madic tribes of Germany and Central Europe for the germ of that love for personal independence and liberty, which, shaped and restrained by Christianity and law, is the great element of strength and happiness in our own beloved Republic.

Now, fellow-citizens, I would impress, if possible, in living characters upon your minds, the lesson and warning which even this short survey teaches us.

Perfect individual liberty and personal freedom imply the absence of all law and government; abject slavery is the other extreme. The more perfect the government, the less will be the restraint upon the individual compatible with good order and proper co-operation with the state and society. Our government is based, theoretically and practically, upon a proper compromise between perfect individual liberty and centralized power; and when events cause a strong oscillation toward either extremity, it brings confusion and danger, and a rebound from one, always renders us liable to swing too close to the other. Not only does our form of government embrace this idea of compromise, but also that between the freedom of communities or States, and extreme National centralization, either extreme being destructive of the great principles of our Union,-on the one hand leading to disintegration, contention, conflict, and self-destruction, while the other extreme ends in placing the power in the hands of the few, and the crushing out of the control of the many.

Hence, it has been truly said that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty;" for on the one hand is Scylla and on the other Charybdis, between which our ship of state must constantly steer for safety.

The history of nations in the past, shows us very clearly that, as a general rule, danger chiefly lies in the direction of concentration of power, because it renders the prize more desirable, and increases the anxiety and efforts to obtain it. As a nation increases in numbers, wealth, and power, if at the same time the wealth and power is gravitating toward a central point or into the control of a few, there will, as a natural consequence, be an increase in the efforts and desire to obtain the commanding positions and control the wealth, and in like ratio will be the increase of unscrupulous schemes and corrupt efforts to succeed; and this, unless checked, must finally end in the destruction. of liberty.

Happily, with us, the right of franchise and the use of the ballot-box in the hands of the people forms the great and wholesome check upon such a tendency and such efforts. Here lies the palladium of our liberties, which it is our duty, my fellow-citizens, to guard with an argus eye.

Let this bulwark once be broken down, and soon every vestige of

our Republican institutions will be rooted out, and liberty will be a word known only as of the past.

A LEGAL INCIDENT IN LOGAN'S CAREER-AMONG THE SILVER MINES OF COLORADO.

A good and conscientious lawyer will always compromise a case in the interest of his client, rather than exhaust his client's means by fighting it through. The following incident, mentioned in the Washington Republican of April 2, 1879, shows the success which General Logan had in settling a fierce litigation, which had already caused the violent deaths of some of the principals. It seems that near Georgetown, Col., was a valuable silver mine called "Dives," and within half a mile of it another equally rich, called the "Pelican."* The owners of the Pelican also claimed the Dives, and during 1873 and 1874, bitter and violent and mortal contention had arisen between the different parties claiming ownership of the Dives. Said the Republican:

In 1875 the Dives mine was worked under an injunction, and General Logan was there attending to the case before the courts. The matter was quite a feature of local politics at the time, and the mine was almost as frequently heard of as "Logan's mine" as the "Dives." Since then a compromise has been effected, and the settlement of the matter to the satisfaction of both parties has been largely accorded to General Logan's management of it. The tunnel to the Dives mine is 600 feet long-one shaft 130 and another 110 feet deep. During the summer of 1875, Senator Logan might be seen, in a sort of demi-military dress, seated upon a handsome black horse, ascending the steep

* These were not the only mines in which General Logan was interested in Colorado. The Chicago Daily News recently said:

"He once narrowly escaped riches. Some years ago John L. Routt, formerly of Illinois, but now of Colorado, came to Washington to raise money for the development of the Evening Star Mine, of Leadville. General Logan subscribed for some of the stock, and paid a small assessment. The outlook was unfavorable, and when the second assessment was made on the stockholders, Logan refused to pay it and surrendered his shares to Routt. Within a few months a rich lead was discovered and the stock sprang from less than nothing to away above par. It made big dividends, and was finally sold at an enormous figure. Routt and all those interested with him were made rich, but Logan got only his original investment, which was refunded to him."

dangerous road from Georgetown to the Dives mine, fully verifying General Sherman's assertion that "Logan was very handsome on horseback."

LOGAN TALKED OF FOR PRESIDENT IN 1876."

As far back as 1870, General Logan's name was occasionally mentioned in the press of the country as a Presidential possibility. In 1874 his name was frequently mentioned in connection with the coming nominations in 1876. Among other papers, the Washington Republican of June 8, 1874, said:

The Presidential probabilities and possibilities of 1876 are just now the subject of considerable speculation and discussion in many of the principal journals of the country, and if we may believe the public prints, topics of no little interest to many of our leading statesmen and politicians.. General Logan represents what may be called the élan of the party. No man is more popular on the "stump," and with a good backing in a convention the chances are at least five to one that he would carry it by storm.

