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tary Commission an institution, whose great and business-like work of patriotic charity and mercy became the admiration of the civilized world. They first made the necessity and practicability of their plan clear to the people, and then, with them at their back, forced an unwilling government to recognize and accept the Commission as a power to do good. Similar in character and results was the Christian Commission, in the President of which is found the most eminent single example which the war afforded, in support of this position; such, also, but more limited in its operations, because less popular, are the Freedmen's Associations; and such, in its original conception and working during the war, was the Union League.
The men who led in these movements did not go to politicians and ask if their plans were expedient, party interests considered. But with the desire to do good for their motive and their own native energies for their power, success soon brought the politicians to them. And if private men, or associations of private men, will, this may always be the case. To this end they have but to accept, and act up to these propositions: That this country, with such a people in it as carried through the late war, can never be ruined, politicians to the contrary notwithstanding; that its nearest approach to ruin will come from temporizing; that party management never saved a country nor advanced a just cause; that this is effected only by doing justice and cultivating a right public opinion; that power on any other basis than this is better lost than kept, even when the party which gains is worse than the party which loses it; that when legitimate means fail, or have not been used, to form this basis by a party in power, then the misdeeds of evil men in power are the only resource left to the country for creating a public opinion against their own evil policy and in favor of justice, which they will do by causing reaction; that this is the chief use of, and necessity for, a second party in the State, and that these propositions are good at all times and in every crisis, not excepting the present. By taking a firm stand on this ground, and refusing absolutely to support candidates of inadequate ability, bad personal character, or doubtful firmness of principle for office, private men may become a power in the State, instead of remaining the mere voting machines in the hands
