acute condition of the public mind, will take its true direction within the next few years; and the South deserves to have the true expression and the honest action of her sons, unclouded and unbiased by personal ambition or untrammelled by partisan command. Never before did modern civilization have such deep and abiding interest in the ultimate action of a portion of its elements as it has now in the action of the people of the South. Here, I pray and believe, will be witnessed the sublimest consummation of true statesmanship and realization of popular government by a people, who, though prejudiced by local conditions, hampered by another and alien race, and vexed by social and economic conditions such as never before beset a people, yet rising above the complications of the hour, are honestly, impartially, without prejudice, and with full justice solving this question to the glory of the whole people. Surely, it will take all of our strength to close rightly the only question which has kept apart the people of this mighty Republic, and which has given anxious thought to those who look towards our land for the blessed realization of a government by the people. Only in a spirit of compromise, as exemplified by the Fathers, who gave up cherished convictions that all might meet on a plane on which a government could be inaugurated and successfully conducted, can we to-day succeed. "And thus the Constitution which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculi

arity of our political situation rendered indispensable.” The obeisance which we owe the glorious traditions of our past, and the commanding position of the South in this marvellous and splendid cycle of material development, demand that sobriety of action, tolerance of spirit, and charity of opinion which has ever characterized a free people in the solving of the great questions which meet every people designed by Providence for a permanent place among the nations. Says Mr. Hume:

"There are enough of zealots on both sides who kindle up the passions of their partisans, and, under the pretence of public good, pursue the interest and ends of their particular faction. For my part, I shall always be more fond of promoting moderation than zeal; though perhaps the surest way of producing moderation in every party is to increase our zeal for the public. Let us therefore try, if it be possible, from the foregoing to draw a lesson of moderation with regard to the parties into which our country is at present divided; at the same time, that we allow not this moderation to abate the industry and passion with which every individual is bound to pursue the good of his country."

In the solution of this great problem, surely we can rise above the heat of political discussion, and show to the world complete abnegation of previously formed opinion, and allow our spirits to be touched by that charity which comes alone from Him who, amidst the complexities of change and despair of our future, has always guided us in those ways best for His people.

I shall not attempt to discuss the minor and infinitely varied details of this important question. I shall rather briefly, and in my humble way, found my argument upon the basic principles of our national existence, and upon some general principles, and not waste your time in assaulting the outworks of the citadel.

The settlement of this franchise question lies deep upon the very foundation-stones of the Republic, and only by laying bare to the people's view those mighty substructures can we here efficiently serve our country.

Every historic state is underlaid with a fundamental principle, from which it breathes its life and through which it has its civil existence. Each of our colonies had its peculiar idea of government; but after they were bound in one glorious, shining union of States, that great principle of civil philosophy, the right of the people to govern through its own suffrage, shone as the glory of heaven. The State became the sovereign through the power of its own people, and the preservation of its liberty was predicated upon the people.

Therefore, I assert that the constitutional exercise of the right of franchise is the vital and underlying principle of the life of this free people, and that the infraction of this principle is surely attended with ultimate ruin to our system of republican government. "In democracy, there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by the suffrages of the people which are their will." Sir, this is fundamental, and, in this splendid presence, it but needs expression to receive assent. Stripped of

every covering, it is but the annunciation of the right of the people to choose their servants, indicate their policy, and live under the laws they themselves have created. When you depart from this principle, you forsake the underlying principle of national government; and when this is done, surely you drop out of the nations which exercise an abiding power upon civilization.

To enable our country to consummate its destiny, this vital principle, at the risk of weariness of expression, must be kept close to the hearts of the people. It is the golden thread, which at every stage of our national existence, through storm and battle and change, has been held by the patriots to inhere into the very texture of national life. When this principle is abandoned or impaired,

"Our own

Like free states foregone, is but a bright leaf torn
From Time's dark forest, and on the wide gust thrown
To float a while, by varying eddies borne;
And sink at last forever!"

Says Montesquieu: "It is plain, then, that if the government, whether State or Federal, controls or disposes of suffrage, or allows it to be disposed of, without warrant in the Constitution, it strikes at the very vitals of the republic from which it derives its entire existence and power."

In all the ages, the ruin of free nations has been wrought through the insidious sapping and impairing

of the fundamental principle vitalizing the government. I appeal to the historic past as the unerring guide to the future. I am reminded that the power of the Great Republic stretches this year into two hemispheres; that in ships and money and all of the elements of power and grandeur and civilization since the morning stars sang together she has not had her equal. Permit me, sir, to recall to you that the real impairment of the integrity of the governing principle of every historic state dated from the brightest splendor of its existence and not from the hour of its weakness. I call from the solemn past the phantom memories of Greece and Judea and kingly Rome. When the silks and purple and fine linen of Tyre and Sidon were in every market-place, and the light of the star of the Blessed Redeemer was already touching with its holy fires the lofty towers of the Temple of the Living Jehovah, Judea was stricken. When the genius of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Euripides held in mortal thrall the intelligence of the world, and the statue of Pallas Athenæ and the columned Parthenon looked down on the Piræus, filled with the ships from the Euxine, the Ægean, and from beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and when the glory from Salamis and Thermopyle thrilled the people and lighted up the beacons of Democracy on Naxos and Delos and the Islands of the Sea, Greece was stricken. When her arms extended from Dacia to the Desert of Libya, and the thunderous tread of her legions shook the