In a word, Governor Hayes is square-built, solid and sound, mentally, morally, and physically. His integrity is a proverb; his fidelity to his convictions is recognized by political enemies; his record is of unassailable soundness; and there is absolutely nothing vulnerable in his character. He has a Lincoln-like soundness of judgment, and is as inexorably just as old John Marshall. He is a man absolutely free from eccentricities and affectations; he neither walks nor talks on stilts. His manners have the warmth and grace that sincerity and simplicity give. In bearing, he is animated and thoughtful, manly and refined. His firmness, while it does not amount to obstinacy, marks the clear-cut individuality and decision of his character. He has the guiding faculty and the power of containing himself. He takes a just measure both of himself and of other men. If the country will do this, his future is as secure as his past. If president, he would do the right thing at the right time, in the right way. His election will give us, not a "solid South" or a solid North, but a solid Union!
Since experience has taught us how essential it is that the representative of the women of America in the executive mansion should worthily represent all that is best and most elevated in our social life, a word in regard to the companion of Governor Hayes may not be out of taste. If any public man in our history has been more fortunate and happy in his home surroundings and family relations, we are not aware who he may be. If the voice of the people should decree the transplanting of the ideal home of this family from the capital of Ohio to the capital of the Republic, the pure and elevating influences radiating from such a home would pervade and purify the social life of the National city, if not of the land. A severer simplicity would mark the inner and the outer life of the president's household. Extravagance in dress and living, wastefulness in vain displays and in ambitious entertainments, would find no encouragement from the mistress of the Nation's mansion. The lessons of truth and piety, of purity and virtue, of charity and benevolence, of sincerity and self-forgetfulness, would be taught by example. A whole people could here find in illustration the sacredness of the family and the holiness of home.
A union of rare accomplishments, social and domestic, with beauty of features, manners, and character, may yet be found in a successor of Mrs. Madison.
A doctor of divinity and a doctor of laws, the president of the Ohio Wesleyan University, bears this weighty testimony, in a public address, to the correctness of what we have hereinbefore recorded:
"It is in no spirit of partisanship, nor with the slightest reference to merely political ends, but simply in illustration of our subject that we add, already there are hopeful signs of reformation in our National life. It is a sign of progress that the suspicion of sullied purity is beginning to be fatal to a public man. It is an omen of good when in a large and representative convention, with the names of many distinguished men before it, one is borne above them all on the tide of popular enthusiasm and with ringing peals of applause is presented to the American people, without effort of his own, as a candidate for the highest office in the Nation, not only because of his eminent ability, but largely because of the transparent purity of his character and his high, manly, moral worth.
"It is doubtless a cause of honest pride to the citizens of this town, irrespective of political creeds and preferences, that the man thus highly distinguished is a native of your classic city. By reason of its youth this university can not claim him as a son, but it regards with maternal pride his not less worthy companion, who, after graduation at one of the best female colleges in the State, indicated her rare good sense by passing through much of the college curriculum of our university here.
"If, by the decree of the people and the providence of God, this worthy pair, honored graduates of Ohio's higher schools of learning, shall be lifted to the highest position and power and influence in the Nation, we have reason to believe that they will illustrate the salutary influence of that cultured goodness of which we have spoken, and that the National capital and the entire National domain will enjoy a purer atmosphere."