This movement was met on the other side by the assembly of a Republican soldier convention at Pittsburg on the 25th and 26th of September, for the purpose of upholding Congress in its fight with the Administration over the question of Reconstruction. The convention {102} was presided over by General J. D. Cox, and a host of the most capable officers of the armies of the Union, lately disbanded, participated in its deliberations and resolves. They denounced the President's Reconstruction policy, pronounced their adherence to Congress, and declared for the adoption of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment as the indispensable measure for the re-establishment of peace, justice and union. [Sidenote: The canvass of 1866.] During the summer and autumn the orators and politicians of both parties pursued the canvass upon the basis of the doctrines put forth by the conventions. A very large number, an unusually large number, of the leading men of the country, took part in the great debate. Even the President of the United States took part in it. [Sidenote: The "swing around the circle."] On the 28th of August he started from Washington to go to Chicago to be present at the laying of the corner-stone of the Douglas monument. He took with him General Grant, Admiral Farragut, three of his Cabinet officers, Seward, Randall and Welles, and a large number of lesser lights. Crowds gathered at all the principal stopping-places, and the President spoke to them in defence of his policy of Reconstruction and of his acts in the execution of it. He denounced his enemies and opponents bitterly, and descended to undignified and even vulgar altercation with individuals in the crowds. In his speech at St. Louis, on September 28th, his hot temper betrayed him into an attempt to throw upon Congress, the radical Congress, as he called it, the blame for the New Orleans riot, and he went to the imprudent extreme of almost making an excuse or a quasi-excuse for the riot. The whole performance of the President upon the journey was termed "swinging around the circle," and it both degraded the great office and its {103} incumbent, and injured the prospects of the Administration party in the campaign. [Sidenote: The President's final proclamation declaring the Civil War ended.] [Sidenote: The October elections.] [Sidenote: The Republican triumph in the elections of 1866.]