It was received with great applause in the convention, was adopted with unanimity, and created a profound influence upon the public opinion of the North.

It was the deliberate, well-conceived and clearly stated opinion of thoughtful and responsible men, was never disproved, was practically unanswered, and its serious accusations were in effect admitted by the South.

The one objective point proclaimed in the address, repeated in the resolutions, echoed and re-echoed by every speaker, both in the Northern and Southern Conventions, was the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

It was evidently the unalterable determination of the Republicans to make that the leading feature of the campaign, to enforce it in every party convention, to urge it through the press, to present it on the stump, to proclaim it through every authorized exponent of public opinion.
They were determined that the Democratic party of the North should not be allowed to ignore it or in any way to evade it.

It was to be the Shibboleth of the Republican canvass, and the rank and file in every loyal State were engaged in its presentation and its exposition.
The friends of the Administration, feeling the disadvantage under which they labored by an apparent combination of all the earnest supporters of the war for the Union against them, sought to create a re-action in their favor by calling a soldiers' convention to meet at Cleveland, on the 17th of September.