Garden of
Eden again."

General Hayes, having resigned his seat in Congress, opened the campaign
of '67 in a comprehensive speech, delivered at Lebanon, August 5,
aggressive in tone and full of bristling points. It was equivalent to a
charge along the whole of the enemies' line--a species of tactics which
he had learned the advantage of in the valley of the Shenandoah. We
refer the reader to this clear, resolute, vigorous speech, reprinted in
full in the Appendix, for the grounds upon which the Republican leader
demanded a popular verdict against his political adversaries. The speech
showed that he deserved the eulogies of the press which followed his
nomination, among which were those of Colonel Donn Piatt--a judge of
ability, to say the least--who had written: "The people will find his
utterances full of sound thought, and his deportment modest, dignified,
and unpretending.... Possessed of a high order of talent, enriched by
stores of information, General Hayes is one of the few men capable of
accomplishing much without any egotistical assertion of self." General
James M. Comly had said: "More than four years' service in the same
command gave the writer ample opportunity to know that no braver or more
dashing and enterprising commander gave his services to the Republic
than General Hayes. He was the idol of his command. No man of his
soldiery ever doubted when he led. In principle he is as radical as we
could desire. His vote has been given in Congress on every square issue
for the right. He is no wabbler or time-server. He no more dodges votes
than he did bullets."

Judge Thurman--now Senator A. G. Thurman--opened the campaign on the
Democratic side in an elaborate speech, delivered at Waverly, August
5th, and reported in the Cincinnati _Commercial_ of August 6th. He
vigorously defended the course and action of the Peace Democracy in
Ohio, and assailed Mr. Lincoln and his administration with an
extravagance of language that weakened the force of many of his
arguments during the campaign. He intemperately asserted that there was
"scarcely a provision of the Constitution" that had not been
"shamelessly and needlessly trampled under foot" by "these enemies of
our Government," including as "enemies" the Congress and Cabinet that
supported and maintained the war for the Union. These and other
unfortunate allusions, such as that to the "poison of Abolitionism,"
enabled General Hayes to effectively retort at Sidney, and a