Year: 1871

p T i


try the preponderance of population, and of
political power. And yet it is equally certain
that the chances of liberal, progressive re-
formatory policy among the Northern people
depend in a great measure, if not altogether,
| upon the attitude of the South, especially that
part of the Southern population which was in
the war arrayed on the confederate side, and
their intentions, their aspirations and their
movements, are the object Of anxious observa-
ton AS long as disorders prevail in the
Southern States or as long as dangers seem to
threaten from that quarter, the Northern
mind, however much inclined to yield to its
liberal and progressive impulses, will always
be disturbed and clogged by the apprehension
that every bold rtformatory venture might in
some way jeopardize that which was accom-
plished by the civil war. 35


You will permit me, therefore. as a sincere
and faithful advocate of liberal and progress
i've policy to speak to you, men of the South,
on the very important part you do and might
play in the great political evolutions of our
days, and in doing SO | shall express myself
with that unreserved frankness which you GER
tainly expected of me when You called me
here. | believe we have met for a candid
consultation and not for u mere exchange of
compliments


THE SITUATION.


1t is necessary in the first place that we
should understand the exact truth as to our
present situation Illusions may be more
pleasant, but only the truth is useful. Look
around you then with an unclouded eye.


The people of the South have succumbed in
great contest. 1t was the contest between
two antag0nistic organizations of society, the
one represented by slavery. the other by free
labor. | will not 60 into disquisition on the
origin of the struggle; neither Will | take
pains to disprove that mere political intrigue
or mere difference of economical interests,
or of political doctrines concerning the rights
of the States, were at the bottom of the quar-
rel They were merely incidental. 1t is GER
tam that without the antagonism between free
labor aud slavery, the civil war would not have
happened, aud it was just that antagonism
which determined the final result of the
struggle. You were not defeated by accident.
Your soldiers fought most brayely. Your mill
tary leaders were most able aud heroic. Your
material resources were most ample to carry
on defensive war of indefinite duration in SD
vast a country as yours. Your armies, your
material means, your intelligence, your brav-
cry, and the advantages offered by your coun-
try, were greater than those of Spain when
she held the great Napoleon in check-far
greater than those of the poor Mexicans when
they forced the army of Napoleon the Little
away from their shores and rldded themselves
of foreign dominion. In fact, neither of those
nations could be compared with you IN any
respect, nor was there prospect wanting to
induce some great foreign powers to vent their
jealousy against the American republic in help
ing you to accomplish its disruption.


OUR PRESENT DANGERS


| But you tell me that the revolutionary pc
riod has f,stered arbitrary power, and that
therefore the rights of all of us are threatened.
Yes. it has produced that dangerous tendency
yes. by that tendency not your rights alone,
but the rights Of US all, the principles of con-
stitutional government. are threatened. 1t is
unquestionably true that things are done with
| impunty. and almost without censure, we'll
calculated to alarm every true friend of free
! institutions, and it is time that thinking men
should seriously consider how, by concerted
and determined action. they can prevent that
tendency from undermining our whole constl.
tutlonal system. Now that the exigencles oi
great public peril are over and the results oi
the war are firmly inbeded in the fundamental
| law, it is indeed time to arrest 1t lest the peo.
pie drift into a laxlty OF constitutional notions
| from which they cannot recover, and IN order
| 10 arrest IL we ttlUSI HVt EtCuu NlSUious
means When /, the other day, in public
speech in Chicago. declared that would not
support President Grant for reelection on ac-
count of the fragrant violation of the constitu-
dion he has committed in the San Domingo
case, great many of my Republican brethren
were shocked beyond measure and raised the
cry of high treason against the party, while
some of the feeble in mind exclaimed that my


making such a declaration was a sure sign
that must have been disappointed in the mat
ter of patronage. may assure them that
spoke with cool and mature deliberati0n, for il
will not do to trihe with such cases | will
not here argue the San Domingo matter over
again; but will say simply this: When a
President orders the navy of the United States
to foreign country. and without condescend-
ing to ask Congress for authority, instructs
our naval officers to protect and defend the
chief of foreign government against any for
eign enemy, and even against his own subjects
and countrymen, and when he does this not
only while negotiations are going on with that
foreign government, which negotiations, how
ever would not confer upon the President the
autocratic power to resort to measures of war
at his own pleasure-but even after the results
of such negotiations in the shape Of a treaty
have been formally and solemnly rejected by
the Senate, and we have no relations with that
foreign government and people but the ordinary
relations of peace-when President does
that, then he arrogates to himself one of the
most i,nnortant powers bplonpinp to the rep.