9.  Resolved, That we are in favor of the speedy construction of the railroad to the Pacific coast.

10.  Resolved, That the national faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept inviolate, and that for this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of taxation:  and that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain the credit and promote the use of the national currency.

11.  Resolved, That we approve the position taken by the Government that the people of the United States can never regard with indifference the attempt of any European power to overthrow by force or to supplant by fraud the institutions of any republican government on the Western Continent, and that they will view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace and independence of their own country, the efforts of any such power to obtain new footholds for monarchical governments, sustained by foreign military force, in near proximity to the United States.

REPLY TO A DELEGATION FROM THE NATIONAL UNION LEAGUE,

June 9, 1864.

Gentlemen—­I can only say in response to the remarks of your chairman, that I am very grateful for the renewed confidence which has been accorded to me, both by the convention and by the National League.  I am not insensible at all to the personal compliment there is in this, yet I do not allow myself to believe that any but a small portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal compliment to me.  The convention and the nation, I am assured, are alike animated by a higher view of the interests of the country, for the present and the great future, and the part I am entitled to appropriate as a compliment is only that part which I may lay hold of as being the opinion of the convention and of the League, that I am not entirely unworthy to be intrusted with the place I have occupied for the last three years.  I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that “it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream.”

REPLY TO A DELEGATION FROM OHIO,

June 9, 1864.

Gentlemen:—­I am very much obliged to you for this compliment.  I have just been saying, and will repeat it, that the hardest of all speeches I have to answer is a serenade.  I never know what to say on these occasions.  I suppose that you have done me this kindness in connection with the action of the Baltimore convention, which has recently taken place, and with which, of course, I am very well satisfied.  What we want still more than Baltimore conventions, or Presidential elections, is success under General Grant.  I propose that you constantly bear in mind that the support you owe to the brave officers and soldiers in the field is of the very first importance, and we should therefore bend all our energies to that point.  Now without detaining you any longer, I propose that you help me to close up what I am now saying with three rousing cheers for General Grant and the officers and soldiers under his command.