possible by knowing toleration. It is time that corruption should be rooted out at any cost.
With the close of the war we entered upon a new period of our National development. New duties and new problems are confronting us and imperatively demand our attention. The old battlecries and catchwords of political parties are gradually becoming obsolete. They will disappear entirely as soon as the public mind is satisfied that the logical and legitimate results of the war, the great guarantees of equal rights as embodied in the last three amendments to the Constitution, are safe beyond peradventure. I am satisfied that any attempt to overthrow them will result in utter failure, although it might lead to temporary confusion and disaster.
We Liberal Republicans look upon those results of the war, Constitutionally guaranteed, as the very basis of the new order of things, and we shall, as patriotic citizens, always sustain them with unwavering fidelity. This is the first article of our political program. But I trust, also, that those who are sincerely devoted to great ends of public good, will not let mere party dictation, which in our days has so frequently developed a despotic tendency, or an artful revival of the old warcries without sufficient occasion, deter them from following the course pointed out by their sense of duty, nor permit themselves to be used as mere tools for purposes of which their consciences do not approve.
GENERAL AMNESTY[1]
Mr. President:—When this debate commenced before the holidays, I refrained from taking part in it, and from
- ↑ Speech in the U. S. Senate Jan. 30, 1872. The Senate had resumed the consideration of the bill (H. R. No. 1050) for the removal of legal and political disabilities imposed by the third section of the fourteenth article of amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
