Looking at the Enabling Act, we find that it has not been complied with in form. This can be placed beyond question. By this Act it is provided that a “Convention” of the people of Nebraska shall be chosen by the people, that the election for such “Convention” shall be held on “the first Monday in June thereafter,” and that “the members of the Convention thus elected shall meet at the capital of said Territory on the first Monday in July next.” Now, in point of fact, such Convention was duly chosen, and it met, according to the provisions of the Enabling Act. Thus far all was right. But, after meeting, it voluntarily adjourned or dissolved, without framing a constitution. Afterward the Territorial Legislature undertook to do what the Convention failed to do. The Territorial Legislature adopted a constitution, and submitted it to the people; and this is the constitution before you. Plainly there has been no compliance with the Enabling Act, so far as it prescribes the proceedings for the formation of a constitution. Nothing can be clearer than this. The Act prescribes a Convention at a particular date. Instead of a Convention at the date prescribed, we have the Legislature acting at a different date; so that there is an open non-compliance with the prescribed conditions. It is vain, therefore, to adduce it. As well refer to Homer’s Iliad or the Book of Job. But the failure in substance is graver still. By the Enabling Act it is further provided “that the constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.” Here are essential conditions which must be complied with. The constitution must be “republican.” Now I insist always that a constitution which denies Equality of Rights cannot be republican. It may be republican according to the imperfect notions of an earlier period, or even according to the standard of Montesquieu; but it cannot be republican in a country which began its national life in disregard of received notions and the standards of the past. In fixing for the first time an authoritative definition of this requirement, you cannot forget the new vows to Human Rights uttered by our fathers, nor can you forget that our republic is an example to mankind. This is an occasion not to be lost of acting not only for the present in time and place, but for the distant also.