I attended the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati on the first of May, where I was delighted to meet troops of the old Free Soilers of 1848 and 1852. It was a mass convention of Republicans, suddenly called together without the power of money or the help of party machinery, and prompted by a burning desire to rebuke the scandals of Gen. Grant's administration, and rescue both the party and the country from political corruption and misrule. It was a spontaneous and independent movement, and its success necessarily depended upon the wisdom of its action and not the force of party obligation. There were doubtless political schemers and mercenaries in attendance, but the rank and file were unquestionably conscientious and patriotic, and profoundly in earnest. I never saw a finer looking body assembled. It was a more formidable popular demonstration than the famous Convention at Buffalo, in 1848, and gave promise of more immediate and decisive results. There was a very widespread feeling that the Cincinnati ticket would win, and the friends of Gen. Grant could not disguise their apprehension. The thought seemed to inspire every one that a way was now fortunately opened for hastening the end of sectional strife and purifying the administration of public affairs. The capital speech of Stanley Matthews, on accepting the temporary chairmanship of the Convention, was but the echo of the feeling of the Convention, and its confident prophecy of victory. "Parties," said he, "can not live on their reputations. It was remarked, I believe, by Sir Walter Raleigh, in reference to the strife of ancestry, that those who boasted most of their progenitors were like the plant he had discovered in America, the best part was under ground." He declared that "the time has come when it is the voice of an exceedingly large and influential portion of the American people that they will no longer be dogs to wear the collar of a party." All that now seemed wanting was wise leadership, and a fair expression of the real wish and purpose of the Convention.