fight with ballots and not
with bullets; that we have abundance of inkshed and little bloodshed, and
that all that is explosive is blown off through newspaper safety-valves."

The events of the next few years were destined to shatter the peaceful
visions of this lover of his country, for many daggers were drawn, the
bullets flew thick and fast, and the bloodshed was appalling.

It is difficult to follow the history of the telegraph, in its relation
to its inventor, through all the intricacies involved in the conflicting
interests of various companies and men in this its formative period.

Morse himself was often at a loss to determine on the course which he
should pursue, a course which would at the same time inure to his
financial benefit and be in accordance with his high sense of right.
Absolutely straightforward and honest himself, it was difficult for him
to believe that others who spoke him fair were not equally sincere, and
he was often imposed upon, and was frequently forced, in the exigencies
of Business, to be intimately associated with those whose ideas of right