this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted
forever and forevermore, that, in the war for the Union, we were right
and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them as brethren,
and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors
of this great republic.

"Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your
consideration--the name of a man who was the comrade and associate and
friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from
these walls to-night, a man who began his career of public service
twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done in the
days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that
bloody shower began to fall, which finally swelled into the deluge of
war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty
in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time his pathway has
been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation. You
ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national
statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our
statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these
men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us
through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes
that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of the States.
His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war
currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the
Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called
from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed
that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has
carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the
public press crying 'crucify him,' and a hostile Congress seeking to
prevent success, in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned
him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business
interests of the country he has guarded and preserved while executing
the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against
the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of
this continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the
great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has
trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all t