The fall of slavery relieved America from the chief hinderance to her progress, and the country resumed her career of peaceful industry. The ten years which followed Mr. Lincoln's first election witnessed great changes. The population of thirty-one millions had grown to forty millions, and was increasing at the rate of a million annually. From all European countries the enterprising and the needy flocked into the Eastern States. Asia was sending her thousands to the West, the first drops of an ample shower beneficial alike to her that gives and her that takes. Every year three hundred and fifty thousand emigrants sought a home in the great republic. The annual earnings of the people were estimated at thousands of millions. There were fortyeight thousand miles of railroad in operation, and twenty thousand miles in course of formation. The iron highway stretched across the continent, and men travelled now in five or six days from New York to San Francisco. Notwithstanding the enormous waste of the war, the wealth of the people had nearly doubled. And yet the great mass of the rich lands which America possessed lay unused. Of nearly two thousand millions of acres only five hundred millions had been even surveyed. In the vast residue, yet useless to man, the Great Father had made inexhaustible provision for the wants of his children.

Although slavery had fallen, many evils remained to vex the American people. The debt incurred in putting down the Rebellion was large, and the management of the finances became a most important political issue.

The triumphs of peace now began. The Atlantic Cable uniting the United States and England was successfully laid in 1866. Alaska was purchased from the Russian government in 1867. General Ulysses S. Grant was elected President by a great majority in 1868, and after his inauguration the leading public questions and issues which had grown out

1876.

The Centennial.

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of the war began to be peaceably settled, and a remarkable reduction of the war debt took place year by year. The Union Pacific Railroad, a grand work whose inception is due to a much-maligned capitalist, Hon. Oakes Ames, who offered his fortune that the enterprise might save the Pacific States to the Union at a time of uncertainty and depression, now linked together the East and West. In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing to every man the right of suffrage, having been ratified by the legislatures of two thirds of the States, became a part of the national law. General amnesty was proclaimed to those who had taken arms against the government. In 1872 General Grant was re-elected by another great majority.

The Centennial, a world's fair held at Philadelphia on the one hundredth year of Independence, was the great event of 1876. It opened in May, and brought to Philadelphia strangers from all parts of the world. The delightful Pennsylvania Railroad was crowded with trains for months. The buildings for the exhibition occupied three hundred acres of Fairmount Park. They were industrial palaces, into which were gathered the products of all lands. The Emperor of Brazil was present. At the opening six hundred voices sang the Hallelujah Chorus, cannon thundered, and the bells of the city rang for joy. The main building of the exhibition covered twenty-one acres. Memorial Hall, an art gallery built by the State of Pennsylvania, alone cost $1,500,000. Machinery Hall, another building, was fourteen hundred feet long. In the main building thirty-five countries were represented.

On the 7th of November, 1876, the national election resulted in a nearly drawn battle between the two great political parties. The Republican candidate for President was Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, and the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Mr. Tilden had a

popular majority, but Mr. Hayes had a majority of one in the final count of the national electors. No great political events occurred during Mr. Hayes's administration, but among the Presidents during years of peace, few have won such general esteem. Himself a Christian gentleman, of broad and cultured views, his administration will long influence the future by its high aims and moral power. In 1880 General James A. Garfield, Republican, was elected President. The Republican party have thus been in power twenty years.

The sunlight falls on no people more happy and prosperous. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, all the wheels of industry are in motion; the wheat fields multiply to feed the world, the school bell and the church bell ring, prosperity and progress are in the air, the land, and the great watercourses, and the nation is at peace.