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HATEVER differences of opinion. may exist as to the intellectual character of President Grant, he has demonstrated one great truth, at any rate; and that is, as wittily put by a daily journal, that though there is a time for public speaking, it is not all the time. The vice of our statesmanship has been the abuse of oratory. We say the abuse of oratory, because the use of that art is a gift which any statesman may be proud to possess; for it is a means of influence legitimate and powerful. In the earlier days of the Republic, and to this day in the South, the stump was a principle means of political education. What of politics the people did not thence learn, they learned from the reports of speeches in Congress. The ideas of political rights and of political economy of thousands of excellent elderly gentlemen now living are based on these flimsy foundations. Such being the

school in which the ideas of statesmanship were supposed to be taught how to shoot, it is little wonder it was filled to overflowing, or that a great majority of the graduates have turned out to be failures. We have plenty of public

men who can stand on their legs and make their tongues wag, but very few who can be called orators, without needlessly insulting the English language. There are not more than six men in both houses of Congress who are genuine orators. Mr. Fessenden is a very great debater; he has great knowledge. of affairs, intellectual movements quick as lightning, and enough of dyspepsia to make him completely remorseless in retort. Mr. Trumbull is a great lawyer, and can make a stronger, clearer legal argument than any other senator. But his speeches are better read than heard. Mr. Sumner delivers a magnificent address, and is sometimes fairly eloquent. But since the death of Senator Baker, of California, the voice of eloquence has been seldom heard in the Senate Chamber, and then in voices cracked and spoiled by the demon of rum. In the House of Representatives there is no man a better speaker than General Logan, though Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, is a far more fiery orator, whilst Mr. Voorhees, the distinguished democrat of Indiana, surpasses either in the strength of his argumentation and the vigor of his invective. But you will

listen in vain there for eloquence such as came from the lips of Corwin, or of Henry Winter Davis, or of Owen Lovejoy; or such as nearly all Illinoisans have heard from the lips of Robert G. Ingersoll. The speeches of our public men generally, whether listened to or read in report, are mostly bores to well informed people. "The reason you make so much poorer a speech than soand-so," we heard a gentleman once remark to a friend who had just made a talk fit for the gods, "is because it is so much better." He was above the crowd all the time, and the other man won the applause because he tickled the prejudices of an ignorant audience. It is this kind of stump stuff of which our people, as they have become more intelligent, have become heartily sick, and, a higher grade of oratory not being developed among politicians, have begun to look around for their public servants among men who have not expended their energies in this windy way.

Among the several eminent men of the Northwest whom this popular wisdom of looking for works rather than words has placed in distinguished official position, is Colonel SAMUEL MERRILL, Governor of the State of Iowa. For this position he received the nomination of the Republican party in 1867, to succeed Governor Stone, by many thought the best stump orator in the State, but who had in some respects failed in the management of the affairs of his office; and defeating two or three gentlemen of considerable forensic reputation, one of whom had been in Congress, and there distinguished for the pugnacity of his words. The acknowledged success with which he has administered the affairs of his office, and aided the prosperity of the prosperous commonwealth of Iowa, has demonstrated the wisdom of his nomination. The predecessors of his own party in the office were men of noted

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ability as politicians James Grimes, since United States Senator; Ralph P. Lowe, since of the Supreme Court of the State; Samuel J. Kirkwood, since United States Senator; William M. Stone-but it is believed neither of them excelled Governor MERRILL in any essential respect as chief magistrate, while in some important respects he stands confessedly at the head of the list.

SAMUEL MERRILL was born in the town of Turner, Oxford county, Maine, August 7, 1822; and is, therefore, at this time, in the full prime of manhood. He is claimed by the young men as a representative man of the "Young America" element in his party-a claim which can readily be admitted, seeing that there is not, and never has been, a single old fogy in the radical party of Iowa. When young MERRILL was about sixteen years of age, the family removed to Buxton, where he went to school, and where he became a teacher also. He directed his studies in this direction, and after reaching the age of legal majority, proceeded to the South with the view of teaching. The doctrines of the abolitionists had already aroused a considerable feeling of fear and spirit of persecution in the South, and the young man from Maine discovered that his abolition sentiments were a complete bar to employment. He therefore returned to Maine, and successfully engaged in farming a few years; and in 1847 removed to Tanworth, New Hampshire, where, with a brother, he carried on a mercantile business. In this, as he had been in farming, he was successful. Honest, sagacious, energetic, his worldly affairs prospered steadily and surely, none the less so because his manners were pleasing and his nature generous. He took an active but not noisy part in politics. In 1854 he was elected to the Legisla ture of New Hampshire, and again in 1855. In this latter year Mr. MERRILL