Year: 1866

but | can never consent tnat govern
ment shall be organized from this centra
point to bring States into the Union
You can bring them in by the army o.
the United States; you can force them TO
go through the form of making State
government and send their delegates
here; but would that be a republican
government? Would it be democracy
Would it be government having Its au-
thority in the consent of the people,
such as our great Declaration of Inde-
pendence calls for?


Mr.. President, the great panacea for
our difficulties is to throw our preiudices
to the winds and come up and do justice.
Look at your old Declaration of indie
pendenee; a document which has not its
equal; a document which in sublimity,
in usefulness, and in enlightenment to
the human mind, excels any that has ever
been promulgated among men; | am
amazed that nearly half a century has
gone by since that great Declaration was
given to mankind and yet the great mass
Of our Senators have not reached the
sublime position in which our fore-fathers
in that dark period stood They knew
full well that the Government they were
founding could rest upon nothing else
than the great basis of eternal equal
right and justice. 1 revere the Declara-
ton because it came from their hands,
but 1 revere it more because know that
it came from the hand of the Almighty.
1t is the will of God that no nation can
prosper or rest in peace until 1t builds
upon this foundation. am for giving
all the rights guaranteed in that Declar-
alton to all men, and especially to those
who aided me in trouble, who aidedme
in securing to myself and posterity those
great rights that we had all inherited,
when they were placed in jeopardy by
the accursed traitors whom you looked
upon with such lenity.


| do not wish TO say much in answer to
what has been said about the pardoning
of rebels. That system of pardoning
does not meet my APPRECIATION to the ez-
tent that it has gone. l never would
pardon the wretch who after having
taken an oath to support the Government
of the United States which educated him
and gave him an honorable position
among his fellows in order that he might
stand by the Government in time Of
trouble. sneaked away and purGred his
soul to God and resigned himself to trea-
son. If spared his life, it would be all
he could have at my hands. Invite such
a wretch as that into your Government
anywherel Sir, this is mawkish tender
tenderness to traitors in treason to the
State. To the mass Of the people of the
South I would of course grant an amnes-
ty; but the great leaders of this rebellion
who led them on to destruction,
cannot have my pardon here, and 90
not know that they will hereafter. If
there is an unpardonable sin, the wretch
es who stood as the guardians of this
great and glorious and equitable nation,
and for selfish purposes turned around
and sought It's destruction, have commit
ted it and they never should be pardon
ed.


But, Mr.. President, stand by my
friends; 1 stand 10y my pledges. The
colored population of this country, four
millions in number, are not to be ignored
by the speeches of gentlemen nor the
votes of the Senate. If you could do so,
you would create another oligarchy, for
when you cut off from the right to par
Iicipate in a free Government four mil
lions of its people. more than one-third Of
the entire population of the seeded
States, when you cut them off from this
great democratic right, you fix a Stigma
upon them that cannot be wiped out; 1t
will have a bearing infinitely beyond the
influence in the Government that their
votes will conferH you will have
trampled them under foot forever with
the mark of Cain upon them, and that
will be your return for their brave and
able defense of your Institutions in time
of peril Sir, will stand by them for
ever. As | have already said. my man
hood, my honor, my sense of justice, and
my policy as a member of free Govern
ment all conduce to the same end, to
make me stand firmly and forever by the
rights of these four million people. So
far as my voice can 60 they shall stand
upon the same basis that l myself stand
on. l despise, with a contempt that
cannot name, the man who will contend
for rights for himself that ne will not
award to everybody else. WHAT | claim
for myself or my children, politically, 1
will award to every member of this Gov
ernmelt, and with more serupulous guar
dianship to him who is weak and uninfu-
entail than to him who is powerful and
able to defend himself.


Sir, these are sentiments that will gov
ern me. do not wish to continue these
desultory remarks. l thought that the
elaborte speeches manufactured upon
this subject, and the long orations pro-
nounced over it, without suggesting the
clearing of the path from any of the diff
fculties that must occur to erybody,
were calculated rather to mislead than
any thing else; and hence wish to point
out the difficulties that have encoun-
tered all the while since the discussion
has beenup. say once more, that when
ever the Southern States can give me
evidence that it is safe to Withdraw our
troops from that quarter, that they will
conform to the principles Of the Govern
ment, that it will be safe to admit them
into our cOunseis, shall be first and fore
most to go with him who Is for letting
them in; but, sir, 1, for one, will never
consent to let unwashed traitors, dyed IN
the blood of our dearest friends, partici-
pate in the councils Of the government
they have endeavored to overthrow.