152 Wisconsin; academy sciences, arts, and letters. 



lowing them as completely as a boa-constrictor engulplis a rabbit. 

 And, as a rabbit, shut up with two such monsters, can simply flee 

 from one to the other until it is taken, so third parties have to 

 choose by which of the two stronger ones they will be devoured, 

 before the larger one shall swallow up the other, or, in other words, 

 carry the state. 



There is only too much evidence to show how far avc fall short 

 of Lincoln's ideal of a government of the people, by the people, 

 and for the people. In both the Forty-second and Forty-third 

 Congresses, whose successive sessions extend over the four years 

 closing March 4, 1875, the Republicans have had more than two- 

 thirds of the representatives, though they polled but little more 

 than one-half the votes, so that a nirijority of 35 or 36 per cent, in 

 the House has been gained by one of 7 or 8 per cent, at the polls; 

 and this injustice is not lessened by the fact that no delegates to 

 the Forty-third Congress were sent by the supporters of the ad- 

 ministration in Kentucky or Texas, bat it is much increased by the 

 allotment of not a single delegate to its opponents in Iowa, Kan- 

 sas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, South 

 Carolina and Vermont. This disproportionate strength of the Re- 

 publican party increases the apparent magnitude of the change in 

 1874, when no Republicans were elected to the Forty-fourth Con- 

 gress, either by the Republicans of Arkansas, Georgia, Mary- 

 land, Missouri, Texas or Western Virginia, who cast 351,764 

 votes, or by the Democrats of Maine, Rhode Island, Florida and 

 Minnesota, who cast 10 1,5 10; anl when of the 2'35 delegates from 

 28 states, all then voting except Louisiana and the four one-mem- 

 ber states, 97 represent 3, 30,300 supporters of the administration, 

 and 168 represent 3,410,535 of its opponents, whereas the former 

 arc really entitled to 122, and the latter to but 143. The democrats 

 have thus obtained nearly two-thirds of the House by little more 

 than one-half the votes, or more exactly, 64 per cent, of these 265 

 members by 59 per cent, of the votes, a majority of 28 per cent, in 

 the House representing one of 8 per cent at the polls. These esti- 

 mates are from the Tribune Almanac for 1S75, and in some cases 

 only approximative, though it is suflSciently plain that the mem- 

 bers of one party or the other in sixteen of these twenty-eight 

 states will be virtually unrepresented in this Congress, since the Re- 

 publicans have threa members less than their share in Tennessee 



