grievances to complain of, and most sincerely
regretted the necessity which compelled my withdrawal from political
associations in which I had labored many long years, and through
seasons of great national danger. If I had consulted my own selfish
ambition I would have chosen a different course, since I knew by
painful experience the cost of party desertion, while the fact was
well known that the prizes of politics were within my reach, if I
had sought them through the machinery of the Republican organization
and the support of General Grant. Had the party, having accomplished
the work which called it into being, applied itself to the living
questions of the times, and resolutely set its face against political
corruption and plunder, and had it freely tolerated honest differences
of opinion in its own ranks, treating the question of Grant's re-
nomination as an open one, instead of making it a test of Republicanism
and a cause for political excommunication, I could have avoided a
separation, at least at that time. I made it with many keen pangs
of regret, for the history of the party had been honorable and
glorious, and I had shared in its achievements. My revolt against
its discipline forcibly reminded me of the year 1848, and was by
far the severest political trial of my life. My new position not
only placed me in very strange relations to the Democrats, whose
misdeeds I had so earnestly denounced for years; but I could not
fail to see that the great body of my old friends would now become
my unrelenting foes. Their party intolerance would know no bounds,
and I was not unmindful of its power; but there was no way of
escape, and with a sad heart, but an unflinching purpose, I resolved
to face the consequences of my decision. My chief regret was that
impaired health deprived me of the strength and endurance I would
now sorely need in repelling wanton and very provoking assaults.

I attended the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati on the
first of May, where I was delighted to meet troops of the old Free
Soilers of 1848 and 1852. It was a mass convention of Republicans,
suddenly called together without the power of money or the help of
party machinery, and prompted by a burning desire to rebuke the
scandals of Gen. Grant's administration, and rescue both the party
and the country from political corruption and misrule. It was a
spontaneous and independent movement, and its success necessarily
depended upo