If not a form of bribery, it is kindred in nature,--and this has long been recognized, from the Bible down to our day.

But the case against the present incumbent is not only that while holding high office he accepted gifts from fellow-citizens, but subsequently appointed the gift-makers to office,--thus using the Presidency to pay off his own personal…

The proposed requirement seems to go on the idea that bank-notes, like cows, return from pasture at night; whereas we all know, that, until specie payments, they are more like the wild cattle of the prairies and the pampas; you cannot find…

Please bear this in mind; and when some apologist attempts to defend the taking of gifts, let him know that he must go still further, and show that the Presidency, with all its patronage, is a perquisite to be employed for the private…

I keep within the line of moderate statement, when I say, that, from the beginning of our Government, nothing in our foreign relations has been so absolutely indefensible.

That such things can be done by a President without indignant condemnation, loud and universal, shows a painful demoralization in the country.

That their author can be presented for reëlection to the Presidency, whose powers he has thus misused, shows a disheartening insensibility to public virtue.

And has it come to this, that the President of the Great Republic, instead of carrying peace and good tidings to Africans commencing the experiment of self-government, should become to them an agent of terror?

As a patriot citizen, anxious for the national welfare and renown, am I obliged to declare these convictions.

I am now brought to those two chief measures to be advanced by the election of Horace Greeley, each of controlling importance,--one looking directly to purity and efficiency in the government, and the other to the peace and welfare of our…

The principle of One Term for President is the corner-stone of a reformed civil service.

So plain is this to my apprehension, that I am at a loss to understand how any one sincerely in favor of such reform can fail to insist upon this principle.

Here is the comprehensive abuse which envelops all the offices of the country, making them tributary to one man, and subordinate to his desires.

Let this be changed, and you have the first stage of reform, without which all other measures are dilatory, if not feeble and inefficient.

How futile to recommend, as is done by the Commissioners on Civil Service, “an honest competitive examination,” while the rules for this system are left to the discretion of a President seeking reëlection!

The misuse of the appointing power to advance ambitious aims is a temptation to which a President must not be exposed.

In attributing peril to this influence, I speak not only from my own careful observation, but from the testimony of others whose words are authoritative.

That he should now disregard it gives new reason for the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.

Never before was the necessity for this beneficent Amendment more apparent; for never before was the wide-spread abuse from the reëligibility of the President more grievously conspicuous.

Intrigue and corruption are the natural vices of elective government; but when the head of the State can be reëlected, these evils rise to a great height and compromise the very existence of the country.

Is he faithful to the Constitution?” But this is now lost in the mightier law, “Is he faithful to reëlection?” This failing, all merit fails.

This prostitution of the offices of the country to the Presidential will can be upheld only by unhesitating partisan zeal, discarding reason and patriotism.

The offices are employed to preëngage the electors, and prescribe the persons to be chosen.

Nor do I see any corrective of this undoubted abuse, especially after the example now set in high quarters, so long as the President is a candidate for reëlection.

From the practical question of Civil Service Reform I pass to Reconciliation, being the most important issue ever presented to the American people,--reconciliation not only between the two once warring sections, but also between the two…