1868.] GRANT NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 551 candidate, the result showed six hundred and fifty votes for Ulysses S. Grant-a unanimity without parallel. The announcement of the vote was received with wild enthusiasm, all the vast assemblage springing to their feet, and flinging up hats and handkerchiefs amid thundering cheers. A curtain rising in the rear of the stage exhibited a painting of two pedestals standing in front of the White House, one (bearing a figure of Grant) labeled "Republican nominee of the Chicago Convention, May twentieth, 1868;" the other, "Democratic nominee, New York Convention, July fourth, 1868." Between the two stood the Goddess of Liberty, pointing with one hand to Grant, and with the other to the vacant pedestal. Overhead was the motto: "Match him." At that moment, a dove, painted in the national colors, was let loose, and flew back and forth, and the historic eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin-now an honorary member of all patriotic organizations in the West— added his screams to the tumult. A few days later, a committee headed by Ex-Governor Hawley, of Connecticut, president of the convention, waited upon the General at his residence. To Hawley's address Grant responded, in the longest speech of his life: "MR. PRESIDENt, and GentlemEN OF THE NATIONAL UNION CONVENTION: I will endeavor in a very short time to write you a letter accepting the trust you have imposed upon me. Expressing my gratitude for the confidence you have placed in me, I will now say but little orally, and that is to thank you for the unanimity with which you have selected me as a candidate for the Presidential office. I can say, in addition, I looked on during the progress of the proceedings at Chicago with a great deal of interest, and am gratified with the harmony and unanimity which seem to have governed the deliberations of the convention. If chosen to fill the high office for which you have selected me, I will give to its duties the same energy, the same spirit, and the same will, that I have given to the performance of all duties which have devolved upon me heretofore. Whether I shall be able to perform these duties to your entire satisfaction, time will determine. You have truly said, in the course of your address, that I shall have no policy of my own to enforce against the will of the people." On the twenty-ninth he wrote to the Committee :— "In formally accepting the nomination of the National Union Republican Convention of the twenty-first of May inst., it seems proper that some state 552 "LET US HAVE PEACE." [1868. ment of views beyond the mere acceptance of the nomination should be expressed. "The proceedings of the convention were marked with wisdom, moderation, and patriotism, and I believe express the feelings of the great mass of those who sustained the country through its recent trials. I indorse the resolutions. "If elected to the office of President of the United States, it will be my endeavor to administer all the laws in good faith, with economy, and with the view of giving peace, quiet, and protection everywhere. In times like the present it is impossible, or at least eminently improper, to lay down a policy to be adhered to right or wrong, through an administration of four years. New political issues, not foreseen, are constantly arising; the views of the public on old ones are constantly changing, and a purely administrative officer should always be left free to execute the will of the people. I always have respected that will, and always shall. "Peace and universal prosperity-its sequence-with economy of administration will lighten the burden of taxation, while it constantly reduces the National debt. Let us have peace." Let us have peace! Protection to white men and black men of the South who upheld the Government with their muskets; good faith to all men everywhere who upheld it with their money. These cardinal points secured, all magnanimity, all fraternity toward its late foes, who so mistakenly but so devotedly poured out their blood. Let us have peace! "The Blue and the Gray" slumber side by side, under the pines and cypresses, the live oaks and magnolias. The same flowers mantle their dreamless beds, the same birds twitter above them, the same waters ripple at their feet. Hark to the message, borne by the murmuring wind, from those untroubled sleepers to us-warring Unionists and confederates no longer, but Americans all, with one flag, one country, and one destiny! It counsels the victors to the largest forbearance; the vanquished to honest acquiescence in the only finality-equal and impartial justice to all. So shall the blackened track of war smile again with “the fruitful olive and the cheering vine." shall the new America fulfill the hope, "Whose dawning day, in every distant age, So |