This strange succession of acts, which, if established for a precedent, would overturn Constitution and Law, was followed by another class of Presidential manifestations: first, an unseemly importunity of Senators during the pendency of the treaty, visiting the Capitol as a lobbyist, and summoning them to his presence in squads, in obvious pursuance of the stipulation made by his Aide-de-Camp and never disowned by him,--being intervention in the Senate, reinforced by all the influence of the appointing power, whether by reward or menace, all of which was as unconstitutional in character as that warlike intervention on the island; and then, after debate in the Senate, when the treaty was lost on solemn vote, we were called to witness his self-willed effrontery in prosecuting the fatal error, returning to the charge in his Annual Message at the ensuing session, insisting upon his contrivance as nothing less than the means by which “our large debt abroad is ultimately to be extinguished,” and gravely charging the Senate with “folly” in rejecting the treaty,--and yet, while making this astounding charge against a coördinate branch of Government, and claiming such astounding profits, he blundered geographically in describing the prize.[153] All this diversified performance, with its various eccentricity of effort, failed. The report of able commissioners transported to the island in an expensive war-ship ended in nothing. The American people rose against the undertaking and insisted upon its abandonment. By a message charged with Parthian shafts the President at length announced that he would proceed no further in this business.[154] His senatorial partisans, being a majority of the Chamber, after denouncing those who had exposed the business, arrested the discussion. In obedience to irrepressible sentiments, and according to the logic of my life, I felt it my duty to speak; but the President would not forgive me, and his peculiar representatives found me disloyal to the party which I had served so long and helped to found. Then was devotion to the President made the shibboleth of party. WHERE WAS THE GRAND INQUEST OF THE NATION?