478 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



more, was appointed consulting engineer of the 

 tunnel. A contract has been entered into for 

 the completion of the railroad from Greenfield 

 to the eastern portal of the tunnel, and that 

 portion of the road has been leased to the 

 Fitchburg and tho Vermont and Massachusetts 

 railroads at an annual rent of $30,000, By the 

 contract, the road is to be opened to the tunnel 

 by July 15, 1868. The progress in the work 

 of the tunnel, during the year, was twelve hun- 

 dred and forty-six feet, being four hundred and 

 forty feet in excess of the year previous. The 

 course of the work has been retarded by the 

 introduction and experimental use of automatic 

 drills, in the eastern opening. By reason of 

 constant breakage, cost of replacement, and 

 delay of the work, these machines have failed 

 to answer their design, and have been discarded. 

 New explosive agents have been employed, and 

 promise favorable results. The process of 

 blasting by simultaneous explosions, by means 

 of electricity, has proved successful. At the 

 west shaft the old pumps have recently given 

 out, and the water gained so rapidly upon the 

 miners that work at this point was for the time 

 discontinued ; but new pumps have been se- 

 cured, and the work will be resumed. Opera- 

 tions in the decomposed rock at the west end 

 have been, during the past season, slowly but 

 successfully progressing. There is no reason to 

 doubt that this portion of the work, hitherto 

 deemed insurmountable, will be surely, but at 

 great expense, accomplished, and that its com- 

 pletion will be in advance of that of the other 

 leading parts of the tunnel. The central shaft is 

 advancing satisfactorily, having reached a depth 

 of about 400 feet, leaving 630 feet yet to be 

 completed. Such was the condition of this 

 work at the close of 1866. 



The election in Massachusetts in 1866 was 

 for the purpose of choosing a Governor, and 

 other State officers, a Legislature, and members 

 of Congress. The Republican State Convention 

 met at Boston, on September 13th, 'and re- 

 nominated Governor Bullock and his coadjutors 

 in office, after which it adopted an address to 

 the people of Massachusetts, of which we give 

 two or three extracts : 



After stating that the people have beheld " the 

 strange spectacle of the President of the United 

 States deliberately placing himself at the head of a 

 combination of half-reconstructed rebels an4 their 

 defeated Northern allies, going about the country 

 accompanied by a portion of nis Cabinet and de- 

 nouncing the legislative branch of the Government 

 as an illegal and traitorous body hanging upon the 

 verge of the Government, which Government he 

 alone proposes to be, and avowing principles and 

 purposes, the logical results of which must be a vio- 

 lent attempt to subvert Congress, or at the very least 

 a repudiation of all its legislation since the war broke 

 out;" the address continues: "We cannot be in- 

 sensible that until the term of this dangerous man 

 shall expire, all the financial and business interests 

 of the countrv will be subject to disturbance ; all the 

 legislation of" Congress is liable to overthrow or a 

 denial of its validity ; the amendment of the Consti- 

 tution prohibiting slavery is of precarious and 

 doubtful permanence ; and' there is most imminent 



danger of losing every thing which we won by suc- 

 cessful war on land and sea.'' 



It then declares : 



1. That Congress ought not only to be sustained, 

 but strengthened at the coming elections throughout 

 the country. 



2. That the country has already suffered enough 

 from the presence of traitors in the Capital, and the 

 greatest caution against the entrance of disloyal con- 

 spirators or half-constructed Unionists ought to be 

 exercised, and no States or communities ought to be 

 represented in the Senate or House unless evidence 

 is given satisfactory to the representatives and people 

 of the North and the loyal people of the South, that 

 such States or communities, as well as ti.e men 

 chosen to represent them, are loyal and likely to re- 

 main so. 



3. That so long as there exists a party dominant 

 in some of the States and defiant in all, which hopes 

 by Presidential aid to break down the Congressional 

 control over the question of reconstruction, and re- 

 instate in their seats the representatives of treason 

 and rebellion, the people have no security, except in 

 their own continued vigilance, against a disastrous 

 reaction which may put back the cause of progress 

 many years, and disgrace the country in the eyes of 

 the civilized world. 



4. That we desire the restoration of all the States 

 to the Union, under conditions of justice and liberty; 

 that we approve the amendment to the Constitution 

 proposed by Congress and now pending before the 

 States, and that we are fullv prepared to believe the 

 declaration of the Southern Unionists, made at Phila- 

 delphia, that there can ba no safety to the country 

 until the national birthright of impartial suffrage and 

 equality before the law be conferred upon every citi- 

 zen of the States they represent. The principles and 

 traditions of the Commonwealth impel her to second 

 this demand, so solemnly made, for the enfranchise- 

 ment of a long-oppressed race, and the establishment 

 of an American and democratic policy of govern- 

 ment. Finally, fellow-citizens, we recognize the fact 

 that all questions of reconstruction, of suffrage, of 

 protection to the freedmen, of security to the perse- 

 cuted Unionists of the South, resolve themselves 

 into these : Shall the people who saved the country 

 still control it ? Shall the soldiers of the Union, 

 whose bravery decided on the field the fate of the 

 war, and whose services will be held in everlasting 

 remembrance, reap the rich results of their labors in 

 a regenerated country? In the words of an eminent 

 Tennessee loyalist, now the guest of the people of 

 Massachusetts, " Shall we reconstruct the rebels, or 

 shall they reconstruct us?" 



The National Union State Convention, com- 

 posed mainly of conservative Republicans, and 

 of persons who sympathized with the political 

 views of President Johnson, met at Boston, on 

 October 3d, and was attended by about 1,800 

 delegates. Theodore II. Sweetzer, of Lowell, 

 was nominated for Governor, with the follow- 

 ing additional officers : for Lieutenant-Gov- 

 ernor, Brigadier-General Horace C. Lee, of 

 Springfield; for Secretary of the Common- 

 wealth, Colonel Luther Stephenson, Jr., of 

 Higham ; for Attorney-General, William 0. 

 Endicott, of Salem; for Treasurer of the Com- 

 monwealth, Harvey Arnold, of Adams; for 

 State Auditor, Major-General Arthur F. Deve- 

 reaux, of Roxbury. The convention then ad- 

 journed. 



The Democratic State Convention met in the 

 same place, on the same day, and, deeming it 

 inexpedient to make independent nominations. 



