Prominent men, and classical scholars, were loud in praise of this speech. Senator Sumner said of it: "It is capital! capital !—one of, the best arguments I have read for many a day." Samuel Wilkinson said of it: "It is the best speech I ever read." And, among the great number of journals that alluded to it in terms of high praise, the Mississippi Journal said:

We have been favored with a copy of the celebrated speech of Hon. John A. Logan, on Impeachment, and, after a studious perusal, must pronounce it one of the orator's most brilliant efforts. The sterling arguments, free from metaphors or ornament, remind the classical scholar of the orations of Cicero or Demosthenes, while, at the same time, the chaste elegance of a fervent imagination reveals treasures of thought and strength of reasoning that would do honor to the most. distinguished habitués of the Roman forum.

PENSIONS FOR THE WAR OF 1812-LOGAN ADVOCATES THE BILL

AND EXPLAINS THE TRUE GROUND UPON WHICH PENSIONS ARE GRANTED.

may

It be well to mention here, as showing the strong ground upon which he, even at this day, stood with respect to pensions, that, early in 1868, the House of Representatives having before it a bill to grant pensions to the soldiers of the war of 1812, in the debate upon it, General Logan made a speech in favor of the bill, in which the following strong passages occur:

From the best data that we can get, there are very few of the soldiers of the 1812 war, surviving. The survivors must average seventy or seventy-five years of age. Forty-eight years after the close of the revoolutionary war, pensions were granted to the soldiers who had defended the country in that war. A pension was granted to each and every one of the soldiers then surviving. Why was it granted? Not, because it took but a small sum of money out of the Treasury. I ask the gentlemen of the House to reflect for one moment upon the principle on which we grant a pension to a soldier. In granting pensions, do we vote with reference to the amount of money, small or large, that the payment of the pensions will take? No, sir. We pass such acts upon

the principle that the soldier has done his duty to his country, and that the country is under obligation to provide for him for the remainder of his life, if he need such provision. When we grant pensions to wounded soldiers, we do not inquire how many wounded soldiers there are, and how much money it will take to provide a pension for all of them. We do not determine the question upon any such conditions. We vote pensions because we believe that a man who, in defending his country, has met the shock of battle, and has thus received wounds, deserves the gratitude of his country, and is entitled to its protecting care in his declining years.

I say then, in reference to this bill, that the men, for whom it is intended to provide, are entitled to pensions. Why? Not because they are few, or because they are many, but because they defended the liberties of this country at a time when their defence was needed. These men are now old, and they need the protection and succor of the country. They ask the Congress of the United States to give them a small pittance that will assist them in their declining years. I, for one, am willing to grant it.

More than fifty years have passed since these men met the storm of battle in defending this government against the Britons who were invading our soil. For that, they are entitled to relief; for that, they are entitled to protection; for that, they are entitled to the gratitude of this country, as much as if they had served in our recent war. If we intend to act properly, as the soldier grows old, as he declines in years, as he fades away toward the shadow-land, it is ours to see that the hand of this Republic shall be stretched out to him in relief. We should say to him: "In your manhood, in your youth, in your vigor and strength of life, you put forth your efforts to support an imperilled government, to save from wreck our free institutions; and now, in your old age, feeble and dependent, we will give you this small pittance, that your path to the grave may be smoothed, and made pleasant, with the recollection that your glorious deeds are held in grateful memory by the Republic."

LOGAN DECLINES TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS-LOGAN "THE CENTRE OF ATTRACTION" IN THE HOUSE-AGAIN RENOMINATED REPRESENTATIVE AT LARGE-AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1868, HE NOMINATES GRANT FOR PRESI

DENT.

During the winter of 1867-68 Congressman Logan having been urged by some of his friends to accept the Republican

nomination for Governor of Illinois, declined. Island Weekly Union, alluding to this, says:

The Rock

In a letter to a gentleman of Rock Island, he says that, while he dislikes to refuse any reasonable request of his friends, he has become so deeply interested in the questions that must be settled by this, and the succeeding Congress, that he prefers to remain identified with that body until they are finally disposed of. He says he wants "this government reconstructed on a basis that will at least allow a loyal man to live in it." . While there is no doubt the people of Illinois would gladly choose him as their chief executive, General Logan is needed in Congress. His services are more valuable, to the State and Nation, in that position, than they could be as Governor of Illinois. Such men as he is earnest and fearless in the defence of loyalty, who cannot be swerved from the strict performance of duty-should not be spared from Congress, in the present crisis.

At this time Logan was already one of the most marked men in Congress. The editorial correspondence from Washington, February 20, 1868, of a Southern Illinois paper, graphically describes him thus:

This man is the centre of attraction. When he walks into the House of Representatives, the whisper goes the round of the galleries: "That's Logan of Illinois." Every eye watches him. When he rises, no matter how much confusion prevails at the time, order is at once restored. Spectators and members all turn toward him, and, while he speaks, profound silence reigns, except the sound of his own voice. When he leaves, he is pursued by people from every part of the country. His rooms are thronged by ladies and gentlemen at all hours. His influence. is sought after by all classes of persons, and for every imaginable thing. These people are a heavy tax upon his time and energy, but Logan receives all with the same freedom and ease as he is approached at home, and without ostentation. In a word, Logan is the same in Washington that he is in Egypt-bold, manly, candid, a constant worker and a faithful representative. The people of Illinois have reason to be proud of him. In honoring him with so important an office, the people have honored themselves and the State. No citizen of the great State of Illinois need be ashamed of his Representative, nor blush when his name is called.

Early in 1868, General Logan was again nominated by acclamation for Representative from the State at large, and

also elected a delegate to the National Union Republican Convention of that year, which he attended at the head of the Illinois delegation, and, in a brief but ringing speech, put General Grant, his old comrade-in-arms, in nomination for President of the United States.

LOGAN'S "KEYNOTE

KEYNOTE" SPEECH IN THE HOUSE, 1868-SCATHING REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY -GOOD READING FOR YOUNG MEN, EVEN NOW.

On July 16, 1868, Congressman Logan delivered a speech before the House of Representatives, which was so scathing a review of the "Principles of the Democratic Party" as enunciated in their platform and otherwise, that it created quite a sensation at the time, and was the keynote of the Presidential contest of that year, which ended in the triumphant election of General Grant to the Presidency. It was an able review both of the war and of the public measures which followed it; and its historical value is sufficient reason-aside from the fact that much of it will probably continue to have a close applicability to future political campaigns-for giving it entire. Said Mr. Logan :

Mr. Chairman, the Democratic platform is a "whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones." It is a monument which is intended to hide decay and conceal corruption. Like many other monuments, it attracts attention by its vast proportions, and excites disgust by the falsity of its inscriptions. The casual observer, knowing nothing of the previous life of the deceased, who reads this eulogy upon the tomb, might imagine that all the virtues, the intellect, and the genius of the age were buried there. But to him who knows that the life had been a living lie, an incessant pursuit of base ends, the stone is a mockery, and the panegyric a fable.

It is my purpose to show, sir, that this Democratic platform is a mockery of the past, and that its promises for the future are hollow, evasive, and fabulous; that it disregards the sanctities of truth, and deals only in the language of the juggler. It is like the words of the