follows:

"The incumbent of this great office holds with unchallenged title the
most exalted station known to men. Monarchs rule by hereditary
right, or hold high place only by force of arms. The elevation of
a citizen to the Presidency of the United States is the deliberate
act, under the forms of law, of a sovereign people. As an aspirant,
he may have been the choice only of a political party; as the
incumbent of the great office, he is the representative of all the
people--the President of all the people. It augurs well for the
future of the Republic when the American people magnify this office;
when the honor, as now, the President who has so ably upheld its
dignity, so worthily met its solemn responsibilities, so patriotically
discharged its exacting and imperative duties.

"The office of President of a self-governing people is unique. It
had no place in ancient or mediaeval schemes of government, whether
despotic, federative, or in name republican. It has in reality
none amongst the nations of modern Europe. The Presidency of
the United States, in the highest degree, represents the majesty
of the law. It stands for the unified authority and power of
seventy-five millions of free men. It typifies what is most sacred
to our race: stability in government and protection to liberty
and life. The President is the great officer to whom the founders of
the government entrusted the delicate and responsible function of
treating with foreign States; in whom was vested in time of peace and
of war, chief command of the army and of the navy.

"An eminent writer has well said: 'The ancient monarchs of France
reigned and governed; the Queen of England reigns but does not
govern; the President of France neither reigns nor governs; the
President of the United States does not reign, but governs!'

"Experience has demonstrated the more than human wisdom of the
framers of the great federal compact which for more than a century,
in peace and amid the stress of war, has held States and people in
indissoluble bond of union. In no part of their matchless handiwork
has it been more clearly manifested than in the creation of a
responsible executive. To secure in the largest measure the great
ends of government, responsibility must attach to the executive
office; and of necessity, with responsibility, _power._ The sooner
France learns from the American Republic this important lesson,
the sooner will government attain wit