h contentment at home, and
with peace and friendship with other nations. The occurrence of
the twenty-fourth election of Chief Magistrate has afforded another
opportunity to the people of the United States to exhibit to the world
a significant example of the peaceful and safe transmission of the
power and authority of government from the public servants whose terms
of office are about to expire to their newly chosen successors. This
example can not fail to impress profoundly thoughtful people of other
countries with the advantages which republican institutions afford.
The immediate, general, and cheerful acquiescence of all good citizens
in the result of the election gives gratifying assurance to our
country and to its friends throughout the world that a government
based on the free consent of an intelligent and patriotic people
possesses elements of strength, stability, and permanency not found in
any other form of government.

Continued opposition to the full and free enjoyment of the rights of
citizenship conferred upon the colored people by the recent amendments
to the Constitution still prevails in several of the late slaveholding
States. It has, perhaps, not been manifested in the recent election to
any large extent in acts of violence or intimidation. It has, however,
by fraudulent practices in connection with the ballots, with the
regulations as to the places and manner of voting, and with counting,
returning, and canvassing the votes cast, been successful in defeating
the exercise of the right preservative of all rights--the right
of suffrage--which the Constitution expressly confers upon our
enfranchised citizens.

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that
sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear. They prefer
that no section of the country should be united in solid opposition
to any other section. The disposition to refuse a prompt and hearty
obedience to the equal-rights amendments to the Constitution is all
that now stands in the way of a complete obliteration of sectional
lines in our political contests. As long as either of these amendments
is flagrantly violated or disregarded, it is safe to assume that
the people who placed them in the Constitution, as embodying the
legitimate results of the war for the Union, and who believe them to
be wise and necessary, will continue to act together and to insist
that they shall be obeyed. The paramount question still is as to th