Only three days afterward, June 11th, the Post and Mail stated that

At McLeansboro' yesterday the Republican Convention unanimously and enthusiastically resolved in favor of John A. Logan for Presi dent in 1876.

WHAT THE OLD SOLDIERS THOUGHT OF LOGAN'S EFFORTS IN

THEIR BEHALF IN CONGRESS.

To show the warm regard the soldiers had for General Logan-those of other States as well as his own-the following letter in the Inter-Ocean of May, 1875, is given:

To the Editor of the Inter-Ocean:

KEOKUK, IA., May 17, 1875.

By this mail we have sent to the Hon. John A. Logan, of your State, a brief letter of thanks, of which the enclosed is a copy. It is a voluntary offering of soldiers who admire the brave military leader to whom it is addressed, and who have witnessed the devotion with which he has labored for the interests of the private soldier in both Houses of Congress, especially during the pendency of the late bill providing for an

equalization of bounties. That the bill did not become a law was not owing to any lack of zeal or labor in its behalf by John A. Logan. We feel unbounded gratitude to him on account of his labors, and therefore have forwarded to him our humble letter of thanks. R. M. J.

The enclosure, addressed to "John A. Logan, United States Senator," is in these words,

SIR: The undersigned soldiers and sailors of Iowa thank you for the bold and statesmanlike manner in which you have presented our interests in the Forty-third Congress.

This is signed by seventy old soldiers of the Union army, with the titles of their regiments, etc., attached.

LOGAN'S TILT WITH CONFEDERATE BRIGADIERS, IN 1876-HIS

DEFENCE OF SHERIDAN AND GRANT-THE WHITE LEAGUE "BANDITTI IN THE SENATE

-DEMOCRATIC

SYMPATHIZERS

ROUGHLY HANDLED-THE OLD SHIP.

We have seen how, in his speech on Reconstruction, in 1867, before the House of Representatives, General Logan gave the Northern Copperheads more than they bargained for, when they assailed him. So also, in the Senate, in 1876, during a great two-days' speech which he made in defence of President Grant's conduct of affairs in Louisiana, and of General Sheridan,-who, for calling the murderous WhiteLeaguers "banditti," had been savagely attacked by the Confederate brigadiers in Congress,-the brigadiers aforesaid, and their coadjutors, were never before so severely handled. As a specimen of the manner in which he handled them, may be stated that, after alluding to the denunciations, aspersions, perversions, and falsehoods of which they had been guilty, and by which they were seeking to deceive the North and inflame it against the Republican administration as a commencement of the Presidential campaign of 1876, Senator Logan proceeded:

it

Sir, I ask you what Governor Kellogg was to do after that horrible scene at Colfax; after the taking possession of five persons at Cou

shatta-Northern men, who had gone there with their capital and invested it and built up a thriving little village, but who were taken. out and murdered in cold blood; and not only that, but they had murdered one of the judges and the district attorney, and compelled the judge and district attorney of that jurisdiction to resign, and then murdered the acting district attorney. My friend from Georgia [Mr. Gordon] said, in his way and manner of saying things, "Why do you not try these people for murdering those men at Coushatta? You have the judge, and you have the district attorney." Unfortunately for my friend's statement, we have neither. Your friends had murdered the attorney, and had murdered a judge before the new judge had been appointed, who had to resign to save his life. The acting district. attorney was murdered by the same "banditti" that murdered the five Northern men at Coushatta.

Here Mr. Gordon,-a Confederate General, and one of the bravest of them all,—interposed again with, "Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?" "Certainly," said Logan. Then, said Mr. Gordon, "Where was the United States Court at that time? Where was the enforcement act? Where was the army of the United States? Could not the United States Court under the enforcement act take cognizance of these facts? Was the district attorney of the United States not present?" "I will inform the Senator where they were," said Logan, as his eyes flashed: "The district attorney was in his grave, put there by your political friends. The judge had been murdered a year before. The one appointed in his place had to resign to save his life. The United States Court was in New Orleans. And he asks where was the United States army?

Great God! do you want the army? I thought you had been railing at its use." Well might Mr. Gordon confess himself overwhelmed by this crushing retort; and later, when Gordon defied General Logan to make good a charge he had just made against him, and in a blustering way said, "He has made the charge; I ask him to make it good, or to withdraw it, one of the two," General Logan with a contemptuous half-smile replied with meaning emphasis,