The Report adduces the authority of John Locke, the eminent philosopher, as declaring “the employment of ‘the force, treasure, and _offices of the society to corrupt the representatives, or openly to preëngage the electors, and prescribe what manner of persons shall be chosen_,’ as among those breaches of trust in the executive magistrate which amounts to a dissolution of the Government; for ‘what is it,’ he says, ‘but to cut up the Government by the roots, and poison the very fountains of public security?’”[194] But all this we witness here. 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. Therefore, to arrest a flagrant tyranny, and to secure purity in the Government, also to save the President from himself, should this Amendment be adopted; and since Horace Greeley is known to be its strenuous supporter, we have an unanswerable reason in his behalf. RECONCILIATION. 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 races. This issue, so grand and beautiful, was distinctly presented, when Horace Greeley, in accepting the Republican nomination at Cincinnati, wrote these memorable words:-- “In this faith, and with the distinct understanding, that, if elected, I shall be the President, not of a party, but of the whole people, I accept your nomination,--in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has too long divided them, forgetting that they have been enemies, in the joyful consciousness that they are, and must henceforth remain, brethren.”[195] The issue was again presented, when thereafter the Democratic Party in National Convention, acting under an irresistible movement of the people, nominated the author of these words. It is difficult to see how this noble aspiration can find other than a generous response. Nothing but a party spirit which forgets the obligations of Christian duty could treat it with indifference, much less make it the occasion of misrepresentation. By no effort of ingenuity or malignity can it be tortured into anything but an offer of reconciliation, while the very letter of acceptance, where it appears, declares the established supremacy of Equal Rights. Observe also that it is made only when the work of Reconstruction is ended. Here is the testimony of a Senator of South Carolina, in a speech in the Senate, January 22, 1872:--