hat matter.
Conscious of a duty done, I am happily independent enough to be
measurably indifferent as to a mere present and temporary effect.
Whatever the verdict of the men of Massachusetts to-day, I contentedly
await the verdict of their sons.

But, on the other hand, I am not here either to launch charges of
treason against any opponent of these policies, who nevertheless loves
the institutions founded on these shores by your ancestors, and wishes
to perpetuate what they created. Least of all would it occur to me to
utter a word in disparagement of your senior Senator, of whom it may be
said with respectful and almost affectionate regard that he bears a
warrant as authentic as that of the most distinguished of his
predecessors to speak for the conscience and the culture of
Massachusetts. Nor shall any reproach be uttered by me against another
eminent son of the commonwealth and servant of the Republic, who was
expected, as one of the officers of your club told me, to make this
occasion distinguished by his presence. He has been represented as
resenting the unchangeable past so sternly that he now hopes to aid in
defeating the party he has helped to lead through former trials to
present glory. If so, and if from the young and unremembering reproach
should come, be it ours, silent and walking backward, merely to cast
over him the mantle of his own honored service.

[Sidenote: Common Duty and a Common Danger.]

No, no! Let us have a truce to profitless disputes about what cannot be
reversed. Censure us if you must. Even strike at your old associates
and your own party if you will and when you can, without harming causes
you hold dear. But for the duty of this hour, consider if there is not
a common meeting-ground and instant necessity for union in a rational
effort to avert present perils. This, then, is my appeal. Disagree as
we may about the past, let us to-day at least see straight--see things
as they are. Let us suspend disputes about what is done and cannot be
undone, long enough to rally all the forces of good will, all the
undoubted courage and zeal and patriotism that are now at odds, in a
devoted effort to meet the greater dangers that are upon us.

For the enemy is at the gates. More than that, there is some reason to
fear that, through dissensions from within, he may gain the citadel. In
their eagerness to embarrass the advocates of what has been done, and
with the vain hope of in some way undoing it, and