yours is the victory. And your children and your children's children will rise up to call you blessed, because you dared, despite the wrath of traitors South, and the invectives of your opponents North, to destroy this giant wrong, from turret to foundation stone, even amid the agonies and throes of civil war, and to crush it out from this fair land forever.

"But other duties to the country yet remained to be performed; and you, and those who thought with you, girded your loins for the work. The Thirty-ninth Congress, the noblest and most patriotic body of men I have ever seen assembled at the Capitol during my dozen years of public service, wisely rejecting the illadvised policy of an Executive whose highest ambition and desire seemed to have been to destroy the party that had elevated him to power, proposed a Constitutional amendment, embodying great principles, that they deemed should be imbedded irreversibly in the National Constitution, as fitting guarantees for loyal reconstruction. Although indorsed overwhelmingly by the loyal States at the ballot-box, the rebel States, hardening their hearts, spurned and rejected it, and scoffed at its framers and endorsers. And then guided, as I believe, by the same Providence which gave our armies victory after victory as soon as the nation had written 'liberty for all' on our banners, Congress enacted the Military Reconstruction bills of March second and March twentyfourth, opening the ballot-boxes to the loyal, regardless of color, disfranchising for the present the leaders of the rebellion, and laying down the terms, and the only terms on which the rights forfeited by this bloody war could be resumed. And this firmness and devotion to the right is bringing forth its legitimate fruit. With an alac

rity unexpected to many, and with an acquiescence expected but by few, the vast majority in the South are ignoring their life-long prejudices, and hastening to accept these terms. Nor need I say to you that having carefully elaborated these laws, having passed them and then repassed them over the inevitable veto of the Executive, the great party which has thus become responsible for them, intend to stand by them faithfully and literally, if their terms are complied with by the rebel States in good faith and without evasion. They would be branded with dishonor, and their fame tarnished forever, if they did not. But it is a party whose plighted word to the people has never been broken, and will not be now. I regret, indeed, that Mr. Sumner's amendment, requiring provisions in the new Constitutions for universal education as a condition of reconstruction, did not prevail, but I hope the good sense of the Southern people will establish it voluntarily, insuring them a warmer welcome as they return to the council board. I cannot omit, in passing, to state that one of the essentials of the reconstruction policy is the election of Congressmen, who can honestly and truthfully take the oath required by law. We should have been faithless, and worthy of the slow, unmoving finger of scorn, if this essential had not been insisted on inflexibly. When the waves of treason swept over all that region, there were a faithful few who refused to yield to Secession. Branded as traitors to the Confederacy because they would not surrender their birthright, they never swerved from their allegiance. Punished by confiscation and robbery, and threatened with outrage and death, they never faltered; and when they could no longer live peaceably at their homes, they fled to the mountains, the

caves, and the swamps, and said, 'Welcome confiscation, robbery, exile or death; but we stand by the stars and stripes to the last drop of our blood, and the last beat of our hearts.' God bless these faithful Union men. They are to lead back these States, clad in new robes of liberty and justice.

"I cannot doubt the future of the great party which has won these triumphs and established these principles. It has been so brilliantly successful, because it recognized liberty and justice as its cardinal principles; and because, scorning all prejudices and defying all opprobrium, it allied itself to the cause of the humble and the oppressed. It sought to enfranchise, not to enchain; to elevate, not to tread down; to protect, never to abase. It cared for the humblest rather than for the mightiest— for the weakest rather than the strongest. It recognized that the glory of States and Nations was justice to the poorest and feeblest. And another secret of its wondrous strength was that it fully adopted the striking injunction of our murdered chief: 'With malice toward none, with charity for all, but with firmness for the right, as God gives us to see the right.' Only last month the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, D'Israeli, in defending his Reform Bill, exclaimed: "This is a nation of classes, and must remain so.' If I may be pardoned for replying, I would say: 'This is a nation of freemen, and must remain so.' Faithful to the traditions of our fathers in sympathizing with all who long for the maintenance or advancement of liberty in Mexico or England, in Ireland or Crete, and yet carefully avoiding all entangling alliances or violations of the law, with a recognition from ocean to ocean, North and South alike, of the right of all citizens bound by the law to share in the choice of

the law-maker, and thus to have a voice in the country their heart's blood must defend, our centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence will find us, as an entire nation, recognizing the great truths of that immortal Instrument, enjoying a fame, wide as the world and eternal as the stars.

Upon the adjournment of the July session of the Fortieth Congress, Mr. Colfax was serenaded, and, in his speech upon the occasion, made the following remarks concerning the course of the President and the action of Congress:

"FELLOW-CITIZENS: There are two kinds of serenades in Washington: the first, when members arrive to enter upon the discharge of their duties; and the last, when, after the close of their labors, they are about to return to their homes. As Holy Writ declares that he who taketh off his armor has more right to be proud than he who putteth it on, I value this mark of your regard more highly, because, our work being completed, you mean by it, 'Well done, good and faithful servants.' Congress sincerely desired to avoid this midsummer session. They passed the military reconstruction bills last March. The President vetoed them, on the explicit ground that they made the military commanders supreme and absolute over the people of the late rebellious States. Congress accepted his construction of them, and repassed them over his veto. They were cordially endorsed by the loyal people of the North, and acquiesced in more readily than had been supposed by the people of the South. Soon it became apparent that, under them, loyalty would triumph in most of the Southern States, and then the President vetoed his own veto, and promulgated a decision of his Attorney-General, that, under

these laws, the military commanders were mere policemen, subordinate to the provisional Governments over which they had been placed; the army but a posse comitatus to enforce the decrees of the rebel Governors and Mayors; and that every rebel was to be his own register. The people, surprised at these decisions, appealed to the Congress, in which they placed such deserved confidence, to reassemble; and from Maine to California they came hither to resume their legislative authority, and to so declare the meaning of their legislation that no legal sophistries of any Attorney-General could mystify it. Vetoed again, they repassed it by a vote of four to one, and it has gone on the statute-book as one of the laws which the President, by his Constitutional oath, must 'take care to have faithfully executed.' Some, I know, condemn Congress for having done too much in its past legislation, and some, for having done too little; but I think it has struck the golden mean-firm and yet prudent, courageous without undue excitement, inflexible and yet wise."

CHAPTER XXXI.

FALL ELECTIONS OF 1867-SPEECH OF MR. COLFAX AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK.

THE fall election of 1867 in the State of Indiana was of comparatively little importance. In several other States, however, there were important elections, the issues of which would largely influence national inter