_Governor Rusk, Comrades of the Grand Army, and Ladies_--I did not suppose that the Constitution of our country would be subjected to so serious a fracture by the executive of one of our great States. [Laughter.] Four years is the constitutional term of the President. [Laughter.] I am glad to see you; I return your friendly greetings most heartily. Your association is a most worthy one. As I said to some comrades who visited me this morning, it has the best reason for its existence of any human organization that I know of. [Applause.] I am glad to know that your recent encampment at Columbus was so largely attended, and was in all its circumstances so magnificent a success. The National Encampment of the G. A. R. is an honor to any city. The proudest may well array itself in its best attire to welcome the Union veterans of the late war. In these magnificent gatherings, so impressive in numbers and so much more impressive in the associations they revive, there is a great teaching force. If it is worth while to build monuments to heroism and patriotic sacrifice that may stand as dumb yet eloquent instructors of the generation that is to come, so it is worth while that these survivors of the war assemble in their national encampments and march once more, unarmed, through the streets of our cities, whose peace and prosperity they have secured. [Applause.] Every man and every woman should do them honor. We have a body of citizen soldiers instructed in tactics and strategy and accustomed to the points of war that make this Nation very strong and formidable. I well remember that even in the second year of the war instructors in tactics were rare in our own camps. They are very numerous now. [Laughter.] Yet, while this Nation was never so strong in a great instructed, trained body of veteran soldiers, I think it was never more strongly smitten with the love of peace. The man that would rather fight than eat has not survived the last war. [Laughter.] He was laid away in an early grave or enrolled on the list of deserters. But he would be mistaken who supposes that all the hardships of the war--its cruel, hard memories--would begin to frighten those veterans from the front if the flag was again assailed or the national security or dignity imperilled. [Applause and cries of "You are right!"] The war was also an educator in political economy.