rights as are prescribed within the limits of the law so that he does not in the exercise of these rights infringe the rights of other citizens. But the definition is not well made by our friends on the opposite side of this Chamber. Their idea of liberty is license; it is not liberty, but it is license. License to do what? License to violate law, to trample constitutions under foot, to take life, to take property, to use the bludgeon and the gun or anything else for the purpose of giving themselves power. What statesman ever heard of that as a definition of liberty? What man in a civilized age has ever heard of liberty being the unrestrained license of the people to do as they please without any restraint of law or of authority? No man, no not one, until we found the Democratic party, would advocate this proposition and indorse and encourage this kind of license in a free country?

"I have perhaps said more on this question of Louisiana than might have been well for me to say on account of my strength, but what I have said about it I have said because I honestly believed it. What I have said in reference to it comes from an honest conviction in my mind and in my heart of what has been done to suppress violence and wrong. But I have a few remarks in conclusion to submit now to my friends on the other side, in answer to what they have said not by way of argument but by way of accusation. You say to us1 had it repeated to me this morning in private conversation- Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and you will have peace.' Ah, I heard it said on this floor once 'Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and your State government will not last a minute.' I heard that said from the opposite side of the Chamber, and now you say Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and you will have peace.'

6

"I dislike to refer to things that are past and gone; I dislike to have my mind called back to things of the past; but I well remember the voice in this Chamber once that rang out and was heard throughout this land, Withdraw your troops from Fort Sumter if you want peace.' I heard that said. Now it is Withdraw your troops from Louisiana if you want peace.' Yes, I say, withdraw your troops from Louisiana if you want a revolution, and that is what is meant. But, sir, we are told, and doubtless it is believed by the Senators who tell us so, who denounce the Republican party, that it is tyrannical, oppressive, and outrageous. They have argued themselves into the idea that they are patriots, pure and undefiled. They have argued themselves into the idea that the Democratic party never did any wrong. They have been out of power so long

that they have convinced themselves that if they only had control of this country for a short time, what a glorious country they would make it. They had control for nearly forty long years, and while they were the agents of this country -I appeal to history to bear me out-they made the government a bankrupt, with rebellion and treason in the land, and were then sympathizing with it wherever it existed. That is the condition in which they left the country when they had it in their possession and within their control. But they say the Republican party is a tyrant; that it is oppressive. As I have said, I wish to make a few suggestions to my friends in answer to this accusation this accusation - oppressive to whom?

"They say to the South, that the Republican party has tyrannized over the South. Let me ask you how has it tyrannized over the South? Without speaking of our troubles and trials through which we passed, I will say this: at the end of a rebellion that scourged this land, that drenched it with blood, that devastated a portion of it, left us in debt and almost bankrupt, what did the Republican party do? Instead of leaving these our friends and citizens to-day in a territorial condition where we might exercise jurisdiction over them for the next coming twenty years, where we might have deprived them of the rights of members on this floor, what did we do? We reorganized them into States, admitted them back into the Union, and through the clemency of the Republican party we admitted Representatives on this floor who had thundered against the gates of liberty for four bloody years. Is that the tyranny and oppression of which you complain at the hands of the Republican party? Is that a part of our oppression against you Southern people?

"Let us go a little further. When the armed Democracy, for that is what they were, laid down their arms in the Southern States, after disputing the right of freedom and liberty in this land for four years, how did the Republican party show itself in its acts of tyranny and oppression toward you? You appealed to them for clemency. Did you get it? Not a man was punished for his treason. Not a man ever knocked at the doors of a Republican Congress for a pardon who did not get it. Not a man ever petitioned the generosity of the Republican party to be excused for his crimes who was not excused. Was that oppression upon the part of the Republicans in this land? Is that a part of the oppression of which you accuse us?

"Let us look a little further. We find to-day twenty-seven Democratic Representatives in the other branch of Congress who took arms in their hands and

tried to destroy this government holding commissions there by the clemency of the Republican party. We find in this Chamber by the clemency of the Republican party three Senators who held such commissions. Is that tyranny; is that oppression; is that the outrage of this Republican party on you Southern people? Sir, when Jeff Davis, the head of the great Rebellion, who roams the land free as air, North, South, East, and West, makes Democratic speeches wherever invited, and the Vice-President of the Southern Rebellion holds his seat in the other House of Congress, are we to be told that we are tyrants, and oppressing the Southern people? These things may sound a little harsh, but it is time to tell the truth in this country. The time has come to talk facts. The time has come when cowards should hide, and honest men should come to the front and tell you plain, honest truths. You of the South talk to us about oppressing you. You drenched your land in blood, caused weeping throughout this vast domain, covered the land in weeds of mourning both North and South, widowed thousands and orphaned many, made the pension-roll as long as an army-list, made the debt that grinds the poor of this land for all these things you have been pardoned, and yet you talk to us about oppression. So much for the oppression of the Republican party of your patriotic souls and selves. Next comes the President of the United States. He is a tyrant, too. He is an oppressor still, in conjunction with the Republican party. Oppressor of what? Who has he oppressed of your Southern people, and when, and where? When your KuKlux, banded together for murder and plunder in the Southern States, were convicted by their own confession, your own representatives pleaded to the President, and said: Give them pardon, and it will reconcile many of the Southern people.' The President pardoned them; pardoned them of their murder, of their plunder, of their piracy on land; and for this I suppose he is a tyrant.

"More than that, sir, this tyrant in the White House has done more for you Southern people than you ought to have asked him to do. He has had confidence in you until you betrayed that confidence. He has not only pardoned the offenses of the South, pardoned the criminals of the Democratic party, but he has placed in high official position in this Union some of the leading men who fought in the Rebellion. He has put in his Cabinet one of your men; he has made governors of Territories of some of your leading men who fought in the Rebellion; he has sent on foreign missions abroad some of your men who warred against this country; he has placed others in the Departments; and has tried to reconcile you in every way on earth, by appealing to your people, by recogniz

ing them and forgiving them for their offenses, and for these acts of generosity, for these acts of kindness, he is arraigned to-day as a Cæsar, as a tyrant, as an oppressor.

"Such kindness in return as the President has received from these people will

mark itself in the history of generosity. O, but say they, Grant wants to oppress the White Leagues in Louisiana; therefore he is an oppressor. Yes, Grant does desire that these men should quit their everyday chivalric sports. of gunning upon Negroes and Republicans. He asks kindly that you stop it..