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firmness, constancy, sagacity, invention, ability,
skill, power, and wisdom, with a great capacity
to receive new ideas, and adapt themselves to new
conditions.
They have committed grave mistakes, made sad
blunders, sometimes been weak, and often wrong.
They have raised and equipped and kept on foot
huge armies, and peculation and malversation
have attended the public service.
They have collected and disbursed revenues that
can find no expression in our old knowledge of the
power of numerals, and fraud and abuse have found
lodgings and hiding places in this branch of the
service. But it is to be remembered that, for the
last four years, they have not only had to govern
the country under all the difficulties referred to,
but have had to fence around, wall in, manacle,
and fetter a hostile, obstinate, powerful and
unscrupulous Executive, who alone appointed,
instructed, and controlled the agents who trans
acted this public business, and whose main effort
lias been to so manage the affairs of the nation
as to throw the greatest obstructions in the way
of, and bring the worst odium upon, the party
in power. That weak, bad, and wicked men find
feeding grounds and resting places with that