Year: 1872

thoroughly protect you, and in three
months, if we succeed, the colored
people will be so disabused that the
same men can never deceive them a.
gain, never again.


But suppose we fail, and we may
fail. If the colored men did not be-
lieve that the power was against US,
that money was against us; if they did
not realize that the treasury, the army,
the 100000 oficeholders were all band
ed against us, in force which they be-
lieye we cannot overcome, they certain
ly would not be so universally hostile
to us. Why they think we cannot sue
ceed, and they want to be upon the
winning side. That is part of it, but
they are also deluded in regard to our
purposes.


We say we are not your enemies, we
will not be your oppresSors, we will
not, though you have done us an in
Justice; we will try as well as we can
to have your children educated and en-
lightened, so as that the mistakes you
have made cannot be made over and
over again. There is where we stand.


It is not for the sake of the proscrib-
ed alone shat I speak. Every communi-
ty has the right to the best services of
all its citizens. Men say to me, "Why,
you don't want to elect Toombs, or
somebody else, do you?" No, I don't
want to elect any of these men, but
suppose the people do. Who are you
and am to say whether they shall or
not? It is not a question for me, but
whether American citizens, whom you
say have the same rights to vote and
hold Office for you shall be at liberty
to vote for men they prefer, or shall
be compelled to vote for men you pre-
fer.


So long as you have a prescribed
class in the country, men all around
them, honorable, generous men, will
feel ought to be prescribed the same
as that man. The difference was only
by accident. He happened to take an
oath or fill an Office before the struggle
that did not. His guilt was no more
than mine. Accident only makes him
prescribed and leaves me free. So that
so long as there shall be a prescribed
class in this country, prescription will
rankle in the hearts of millions of
Americans who feel that they them
selves are condemned and banned in
tho act which doomed their leaders,.


Now, fellow-citizens, why do we con-
denim prescription? They are mista-
ken who say there are only two or three
hundred left now, forbidden to exercise
the common rights of American citi-
zens. It is not so. There are thou
sands. There are 5000 disfranchised
in the State of Arkansas alone and the
men who hold them disfranchised ex-
pect to carry that State against us by
virtue of that disfranchisement. But
it is not the number of prescribed men
who, as not under this ban, feel them
selves prescribed because others are
for an ofense which was their offense
as we'll.


Thequestion reaches snotseveral hun
dreds but several millions of our peo-
pie. Well they say what do the peo-
pie care about this? The banks are
making money, the people are prosper
ing, manufacturers are thrifty, who
cares that few hundred or thousand
men are disfranchised? Icare. [ say
a war which ended nearly eight years
ago ought to have had nearly all it's
bloody traces wiped out before this
time. Applause.


say that while we have often been
amused with promises of general am
nesty, the government of the country
has practically been controlled by men
like Senators Morton and Chandler,
and General Butler one of which Sena-
tors is saying: "Well then all may for
give rebels if they will but Inever cam"
Now thatspirit is not one which should
rule republican country. A repub-
lican should be generous and faithful,
generous to errors whereof the very
last evil consequences have long since
faded away.


Grant that it was wrong, indefensibly
wrong; grant that the whole Confeder-
ate movement was as heinous as you
please, still it was utterly defeated
1t became lost cause and there is no
more probability and Imay say no more
possibility of another serious attempt
to divide the American Union than
there is of an attempt to disrupt and
destroy the solar system. Never before
did the Union stand so strong as to-
day. Never was its future so assured
as to-day and never did any movement
result in more complete and utter
discontinue than the Confederate
movement. Then I say seven and a
half years after the last shot was fired
in behalf of that movement, it is time
for amnesty complete and perfect; it
is time for oblivion of offenses that so
long since passed away.


Fellow-citizens, we stand on the
principles embodied in our platform.
Those principles our adversaries do
not assail. They confess judgment,
but they insinuate that a purpose is
therein declared which is not our real
purpose, and that we mean something
utterly different, and therefore proceed
! to attribute to us purposes which we
never cherished, which we positively