is added a highly cultivated mind and a style of writing which in
political controversy has rarely been surpassed--a style at once
severe, effective, and popular.

The "Protest" embodied a sharp contrast between the President's plan of
Reconstruction in his proclamation of December 8 (1863), and that
contained in the bill presented by Congress for his approval. "The
bill," said Messrs. Wade and Davis, "requires a majority of the voters
to establish a State government, the proclamation is satisfied with
one-tenth; the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another; the
bill ascertains voters by registering, the proclamation by guess; the
bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation
admits of others; the bill governs the rebel States _by law_ equalizing
all before it, the proclamation commits them to the lawless discretion
of military governors and provost marshals; the bill forbids electors
for President (in the rebel States), the proclamation with the defeat
of the bill threatens us with civil war for the exclusion of such votes."

The criticisms of the President's course closed with the language of
stern admonition if not indeed of absolute menace. The act of the
President was denounced as "rash and fatal," and as "a blow at the
friends of the Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the
principles of Republican government." The President was warned that
the support of the Republican party was "of a cause and not of a man,"
that the "authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected,"
that the "whole body of Union men of Congress will not submit to be
impeached by him or rash and unconstitutional legislation," that he
must "confine himself to his Executive duties--to obey and execute,
not make the laws;" that he "must suppress armed rebellion by arms
and leave political re-organization to Congress."

No political result followed the publication of this remarkable paper
save that it probably defeated the renomination of Mr. Davis for
Congress. The Democrats were of course hostile to it in spirit and in
letter, and the leading Republicans saw in it the seeds of a
controversy between the President and Congress which might rapidly grow
into dangerous proportions. The very strength of the paper was, by
one of the paradoxes that frequently recur in public affairs, its
special weakness. It was so powerful an arraignment of the President
that of necessity it rallied his frien