During this period, imperial troops were sent out 2,000 times to suppress violence. The Tsar remained quiet, impassive and indulgent; he spent most of that autumn hunting. Witte told Nicholas II, "that the country was at the verge of a cataclysmic revolution". Trepov was ordered to take drastic measures to stop the revolutionary activity. The Tsar asked his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas to assume the role of dictator, but the Grand Duke threatened to shoot himself if the Tsar refused to endorse Witte's memorandum. Nicholas II had no choice but to take a number of steps in the constitutional liberal direction. The Tsar accepted the draft, hurriedly outlined by Aleksei D. Obolensky. It was known as the October Manifesto. This promised to grant civil liberties such as freedom of conscience, speech, and association; constitutional order, representative government, and the establishment of an Imperial Duma. As the Duma was only a consultative body, the Council of Ministers or the Tsar still had the right to block certain proposals. Many Russians felt that this reform did not go far enough; and it did not achieve universal suffrage for men.