Here was the art of the demagogue, blinding the eyes of the people with sophistry and false pretences in order to secure by indirection that which could not be obtained by fair discussion. A Presidential election was approaching. An honest Chief Executive had rebelled against the attempt to nullify the results of the war by converting the Southern States into conquered territories, in order that party supremacy should be secured, even at the expense of national unity and harmony. Any discussion of a proposition to burden the victorious soldier with greater debt, in the interest of a class of stay-at-homes, would have caused vigorous protests from the men whose aid was necessary for party success. Thaddeus Stevens had announced that if he thought "that the Republican party would vote to pay, in coin, bonds that were payable in greenbacks, thus making a new contract for the benefit of the bondholders, he would vote for Frank Blair, even if a worse man than Horatio Seymour was at the head of the ticket." Oliver P. Morton, the war-Governor of Indiana, had been equally vigorous in his language; and practical politicians foresaw that even Pennsylvania and Indiana might be lost to the Republican party with these men arrayed against it. Therefore the cunning proposal to postpone this discussion "until after the excitement of a Presidential election was over, and we could discuss this with the calmness with which we should view all great financial questions." The hint was taken, the contest of 1868 was fought under a seeming acquiescence in the views of Stevens and Morton; the dear people were hoodwinked with catch-phrases coined to deceive, and a new lease of power was secured by false pretence. But when the excitement of the election had passed, and there was no longer any danger of "injuring the Republican party," all discussion was stifled; and the first act signed by the newly elected President was that which had been laid aside for that season of "calmness with which we should view all great financial questions." The next step in the conspiracy was a logical sequence to all that had preceded. Having secured coin payment of interest and principal of all bonds, it was now in order to still further increase the value of the one and to perpetuate the payment of the other. To this end, silver was demonetized by a trick in the revision of the Statutes, reducing the volume of coin one-half, and decreasing the probability of rapid bond payments. Then the volume of the paper currency was contracted by a systematic course of substituting interest-bearing bonds for non-interest-bearing currency, and the first chapter of financial blunders and crimes of the Wall Street servants ended in a panic, revealing, in its first wild terror, the disgraceful connection of high public officials with the worst elements of stock-jobbery.