Alas, that he did not see the infinite debt of friendship, kindness, and protection due to that people, so that instead of monitors and war-ships, breathing violence, he had sent a messenger of peace and good-will!

With sorrow unspeakable have I made this exposure of pretensions, which, for the sake of republican institutions, every good citizen should wish expunged from history; but I had no alternative.

As a candidate for reëlection he invites judgment, while partisans acting in his behalf make it absolutely necessary by the brutality of their assault on faithful Republicans unwilling to see their party, like the Presidential office, a…

If his partisans are exacting, vindictive, and unjust, they act only in harmony with his nature, too truly represented in them.

And here is a new manifestation of that sovereign egotism which no taciturnity can cover up, and a new motive for inquiry into its pernicious influence.

Any presentment of the President would be imperfect which did not show how this ungovernable personality breaks forth in quarrel, making him the great Presidential quarreller of our history.

Evidently our President has never read the Eleventh Commandment: “A President of the United States shall never quarrel.” At least he lives in perpetual violation of it, listening to stories from horse-cars, gobbling the gossip of his…

The President can always choose his relations with any citizen.

Men take their places in history according to their deeds.

The flattery of life is then superseded by the truthful record, and rulers do not escape judgment.

It will be for impartial History to determine if our Quarreller, who treated his great office as a personal perquisite, and all his life long was against that Enfranchisement to which he put his name, does not fall into the same category.

I put these questions solemnly, as a member of the Republican Party, with all the earnestness of a life devoted to the triumph of this party, but which I served always with the conviction that I gave up nothing that was meant for country…

With me, the party was country and mankind; but with the adoption of all these Presidential pretensions the party loses its distinctive character and drops from its sphere.

Its creed ceases to be Republicanism and becomes Grantism; its members cease to be Republicans and become Grant-men.

It is no longer a political party, but a personal party.

For myself, I say openly, I am no man’s man, nor do I belong to any personal party.

He is, moreover, an advocate of the One-Term principle, as conducing toward the proper administration of the law,--a principle with which so many prominent Republicans have identified themselves that it may be accepted as an article of…

Let not Congress adjourn without passing the One-Term Amendment to the Constitution.

All parties are in favor of it.… General Grant is in favor of it.

The party which supports General Grant demands it; and above all else public morality calls for it.

And precisely on this ground, but also with specific proofs, do I insist that the influence of the President has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.

But in this excellent work, well worthy the best efforts of all, nothing is more important than the limitation to one term.

Beyond all question Civil-Service Reform must begin by a limitation of the President to one term, so that the temptation to use the appointing power for personal ends may disappear from our system, and this great disturbing force cease to…

If the President is sincere for reform, it will be easy for him to set the example by declaring again his adhesion to the One-Term principle.

Therefore, in opposing the prolonged power of the present incumbent, I begin by insisting, that, for the good of the country, and without reference to any personal failure, no President should be a candidate for reëlection; and it is our…