ration, I am sincerely anxious to use
every legitimate influence in favor of honest and efficient local
self-government as the true resource of those States for the promotion
of the contentment and prosperity of their citizens. In the effort I
shall make to accomplish this purpose I ask the cordial cooperation of
all who cherish an interest in the welfare of the country, trusting
that party ties and the prejudice of race will be freely surrendered in
behalf of the great purpose to be accomplished. In the important work of
restoring the South it is not the political situation alone that merits
attention. The material development of that section of the country has
been arrested by the social and political revolution through which
it has passed, and now needs and deserves the considerate care of
the National Government within the just limits prescribed by the
Constitution and wise public economy.

But at the basis of all prosperity, for that as well as for every other
part of the country, lies the improvement of the intellectual and moral
condition of the people. Universal suffrage should rest upon universal
education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made
for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need
be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.

Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest
desire to regard and promote their truest interest--the interests of the
white and of the colored people both and equally--and to put forth my
best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in
our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North
and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a
united South, but a united country.

I ask the attention of the public to the paramount necessity of reform
in our civil service--a reform not merely as to certain abuses and
practices of so-called official patronage which have come to have the
sanction of usage in the several Departments of our Government, but
a change in the system of appointment itself; a reform that shall
be thorough, radical, and complete; a return to the principles and
practices of the founders of the Government. They neither expected
nor desired from public officers any partisan service. They meant that
public officers should owe their whole service to the Government and to
the people. They meant that the officer should be