The fact of his identification with the President, in the closest official intercourse, ever since his accession, added vastly to the weight of Mr.Speed's address and gave to it an influence which he had not, perhaps, anticipated when he delivered it.

This influence was doubtless enhanced by the fact that the author of the speech was a native and citizen of the South.

It was a stimulus to the patriotic zeal of Northern Republicans to find a man from the South taking advanced ground that possibly involved peril to himself before the angry contest should be finally settled.
-- The address agreed upon in the Southern Convention was in the form of an appeal "from the loyal men of the South to their fellow-citizens of the United States." It declared that the representatives of eight millions of American citizens "appeal for protection and justice to their friends and brothers in the States that have been spared the cruelties of the Rebellion and the direct horrors of civil war." "Having," said the address, "lost our champion, we return to you who can make presidents and punish traitors.

Our last hope, under God, is in the unity and firmness of the States that elected Abraham Lincoln and defeated Jefferson Davis." -- "We cannot better define at once our wrongs and our wants than by declaring, that since Andrew Johnson affiliated with his early slanderers and our constant enemies, his hand has been laid heavily upon every earnest loyalist of the South." -- "History, the just judgment of the present and the certain confirmation of the future, invites and commands us to declare, that after neglecting his own remedies for restoring the Union, Andrew Johnson has resorted to the weapons of traitors to bruise and beat down patriots." -- "After declaring that none but the loyal should govern the reconstructed South, he has practiced upon the maxim that none but traitors shall rule." -- "In the South he has removed the proved and trusted patriot from office, and selected the unqualified and convicted traitor." -- "After brave men, who had fought the great battle for the union, had been nominated for positions, their names were recalled and avowed rebels substituted." -- "Every original Unionist in the South, who stands fast to Andrew Johnson's covenants from 1861 to 1865, has been ostracized." -- "He has corrupted the local courts by offering premiums for the defiance of the laws of Congress, and by openly discouraging the observance of the oath against treason." -- "While refusing to punish one single conspicuous traitor, though great numbers have earned the penalty of death, more than one thousand devoted Union soldiers have been murdered in cold blood since the surrender of Lee, and in no cases have their assassins been brought to judgment." -- "He has pardoned some of the worst rebel criminals, North and South, including some who have taken human life under circumstances of unparalleled atrocity." -- "While declaring against the injustice of leaving eleven States unrepresented, he has refused to authorize the liberal plan of Congress, simply because they have recognized the loyal majority and refused to perpetuate the traitor minority." -- "In every State south of Mason and Dixon's line his policy has wrought the most deplorable consequences,--social, moral, and political." Upon these indictments a powerful address was based, giving argument, illustration, fact and indisputable conclusion.

The address was framed by Senator Creswell of Maryland, and the style and tone were beyond praise.