Were not the conclusions drawn from these principles logical and absolutely imperative? Were not the means employed for their execution, proper and even necessary? Can that Democrat tell me how, after the close of the war, when on Southern soil bloodshed and persecution were the order of the day, when class seemed to be arrayed against class, and man against man, how, then, the disturbed order of society could be righted without the interference of the military power? Can he tell me how the relations between the late master and the late slave, which, by sudden emancipation, had been thrown into chaos, could be prevented from degenerating into bloody conflicts, without the benevolent interposition of the National Government? Can he tell me how the development of free labor in the South could be insured except by giving the laborer that share of political power, without which he could not protect and defend his rights against the attacks of the late master-class which acrimoniously disputed them? Did he ever think of this: that Congress had absolutely no choice but such governments as this, based on impartial suffrage, and the governments of Southern whites exclusively, which means governments of the pro-slavery rebel majority; yes, that there was this inevitable stubborn alternative which admitted of no shirking or subterfuge—either these governments or rebel governments? Does the honest, patriotic Democrat hear that? And when this alternative is put before him plainly, bluntly, stubbornly, and he has to choose between the two, where will his choice fall? Where will his reason and conscience as a man, where his duty as a patriotic citizen, where his devotion to human liberty, and where his love of peace, lead him?
But here the voice of his party summons him, declaring that the reconstruction measures of Congress are unconstitutional, usurpations, null and void, frightening him with
