to several important grants
the condition that the lands should be sold only to actual settlers,
in quantities not exceeding a quarter section, and for not more
than two dollars and fifty cents per acre. A very important reform,
already referred to, had been made in our Indian treaty policy, by
which lands relinquished by any tribe would henceforth fall under
the operation of our land laws, instead of being sold in a body to
some corporation or individual monopolist. The Southern Homestead
law had dedicated to actual settlement millions of acres of the
public domain in the land States of the South, while the Homestead
Act of 1862 was splendidly vindicating the wisdom of its policy.
Congress had declared forfeited and open to settlement a large
grant of lands in Louisiana for non-compliance with the conditions
on which it was made, and the public domain had been saved from
frightful spoilation by the fortunate defeat of a scheme of land
bounties that would completely have overturned the policy of the
pre-emption and homestead laws, while practically mocking the claims
of the soldiers. The opportunity, now and then, to strangle a
legislative monster like this, or to further the passage of beneficent
and far-reaching measures, is one of the real compensations of
public life.

The final ratification of the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment,
which was declared in force on the thirtieth of March, 1870,
perfectly consummated the mission of the Republican party, and left
its members untrammeled in dealing with new questions. In fact,
the Republican movement in the beginning was a political combination,
rather than a party. Its action was inspired less by a creed than
an object, and that object was to dedicate our National Territories
to freedom, and denationalize slavery. Aside from this object,
the members of the combination were hopelessly divided. The
organization was created to deal with this single question, and
would not have existed without it. It was now regarded by many as
a spent political force, although it had received a momentum which
threatened to outlast its mission; and if it did not keep the
promise made in its platform of 1868, to reform the corruptions of
the preceding Administration, and at the same time manfully wrestle
with the new problems of the time, it was morally certain to
degenerate into a faction, led by base men, and held together by
artful appeals to the memories of the past. Our tari