ician, who can allow a former policy
noiseless and forsaken to sink into the maelstrom of neglected and
unrequited love. Prolific in schemes is the procedure of a minority
party, not the least is the selection of a standard-bearer, who has been
the most sparse and reticent in utterance, hence a record the least
assailable, that extracts from his opponents the exclamation of one in
Holy Writ, "Oh, that mine enemy had written a book."

Among the men who made mark at the convention above referred to was
Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana, styled the "War Governor," for the
patriotism and alacrity which he summoned his State in response to the
national call, caught up and followed by every loyal State during the
Civil War. A confirmed invalid, with lower limbs paralyzed, with massive
head and inspired brain, assisted by two servants to a chair to the
front of the platform, he made the speech of the convention. Another
novel incident was the occupation of the platform of a National
Convention by Afro-Americans. The Late Hon. William H. Gray, the
faithful and eloquent leader of the colored Republicans of Arkansas, and
the late Hon. R. B. Elliott, Congressman from South Carolina, were
invited to speak.

A few of their well-chosen words in exordium were as follows:

Mr. Gray said: "Gentlemen of the Convention: For the first time,
perhaps, in the history of the American people, there stands before you
in a National Convention assembled, a representative of that oppressed
race that has lived among you for two hundred and fifty years; who, by
the magnanimity of this great nation, lifted by the power of God and the
hands of man from the degradation of slavery to the proud position of an
American citizen."

Mr. Elliott said: "Gentlemen of the Convention: It is with great
appreciation of the compliment paid my State that I rise to respond to
your invitation to address you. I stand here, gentlemen of the
convention, together with my colleagues from the several States, as an
illustration of an accomplished fact of American emancipation, not only
as an illustration of the management of the American people, but as a
living example of the justice of the American people."

The speeches of which the foregoing are but a part of their
introduction, expressive of gratitude and fidelity, a conception of the
needs of the hour, delivered with an eloquence that charmed, elicited
hearty response, the Academy echoing and re-echoing with the plaudits