f-Justice, and no issue of the public
safety existed, which alone, in the settled convictions of this people,
would favor a political canvass by the head of the judiciary.

In a just view of the office of President, as framed in the
Constitution, which he only, in the whole establishment of the
Government, is sworn "to preserve, protect, and defend," and of the
rightful demands of this people from its supreme magistracy, I am sure
most people will agree that Mr. Chase possessed great qualities for the
discharge of its high duties, and for the maintenance of good government
in difficult times. These qualifications I have already unfolded from
his life. If, indeed, the great hold over the Government, which the
Constitution secures to the people by the election of the President,
and his direct and constant responsibility to popular opinion, and the
full powers, thus safely confided to him, in the name and as the trust
of the people at large--if this hold is to be exercised and preserved in
its appropriate vigor, it can only be by the election to the presidency
of true leaders of the political opinion of the country. In this way
alone can power and responsibility be kept in union; and any nation
which, in the working of its government, sees them divorced--sees power
without responsibility, and responsibility without power--must expect
dishonor and disaster in its affairs.

I have, thus, with such success as may be, undertaken to separate the
thread of this individual character and action from that woven tapestry
of human life, whose conciliated colors and collective force make up one
of the noblest chapters of history. I have attempted to present in
prominent points, passing _per fastigia rerum_, the worth, the work, the
duty, and the honor which fill out "the sustained dignity of this
stately life." From his boyhood on the banks of this fair river--famous
as having given birth and nurture to three Chief-Justices of the United
States, Ellsworth, Chase, and Waite; through his first lessons in the
humanities in beautiful Windsor, his fuller instruction in the lap of
this gracious mother, his loved and venerated Dartmouth; through his
lessons in law and in eloquence at the feet of his great master, Wirt,
his study of statesmen and government at the capital; through, his
faithful service to the law, that jealous mistress, and his generous
advocacy of the rights, and resentment of the wrongs, of the unfriended
and the undefende