saving the elections in a few doubtful districts. That Congress saw
what was right, but distrusted the enlightenment of the loyal masses;
but what was forborne in distrust of the people must now be done
with a full knowledge that the people expect and require it.
The members go to Washington fresh from the inspiring presence of the people.
In every considerable public meeting, and in almost every conceivable way,
whether at court-house, school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out,
the subject has been discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced
in favor of a radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency
and compromise with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere
broken into demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word
has been spoken in favor of equal rights and impartial suffrage.
Radicalism, so far from being odious, is not the popular passport to power.
The men most bitterly charged with it go to Congress with the
largest majorities, while the timid and doubtful are sent by lean majorities,
or else left at home. The strange controversy between the President
and the Congress, at one time so threatening, is disposed of by the people.
The high reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously,
and haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly repudiated;
while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.

Of the spirit and magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said.
The appeal was to the people, and the verdict was worthy of the tribunal.
Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice and approval
of his astute Secretary, soon after the members of the Congress had returned
to their constituents, the President quitted the executive mansion,
sandwiched himself between two recognized heroes,--men whom the whole country
delighted to honor,--and, with all the advantage which such company
could give him, stumped the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi,
advocating everywhere his policy as against that of Congress.