Year: 1872

the mistakes you have made can not be
made over and over again. That is
where we stand.


Now, fellow-citizens, why do we con-
denim prescription They mistake who
say that there are only two or three
hundred left, now forbidden to exercise
the common rights of American citizens.
1t is not so. There are thousands.
There are five thousand disfranchised
inrthe Stats of Arkansas alone, and the
men who hold them disfranchlsed ex-
pect to carry the State against us by
virtue of that disfranchisement. But it
is not the number prescribed. Men
who are not under this ban feel them
selves prescribed because others are,
for an offense which was their offense as
well. So long as you have q prescribed
class in the country, men all around
you, honorable, generous men, viii feel,
81 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, but his guilt was no more
than mine. Accident only makes him
prescribed and leaves me free" So
that so long as there shall be q pro-
scribed class in this country, proscrip-
ton will rankle in the hearts of mil
lions Of Americans who feel that they
themselves are condemned and banned
in the act which dooms their leaders.
It is not for the sake of the prescribed
alone that speak. Every community
has the right to the best services of all
its citizens. Men say to me, "Why,
you don't want to elect Governor Wise
or Tombs, or somebody else do you"
No, don't want to elect any of those
men, but suppose other people do ?
Who are you: who am / to say whether
they shall or not? It is not q 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 the men they prefer
or shall be compelled to vote for the
men you prefer. The question reaches
not several hundreds, but several mil
lions of our people. Well, they say


"What do the people care about this.
The banks are making money, the peo-
pie are prospering, manufactures are
thrifty. Who cares that a few hundred
or Thousand men are disfranchised"


care. say q war which ended near
" eight years ago ought to have had
nearly all its bloody traces wiped out
before this time. Great 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
Gen. Butler. Senator Chandler is SAY
ing, "Well, all may forgive rebels if
they will, but / never can" Now that
spirit is not one which should rule re-
publican country. A republic should
be generous and faithful, generous. to
errors whereof the very last evil conse-
auences have long since faded away.
Grant that it was wrong, indefensibly
wrong; the attempt has been nobly bat
tied and defeated. Grant that the whole
Confederate movement was as heinous
as you please still it was utterly de-
feated :. it became a lost cause; and
there is no more probability and, L
might say, no more possibility, of an
other serious attempt to divide this
American Union than there is of an at
tempt 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 it is to-day, and
never did any movement result IN more
complete and utter discontinue than
the Confederate movement. Then L
say, seven and a half years after the last
shot was fired in behalf of that move
ment. sit 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 prin-
ciples embodied in our platform. Those
principles our adyersaries do not assail.
They confess Judgment, but they insin-
uate that purpose is therein indicated
which is not our real purpose, and that
we mean something utterly different,
and thereupon they proceed to attribute
to us purposes which we never cher
ished, which we positively disayow, and
which they ought to know are utterly
absurd. The most important of them
are utterly forbidden by the Constitu-
tion, and they know it. No man can go
to Congress or be chosen President,
without taking solemn oath to sustain
the Constitution, which absolutely for
bids the payment of the rebel debts, or
the payment for emancipated slaves. L
commend my cause to the sober ludg-
ment of the American people. 1 do
them to Judge us without prejudice,
without passion and with spirits unin-
famed by wrath and vengeance. I ask
them to Judge us as citizens who are
sincerely trying to do what We believe
best for our country; and / do trust
that passion and prejudice will no pre-
vail that we shall be judged as we are,
and not as we are represented, and that
the benefcent triumph which viii in
crease the value of every acre OF land In
the Southern States, which will increase
the product of these States, make their
people harmonious-blacka and white
and make them live in more trustful,
peaceful and fraternal relation than they
have hitherto held toward each other
I trust that this result will be attained,
and that generations to come shall re-
ioice over the inception, the progress
and the triumph of the Liberal move
ment. Applause. Fneds. bid you
good night.