When General Garfield had been nominated at Chicago in 1880 the nomination of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency was placed in the hands of the friends of General Grant. That nomination was offered to me. In the forty years from 1856 to 1896, I made speeches in behalf of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana and in no instance did I receive compensation for my services. When I spoke in Ohio my expenses were paid on all occasions but one. That was a volunteer visit. My acquaintance with the politicians of Ohio was agreeable from first to last. In my many trips through New York it was understood that my expenses were to be paid. When General Arthur was at the head of the committee his checks exceeded the expenses, perhaps by a hundred per cent. On one occasion the State Committee asked me to make six or eight speeches upon their appointment. That service I performed; whether my expenses were paid I cannot say. If they were paid it is the exception in Massachusetts, unless local expenses may have been met where addresses were made. If a mercantile account current could be written, it might appear that my obligations to the Republican Party are not in excess of the obligations of the Republican Party to me. From my experience as a member of the Republican Party I add an incident to what I have said already. In the month of July, 1862, and at the request of President Lincoln and Secretary Chase, I entered upon the work of organizing the Internal Revenue Office. That work was continued without the interruption of Sabbaths or evenings, with a few exceptions only, till March, 1863, when, as was said by Mr. Chase, the office was larger than the entire Treasury had been at any time previous to 1861. It was the largest branch of government ever organized in historical times and set in motion in a single year. The system remains undisturbed. Such changes only have been made as were required by changes in the laws. In the thirty-eight years of its existence the Government has received through its agency the enormous sum of five thousand and five hundred million dollars being twice the amount of all the revenues of the Government previous to 1860. I have thus devoted many minutes of your time to the questions raised by Mr. Moody. The nature and the extent of my obligations to the Republican Party and the question of my consistency in the construction that I have given to the Constitution of the United States, are not matters of grave concern for you. They have come into the field of discussion through the agency of Mr. Moody. I come now to ask your attention to a view of your relations to passing events which concerns the county of Essex.