The necessary three-fourths of all the States of the Union having voted in their legislatures in favor of the passage of the new amendment to the Constitution, President Grant deemed the new measure of such vast importance that he went out of the usual mode adopted upon such occasions, and addressed the following special message on the subject to Congress, for the purpose of still further enhancing its importance in the eyes of the Senate and House of Representatives, and, in short, of the whole American people: "SPECIAL MESSAGE OF PRESIDENT GRANT ON THE RATIFICATION OF THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. "To the Senate and House of Representatives: "It is unusual to notify the two houses of Congress, by message, of the promulgation by proclamation of the Secretary of State of the ratification of a Constitutional Amendment. In view, however, of the vast importance of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution this day declared a part of the revered instrument, I deem a departure from the usual custom justifiable. A measure which makes at once four millions of people voters, who were heretofore declared by the highest tribunal in the land not citizens of the United States, nor eligible to become so (with the assertion that, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, the opinion was fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race, regarded as an axiom in morals as well as politics, that black men had no rights which the white man was bound to respect) is indeed a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day. "Institutions like ours, in which all power is derived directly from the people, must depend mainly upon their intelligence, patriotism, and industry. I call the attention, therefore, of the newly-enfranchised race to the importance of their new privilege. To the race more favored heretofore by our laws, I would say, withhold no legal privilege of advancement to the new citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a republican government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The 'Father of his country,’ in his farewell address, uses this language, 'Promote, then, as a matter of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of the government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.’ In his first annual message to Congress, the same views are forcibly presented, and are again urged in his eighth message.