sympathizers, some of them being Chicagoans of note, were among those arrested. The services of Colonel Sweet were highly appreciated by the United States Government, and he received his commission as Brigadier General, soon after the crushing blow he dealt to the conspirators. It is certain that had the attempt to carry the war into the Northwest been successful, the struggle between the states would have been greatly prolonged. (Note: It was during the troubles in Chicago, incident to the conditions brought about by the Southern sympathizers, that Wilbur F. Story of the Chicago Times nearly lost his life. They were turbulent days in Chicago at this time and the city was patroled by soldiers from the Camp; disorderly mobs were frequent and the mob which attacked the Times Building was only one of those which were success fully handled by General Sweet. I, myself, driving down town with my father, once saw him stopped by a mob in front of a bank in which funds were deposited for the substitutes. We were driven a little aside where I held the reins and saw my father go up on the balcony, on the 2nd floor of the bank and by his personal efforts, quell and disperse a very dangerous looking mob of excited men.)

(MISS) A. C. SWEET.

General Sweet resigned at the end of the war and entered the practice of law at Chicago. He was later appointed U. S. Pension Agent at Chicago and Supervisor of Internal Revenue and then first Deputy Commissioner of Internal Revenue at Wash., D. C. He died just before his 42nd birthday, January Ist, 1874, at Washington.

CHAPTER XII.

THESIS ON GOVERNMENT USED AS CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT IN 1864. -REPUBLICAN CONVENTION 1864.-CAMPAIGN 1864.-FREEMONT HEADS THE MALCONTENTS-LINCOLN'S HUMOR.

When I returned from Heidelberg I went to the University of Michigan, where I graduated from the law department in 1864. All graduates are required to write a thesis; and having spent some time previously at the University of Heidelberg, where I became interested in the various forms of government in Europe, I selected for mine 'A Comparison between the Forms of Government of the Republic or Representative Democracy of the United States and those of Other Nations.'

I have always considered our form of government preferable to any other. It is the abuse of this great inheritance by those upon whose responsibility and votes the government is maintained that excites criticism.

The civil war was progressing toward its close in 1864 when I was at the University, and naturally the critical condition of the nation was on my mind. On my return to Springfield, my home at that time, I called upon the war governor, Richard Yates, and submitted my thesis to him. He read it over and sent me a letter expressing his strong approval, which I published with my thesis as a campaign document, when Abraham Lincoln ran the second time for the Presidency. It was circulated by the Union League.

I gave copies to President Lincoln when I called on him in 1865.

THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION OF 1864.

Mr. Clark E. Carr, in his book entitled, "My Day and Generation," states, that: "the Republican National Convention was called by the National Committee to meet at Baltimore on June 7, 1864. The writer of this was one of the delegates from Illinois in that Convention. There was in Illinois scarcely the slightest opposition to the nomination of Mr. Lincoln. Every republican there was enthusiastically for him, and we were by ringing resolutions unanimously instructed to support him.

"New Hampshire and Pennsylvania led off in declaring for Mr. Lincoln, on the same day so early as January 5th before the Baltimore Convention.

"Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune was one of the ablest most earnest, and most persistent supporter of Mr. Lincoln.

"Bitter and malignant as was the opposition to the re-nomination of Mr. Lincoln elsewhere, its storm center continued to be in Missouri, culminating, as has been said, in two state republican conventions-the Conservatives favoring him, and the Radicals denouncing him. John G. Nicolay, who was the private secretary of the President, appeared in the Convention at the most critical time and on his own authority, he said, 'Advise the Illinois delegation to support the Radicals instead of the Conservatives.' We had once voted in favor of seating the Radicals. Other delegates followed and they were seated.

"The result was that when the time came for the nomination in the great Convention, although a motion was made and strenuously urged to that effect, it was impossible to re-nominate Mr. Lincoln by acclamation, and the roll had to be called. Mr. Lincoln received every vote but that of Missouri. Mr. Lincoln received 484 votes. Missouri gave her 22 votes for General Grant, but before the vote was announced, Missouri changed her vote and, although not by acclamation, Mr. Lincoln was unanimously nominated."

Mr. Carr says: "We saw that when we admitted this Radical delegation upon equality with all other delegates and gave them a right to be heard, gave them their day in court, they were, like us, committed to the action of the Convention and its candidate, and as loyal Republicans, estopped from casting their fortunes with the third party already in the field."

"Mr. Lincoln was great enough and wise enough to see all this. After giving a complimentary vote for Grant, the Radicals changed their vote for Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln at the election carried against General McClellan every electoral vote, except those of New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky, and his popular vote was nearly half a million greater than had ever before been received by a presidential candidate."

This shows that the great majority of the people, or voters, heartily endorsed the policy of Abraham Lincoln.

"MORE LIGHT and less NOISE,” AND OTHER LINCOLN ANECDOTES.”

An editorial in the New York Tribune, opposing Lincoln's renomination, is said to have called out from him the following story:

"A traveler on the frontier found himself out of his reckoning one night in a most inhospitable region. A terrific thunderstorm came up to add to his trouble. He floundered along until his horse at length gave out. The lightning afforded him the only clue to his way, but the peals of thunder were frightful. One bolt, which seemed to crash the earth beneath him, brought him to his knees. By no means a praying man, his petition was short and to the point: 'O Lord, if it is all the same to you, give us a little more light and a little less noise!'"

When the time came along in the spring of 1864 for nominations to be made for the Presidential office General J. C. Fremont was prominently mentioned by a few of the malcontents, and vociferousness gave color to claims of a support that subsequent events proved he did not have. John T. Morse, Jr., in his Life of Abraham Lincoln, tells the following story:

"At Cleveland on the appointed day the mass convention assembled, only the mass was wanting. It nominated Fremont for the Presidency and Gen. John Cochrane for the Vice-presidency; and thus again the Constitution was ignored by these malcontents, for both these gentlemen were citizens of New York, and therefore the important delegation from that State could lawfully vote for only one of them. Really the best result which the convention achieved was that it called forth a bit of wit from the President. Some one remarked to him that, instead of the expected thousands, only about four hundred persons had assembled. He turned to the Bible which, say Nicolay and Hay, commonly lay on his desk, and read the verse: 'And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred men.'

"There is but one contingency that can cause your defeat for a second term," one of Lincoln's friends said to him in 1863, "and that is Grant's capture of Richmond and his nomination as an opposing candidate.”

"Well," replied Mr. Lincoln, shrewdly, "I feel very much about that as the man felt who said he didn't want to die particularly, but if he had got to die, that was precisely the disease he would like to die of."

AUTHORITATIVE LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT TO HORACE GREELEY.

July 18, 1864, President Lincoln published the following letter as he was informed by Horace Greeley that there were commissioners, Clement C. Clay being one of them, from the South,

waiting near Niagara Falls in Canada to open up negotiations of peace, if permitted to do so. Mr. John Hay had been sent to meet them and found they had no authority from the Cenfederate government to negotiate with United States authorities: Executive Mansion, Washington, July 18, 1864.

To Whom It May Concern:

"Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States and will be met on liberal terms on substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways."

A. LINCOLN.

This authorized proposal of peace sent to Horace Greeley who was simply tool, was part of a plot laid to affect the re-election of Lincoln for a second term. But it failed of its purpose on account of the bold stand taken by the president showing his willingness to have peace on honorable terms.

The president was very much annoyed, Senator Shelby M. Cullom said in his book entitled "Fifty Years of Public Service." "He remarked to me, that while Mr. Horace Greeley means all right, he makes me almost as much trouble as the whole Southern Confederacy."