ter the close of
the Revolutionary war may account for the inadequate assistance to
those who had suffered in the struggle for independence. The same
cause, though in less degree, existed after the war of 1812. The
pensions paid to the sufferers in both wars, including those of the
Mexican war (when the country had made great advance in wealth),
amounted in all, from 1789 to 1861, to the sum of $80,000,000; whereas
from 1861 to 1881 the sum of $516,000,000 was paid to those who had
claim upon the bounty, rather upon the justice, of the Government.

--The twenty years form indeed an incomparable era in the history of
the United States. Despite the loss of life on the part of both North
and South the Republic steadily gained in population for the entire
period, at the rate of nearly a million each year; and each year there
was added to the permanent wealth of the people $1,500,000,000;--a fact
made all the more surprising when it is remembered that they were at
the same time burdened with the interest on the National debt, of which
they discharged more than eleven hundred millions of dollars of the
principal within the period named.

Such progress is not only unprecedented but phenomenal. It could not
have been made except under wise laws, honestly and impartially
administered. It could not have been made except under an industrial
system which stimulated enterprise, quickened capital, assured to labor
its just reward. It could not have been made under the narrowing
policy which assumes the sovereignty of the _State_. It required the
broad measures, the expanding functions, which belong to a free
_Nation_. Not simply to the leading statesmen of the Senate and the
House, but to Congress as a whole, in its aggregate wisdom,--always
greater than the wisdom of any one man,--credit and honor are due; due
for intelligence, for courage, for zeal in the service of an endangered
but now triumphant and prosperous Republic.

During the twenty years, the representatives serving in the House
exceeded fifteen hundred in number. As an illustration of the rapidity
of changes in elective officers where suffrage is absolutely free, each
succeeding House in the ten Congresses, with a single exception,
contained a majority of new members. Only one representative in all
this number served continuously from 1861 to 1881,--the Honorable
William D. Kelley, eminent in his advocacy of the Protective system,
steadily growing throughout