The case in itself possesses intrinsic and enduring interest.

It is notable especially because of the extreme tension to which it subjected the Constitution, and the attestation it affords of the restraint which a free people instinctively impose upon themselves in times of public excitement.

It will be studied as a precedent, or as a warning, by the citizens of the Great Republic during the centuries through which, God grant, it may pass with increasing prosperity and renown.

During the conflict between Congress and the President, General Grant had been placed in a trying position, and he had borne himself with a discretion and dignity which deepened the popular confidence in his sound judgment and his tact.

He briefly reviewed what the party had accomplished, in war and in peace, and emphasized the obligation of crowning these triumphs with the permanent establishment of equal and exact justice.

He was especially forcible in rebuking the current financial heresies and in insisting that the full demands of the Nation's honor should be scrupulously observed.

It made two principles conspicuous: first, equal suffrage; and second, the maintenance of the public faith.

The Reconstruction policy rested on equal suffrage as its corner-stone, and the Convention congratulated the country on its established success, as shown by its acceptance already in a majority of the Southern States, and its assured…

Equal suffrage was still regarded however rather as an expedient of security against disloyalty than as a measure of National right, rather as an incident to the power of re-organizing rebellious communities than as a subject of National…

The Fourteenth Amendment was about to be proclaimed, and would place American citizenship under Constitutional protection.

This was an evasion of duty quite unworthy of the Republican party, with its record of consistent bravery through fourteen eventful years.

It was a mere stroke of expediency to escape the prejudices which negro suffrage would encounter in a majority of the loyal States, and especially in Indiana and California, where a close vote was anticipated.

It was an extraordinary proposition that the South, after all the demoralization wrought by the war, should be called upon to exhibit a higher degree of political justice and virtue than the North was willing to practice.

It denounced all forms of repudiation as a national crime, and demanded the payment of the public debt in the utmost good faith, according to the letter and the spirit of the law.

The resolutions reflected universal Republican feeling in an impassioned arraignment of President Johnson.

The failure of Impeachment, though fatal to his success, did not dissipate the support which his long services and marked fidelity had commanded, without any of the adventitious aids of power.

In all utterances and all communications he firmly maintained the principle of universal suffrage as the primary article of his political creed.

If the Democrats should accept him they must accept this doctrine with him.

He had been a party to the pledge of freedom for the enfranchised race, and the fulfillment of that pledge required, in his judgment, "the assurance of the right of suffrage to those whom the Constitution has made freemen and citizens.

Military satraps are invested with dictatorial powers, overriding the decisions of the courts and assuming the functions of the civil authorities; and now this same party which has brought all these evils upon the country comes again…

In his address on the present occasion he arraigned the Republican party for imposing oppressive taxes, for inflicting upon the country a depreciated currency, and for enforcing a military despotism.

If Chief Justice Chase was to be nominated, the party must accept the broad principle of universal suffrage or it must abandon his lifelong professions.

But universal suffrage, especially if ordained by National authority, was irreconcilable with Democratic traditions and Democratic prejudices.

Help them once to regain the power, and then they would do their utmost to relieve the Southern States and restore to us the Union and the Constitution as it had existed before the war.

The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.