s were conceded to them than ever before had been extended to
an unsuccessful party in a civil war. Their leaders emphasized
that at the burial of our great commander, General Grant. The
result of the settlement by the constitutional amendments at the
close of the war was to give them increased political power, upon
condition that the slaves should be free and should be allowed to
vote, and that all political distinction growing out of race, color
or previous condition of servitude shall be abolished; and yet to-
day, the Republican party is faced by a 'solid south,' in which
the negro is deprived, substantially, of all his political rights,
by open violence or by frauds as mean as any that have been committed
by penitentiary convicts, and as openly and boldly done as any
highway robbery. By this system, and by the acquiescence of a few
northern states, the men who led in the Civil War have been restored
to power, and hope, practically, to reverse all the results of the
war.

"This is the spectre that now haunts American politics, and may
make it just as vital and necessary to appeal to the northern states
to unite again against this evil, not so open and arrogant as
slavery, but more dangerous and equally unjust. The question then
was the slavery of the black man. Now the question is the equality
of the white man, whether a southern man in Mississippi may, by
depriving a majority of the legal voters in the state of their
right to vote, exercise twice the political power of a white man
in the north, where the franchise is free and open and equal to all.

"When we point out these offenses committed in the south, it is
said that we are raising the bloody shirt, that we are reviving
the issues of the war--that the war is over. I hope the war is
over, and that the animosities of the war will pass away, and be
dead and buried. Anger and hate and prejudice are not wise counselors
in peace or in war. Generosity, forgiveness and charity are great
qualities of the human heart, but, like everything else that is
good, they may be carried to excess, and may degenerate into faults.
They must not lead us to forget the obligations of duty and honor.
While we waive the animosities of the war, we must never fail to
hold on, with courage and fortitude, to all the results of the
war. Our soldiers fought in no holiday contest, not merely to test
the manly qualities of the men of the north and the south, not for
power or plunder