of the country and the boards of trade in the principal cities grew clamorous for a speedy and peaceable adjustment of the difficulty. The spirit of compromise gained ground; and after much debating in Congress it was agreed that all the disputed election returns should be referred to A JOINT HIGH COMMISSION, consisting of five members to be chosen from the United States Senate, five from the House of Representatives, and five from the Supreme Court. The judgment of this tribunal should be final in all matters referred thereto for decision. The Commission was accordingly constituted. The counting was begun as usual in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives. When the disputed and duplicate returns were reached they were referred, State by State, to the Joint High Commission; and on the 2d of March, only two days before the time for the in auguration, a final decision was rendered. The Republican candidates. were declared elected. One hundred and eighty-five electoral votes were cast for Hayes and Wheeler, and one hundred and eighty-four for Tilden and Hendricks. The greatest political crisis in the history of the country passed harmlessly by without violence or bloodshed. CHAPTER LXIX. HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION, 1877–1881. UTHERFORD B. HAYES, nineteenth President of the United States, was born in Delaware, Ohio, on the 4th day of October, 1822. His ancestors were soldiers of the Revolution. His primary education was received in the public schools. Afterward, his studies were extended to Greek and Latin at the Norwalk Academy; and in 1837 he became a student at Webb's preparatory school, at Middletown, Connecticut. In the following year, he entered the Freshman class at Kenyon College, and in 1842 was graduated from that institution with the highest honors of his class. Three years after his graduation, he completed his legal studies at Harvard University, and soon afterward began the practice of his profession, first at Marietta, then at Fremont, and finally as city solicitor, in Cincinnati. Here he won distinguished reputation as a lawyer. During the Civil War he performed much honorable service in the Union cause, rose to the rank of major-general, and in 1864, while still in the field, was elected to Congress. Three years later he was chosen governor of his native State, and was reëlected in 1869, and again in 1875. At the Cincinnati convention of 1876, he had the good fortune to be nominated for the presidency over several of the most eminent men of the nation. In his inaugural address, delivered on the 5th of March,* President Hayes indicated the policy of his administration. The patriotic and conciliatory utterances of the address did much to quiet the bitter spirit of partisanship which for many months had disturbed the country. The distracted South was assured of right purposes on the part of the new chief-magistrate; a radical reform in the civil service was avowed as a part of his policy; and a speedy return to specie payments was recommended as the final cure for the deranged finances of the nation. The immediate effect of these assurances-so evidently made in all good faith and honesty-was to rally around the incipient administration the better part of all the parties and to introduce a new era of good feeling" as peaceable and beneficent in its character as the former turbulence had been exciting and dangerous. On the 8th of March, the President named the members of his cabinet. Here, again, he marked out a new departure in the policy of the government. For the cabinet, though exceptionably able and statesmanlike, was noticeably non-partisan in its character. As secretary of state William M. Evarts, of New York, was chosen; John Sherman, of Ohio, was named as secretary of the treasury; George W. McCrary, of Iowa, secretary of war; Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, secretary of the navy; Carl Schurz, of Missouri, secretary of the interior; Charles E. Devens, of Massachusetts, attorney-general; and David M. Key, of Tennessee, postmaster-general. These nominations were duly ratified by the Senate; and the new administration and the new century of the republic were ushered in together. The history of Our Country has thus been traced from the times of the aborgines to the present day. The story is done. The Republic has passed through stormy times, but has at last entered her Second Century in safety and peace. The clouds that were recently so black overhead have broken, and are sinking behind the horizon. The temple of Freedom reared by our fathers still stands in undiminished glory. THE PAST HAS TAUGHT ITS LESSON; THE PRESENT HAS ITS DUTY, AND THE FUTURE ITS HOPE. The 4th of March fell upon Sunday. The same thing happened in the case of Washington's administration (second term); with Monroe (second term); and with Taylor, 1849;-and the same will again occur in 1905. CHAPTER LXX. CONCLUSION. WHAT, then, of the outlook for the American Republic? What shall another century bring forth? What is to be the destiny of this vigorous, aggressive, self-governing Anglo-American race? How will the picture, so well begun, be completed by the annalists of posterity? Is it the sad fate of humanity, after all its struggles, toils, and sighing, to turn forever round and round in the same beaten circle, climbing the long ascent from the degradation of savage life to the heights of national renown only to descend again into the fenlands of despair? Is Lord Byron's gloomy picture of the rise and fall of nations indeed a true portrayal of the order of the world? Here is the moral of all human tales, 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, First freedom and then glory-when that fails, Or has the human race, breaking the bonds of its servitude and escaping at last from its long imprisonment, struck out across the fields of sublime possibility the promised pathway leading to the final triumph? There are still doubts and fears-perplexities, anxieties, and sometimes anguish―arising in the soul of the philanthropist as he turns his gaze to the future. But there are hopes also, grounds of confidence, auspicious omens, tokens