As to the first proviso I must say that I have welcomed the bill reported by the Conference Committee with great satisfaction. I think there is no man in the country who should be more heartily congratulated upon the passage of that bill,—if it does pass, which I can scarcely doubt,—than yourself. My reasons are these: If the board of arbitration established by that bill decides in your favor, no man will be able to say that you were put into the Presidency by mere partisan action. The result of the great contest will not only be submitted to by the whole people, but all good citizens will unite in defending it, as brought about by the fair and impartial judgment of the highest authority in the land, against what clamor may still be raised against it by extreme partisans. The latter will then appear as the wanton disturbers of the public repose. And even if the board should decide against you, you would be saved from the mortification and disappointments which would inevitably follow such a decision in your favor brought about by a proceeding which would be looked upon, not only by the Democrats, but by a very large number of Republicans, as an unscrupulous stretch of party power for selfish party interest; and so the counting and declaring of the vote by the President of the Senate certainly would be regarded. Your name would not be associated in our history with one of the most dangerous precedents of party action.
The Conference bill may not be perfect; it may provide for a proceeding of an extra-Constitutional character, although I think its Constitutionality can be successfully defended on solid ground; but it has the great virtue of removing a question, the manner of whose decision may establish a precedent fraught with the most pernicious consequences for the future of the Republic, from the theater of apparently selfish and excited partisan strife; of insuring to the country a Government whose legitimacy
