US Presidency
1900

Senator Lodge and Gentlemen of the Notification Committee: The message which you bring to me is one of signal honor. It is also a summons to duty. A single nomination for the office of President by a great party which in 32 years out of 40 has been triumphant at national elections is a distinction which I gratefully cherish. To receive unanimous renomination by the same party is an expression of regard and a pledge of continued confidence for which it is difficult to make adequate acknowledgment. If anything exceeds the honor of the office of President of the United States it is the responsibility which attaches to it. Having been invested with both, I do not underappraise either. Any one who has borne the anxieties and burdens of the Presidential office, especially in time of National trial, can not contemplate assuming it a second time without profoundly realizing the severe exactions and the solemn obligations which it imposes, and this feeling is accentuated by the momentous problems which now press for settlement.