of the substantial victory of truth, inspirations of faith welling up in the heart of the watcher as he scans the dappled horizon of the coming day. As to present achievement the American people have far surpassed the expectations of the fathers. The visions and dreams of the Revolutionary patriots have been eclipsed by the luster of actual accomplishment. The territorial domains of the Republic enclose the grandest belt of forest, valley, and plain that the world has in it. Since the beginning of time no other people have possessed such a territory so rich in resources, so varied in products, so magnificent in physical aspect. Soil and climate, the distribution of woods and lakes and rivers, the interposition of mountain ranges, and the fertility of valley and prairie, here contribute to give to man a many-sided and powerful development. Here he finds bays for his shipping, rivers for his steamers, fields for his plow, iron for his forge, gold for his cupidity, landscapes for his pencil, sunshine enough for song, and snow enough for courage. Nor has the Anglo-American failed to profit by the advantages of his surroundings. He has planted a free government on the largest and most liberal scale known in history. He has espoused the cause of liberty and right. He has fought like a hero for the freedom and equality of all men. He has projected a civilization which, though as yet but dimly traced in outline, is the vastest and grandest in the world. Better than all, he believes in the times to come. So long as man is anxious about the future the future is secure. Only when he falls into apathy, sleeps at his post, and cares no longer for the morrow, is the world in danger of relapse and barbarism. To the thoughtful student of history several things seem necessary to the perpetuity and complete success of American institutions. The first of these is the prevalence of THE IDEA OF NATIONAL Unity. Of this spake Washington in his Farewell Address, warning his countrymen in solemn words to preserve and defend that government which constituted them one people. Of this wrote Hamilton and Adams. For this pleaded Webster in his great orations. Upon this the farseeing statesmen of the present day, rising above the strifes of party and the turmoils of war, plant themselves as the one thing vital in American politics. The idea that the United States are one Nation, and not thirty-eight nations, is the grand cardinal doctrine of a sound political faith. State pride and sectional attachment are natural passions in the human breast, and are so near akin to patriotism as to be distinguished from it only in the court of a higher reason. But there is a nobler love of country-a patriotism that rises above all places and sections, that knows no County, no State, no North, no South, but only native land; that claims no mountain slope; that clings to no river bank; that worships no range of hills; but lifts the aspiring eye to a continent redeemed from barbarism by common sacrifices and made sacred by the shedding of kindred blood. Such a patriotism is the cable and sheet-anchor of our hope. A second requisite for the preservation of American institutions is THE UNIVERSAL SECULAR EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. Monarchies govern their subjects by authority and precedent; republics by right reason and free will. Whether one method or the other will be better, turns wholly upon the intelligence of the governed. If the subject have not the knowledge and discipline necessary to govern himself, it is better that a king, in whom some skill in the science of government is presupposed, should rule him. As between two stupendous evils, the rational tyranny of the intelligent few is preferable to the furious and irrational tyranny of the ignorant many. No force which has moved among men, impelling to bad action, inspiring to crime, overturning order, tearing away the bulwarks of liberty and right, and converting civilization into a waste, has been so full of evil and so powerful to destroy as a blind, ignorant, and factious democracy. A republic without intelligence-even a high degree of intelligence-is a paradox and an impossibility. What means that principle of the Declaration of Independence which declares the consent of the governed to be the true foundation of all just authority? What kind of "consent" is referred to? Manifestly not the passive and unresisting acquiescence of the mind which, like the potter's clay, receives whatever is impressed upon it; but that active, thinking, resolute, conscious, personal consent which distinguishes the true freeman from the puppet. When the people of the United States rise to the heights of this noble and intelligent self-assertion, the occupation of the party leader-most despicable of all the tyrants-will be gone forever; and in order that the people may ascend to that high plane, the means by which intelligence is fostered, right reason exalted, and a calm and rational public opinion produced, must be universally secured. The public FREE SCHOOL is the fountain whose streams shall make glad all the lands of liberty. We must educate or perish. A third thing necessary to the perpetuity of American liberties is TOLERATION-toleration in the broadest and most glorious sense. In the colonial times intolerance embittered the lives of our fathers. Until the present day the baleful shadow has been upon the land. The proscriptive vices of the Middle Age have flowed down with the blood of the race and tainted the life that now is, with a suspicion and distrust of freedom. Liberty in the minds of men has meant the privilege of agreeing with the majority. Men have desired free thought, but fear has stood at the door. It remains for the United States to build a highway, broad and free, into every field of liberal inquiry, and to make the poorest of men who walks therein, more secure in life and reputation than the soldier who sleeps behind the rampart. Proscription has no part nor lot in the American system. The stake, the gibbet, and the rack, thumb-screws, sword, and pillory, have no place on this side of the sea. Nature is diversified; so are human faculties, |