285


the  corrupt  politicians  in  the  North  be  kept  in
power  by  this  fiendish  hatred  of  your  own  brothers?
As  1  said  before,  Mr.  Lincoln  began  to  forgive  the
Southern  people  in  the  midst  of  their  sins,  and
even  as  he  died,  he  died  with  Christ-like  pardon
for  them  on  his  lips,  and  when  he  had  passed
away,  the  Republican  party  of  the  United  States,
when  it  was  led  by  statesmen  and  inspired  by
patriots,  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  those
great  practical  guarantees,  not  only  that  the  slave
should  be  free,  not  only  that  the  freedman  should
vote,  but  that  the  so-called  rebels  should  be  for-
given, their  property  restored  to  them  and  their
right  to  vote  in  all  our  elections  secured  ;  in  other
words,  universal  suffrage  with  universal  amnesty.
And  now  when  the  South  gives  the  pledge,  in  the
■words  of  Roger  A.  Pryor  himself,  a  forgiven  man
by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  that  pledge
|jnade  in  the  person  of  the  soldier  who  by  the  ad-
r  mission  of  the  Republican  leaders  themselves
saved  the  Republic  in  the  extreraest  peril,  the
Southern  people  are  still  to  be  hounded  on  by  the
declaration  that  the  South  shall  never  be  trusted;
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  great  body  of  the
humane  people  of  the  United  States  should  rise
against  this  savage  exhibition  of  party  malevolence,
and,  worse  than  that,  unpatriotic  contempt  for  the
great  example  of  Lincoln  and  the  solemn  covenant
I  pf  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States !


286  U^^  A^J>  rUBUC  CAEEJuR  OF


CHAPTER  IX.
THE  CX)NQUER£D  CONFEDERATES.
