Union. I shall not, therefore, take the sword into my own hand, or put it in the hand of any other person, to effect a reform by force in those states, which, I am sure, will be effected much sooner and much more permanently through the exercise of persuasion and reason. As little do I think it my duty to use the sword to cut away and remove what has already been done in those states, whether it was necessarily done or unnecessarily and unwisely done. As I thought the situation which existed in 1865 ought to be accepted by a reasonable, patriotic, and humane administration, so do I think now the situation which exists in 1868, after the best efforts have been made to secure a better, ought to be accepted.

I am not without hope, my friends, that this painful national dilemma may be solved before the end of the present administration, as all our other national difficulties have been or will be. The ambitions of parties and chiefs must come to a rest with the close of this election, and calmness and tranquillity must sooner or later resume their sway over the public mind. In that case, I shall have little desire to speak concerning the future administration of the government, content to have performed with singleness of purpose, and with all my ability, my duties under the administration with which I am personally connected. It is, on the other hand, possible that the dilemma of reconciliation may continue unsolved, and may require the attention of the new administration. It is in this respect that I deem the present choice of a future Chief Magistrate, not merely important, but perhaps critically so, as the last two choices were. One consideration alone is sufficient to determine my judgment in this emergency. I cannot forget that the civil war has closed with two great political achievements: the one the saving of the integrity of the Union, the other the abolition of African slavery. Personally, I see no cause to fear, in any case, a reaction in which both or either of these great national attainments can be lost. They are in harmony with the spirit of the age and the established progress of mankind.

My confidence, however, in this respect, is not indulged, nor do I expect it to be entertained by all, nor even by the majority of my patriotic fellow-citizens, who were engaged with me in making or aiding those great achievements. Their wounds, unlike my own, are yet unhealed; their sacrifices, unlike my own, are yet unrewarded. They have been, therefore, and they will continue to

be, apprehensive in that regard, and those apprehensions will increase with every indiscreet proceeding, or even utterance, of any person or parties who were ever compromised in, or who ever sympathized with, the rebellion or with African slavery. Confidence is, in the case of most men, though it is not in mine, a plant of slow growth. Not only is it true that such apprehensions, however unreasonable they may be, cannot be safely disregarded, but it is equally true that they are to be respected and indulged, because of the moral influence they will exert in favor of union, freedom, and progress in all future times and throughout the world. The magistrates who are to preside, then, in the work of reconciliation hereafter, ought, like those who have preceded in former stages of that work, to be men drawn from and representing that class of citizens who maintained the government in the prosecution of the civil war and in the abolition of slavery. In no other hands could the work of reconciliation be expected to be successful, because of a different sort of magistrates would be profoundly and generally suspected a willingness to betray the transcendent public interests which were gained and secured by the war.

The attitude of each of the political parties in this canvass is, in some respects, different from what I myself could have desired or would have advised. Very great wrongs have been committed in the name of liberty by the republicans of the United States, as great crimes were committed in the same holy name by French republicans in the revolution of 1789. Nevertheless, the republican party neither rests under any suspicion of its devotion to human freedom, nor can it fall under any such suspicion.

The democratic party, I do not now propose to say with how much justice, has not so conducted itself in its corporate and responsible action as to secure the entire confidence of a loyal and exacting people in its unconditional and uncompromising adherence to the Union, or in its acceptance and approval of the effective abolition of slavery. I entertain no jealousy of the democratic party or its leaders, and no unfriendly or uncharitable feelings toward that great constituency. On the other hand, I cherish a grateful appreciation of the patriotism, the magnanimity, the heroism of many of my fellow-citizens with whom I have cheerfully labored and coöperated, while they still retained their adhesion to the democratic party. How could I distrust the loyalty or the virtue of Andrew

Johnson, of General Hancock, General McClellan, Senator Buckalew of Pennsylvania, of Senator Hendricks of Indiana, or his associate, Mr. Niblack, or of Mr. S. S. Cox, then of Ohio, to whom, personally, more than any other member, is due the passage of the constitutional amendment in Congress abolishing African slavery.1 I have, therefore, regarded with sincere, and, I trust, patriotic satisfaction, the efforts of democratic leaders, as well as those made in 1864 at Chicago, as the greater ones made in New York in 1868, to lift the democratic party up to a plane, upon attaining which all the errors and shortcomings of any of its members during the civil war would at once drop off from the democratic party's back, as the burden of Christian fell off his back when he "came up to the cross."

If the democratic party had only reached that plane, I should have felt that further concern on my part about the work of reconciliation might be dismissed. In that case, we should have had the two great parties of the country substantially agreed in the right, just as the two great parties of the country, in my judgment, in 1852 agreed in the wrong. In 1852 both parties agreed in the compromise of 1850, which accepted the fugitive slave law, allowed the extension of African slavery, and prohibited discussion upon it in the national Congress forever. If the democratic party in 1868 had lifted themselves to the position I have supposed, we should then have had both parties of the country practically agreeing in the justice, wisdom, and humanity of the government in the civil war, and of the abolition of slavery; and at the same time agreeing upon the ripeness of the time and the necessity for peace and fraternal affection. The democratic party having failed to do so, its preparation to assume the responsibilities of a rescued and regenerated nation must be delayed four years. To confide those responsibilities to that party in its present condition would be to continue, perhaps increase, the lamentable political excitement which alone has prevented the complete restoration of the Union to the present time.

I well know that it will be said, on the other hand, with much show of reason, that extreme idealists and agitators may be expected to exert a dangerous influence under a new republican administra

1 Mr. Cox voted against the amendment, but is understood to have persuaded others of his own party to vote for it. Sixteen democrats voted aye, securing its passage in the House by two majority.

tion, by reason of their having gathered themselves into the ranks of the supporters of the republican candidate. This, however, is no new dilemma for me, or for many of you, my old friends. We were required year after year to support Henry Clay as the best of two choices, although he disavowed all that time the noble principles which we held concerning the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery. We did so wisely. We were required in 1852 to support General Scott as the best of two candidates offered us, although he was put upon a platform which maintained the fugitive slave law, and declared it perpetually inviolable. We wisely did that. No one citizen may ever hope to find a candidate perfectly acceptable to himself, and yet find that the grounds of his own choice for that candidate are accepted by all his fellow-citizens who concur with him in that preference. No one can foresee six months beforehand what the political exigencies of the country may be, or how the administration of the government must act when they occur. In 1860 we elected a President simply to maintain the cause of freedom against legislative aggression. That administration encountered no such difficulty. The danger apprehended had passed away before that administration came into power, and it found itself confronted, instead of that danger, by a rebellion which taxed all its energies, and opened a conflict which resulted in the immediate abolition of slavery; an event which had not been before expected to occur in less than fifty years! So I think none can now foresee the especial line of official duty which a new administration may find it necessary to pursue.

We are impatient of the slow progress we make toward great national ends. We often magnify the obstacles we meet and deem them insurmountable; but time is always busy in abating those difficulties and smoothing our way. The result of the election, if favorable to the candidates of our choice, will put an end to all the debates which it has excited, and prepare the popular mind to accept now what it has heretofore rejected, namely, the most practicable and easy solution of the national embarrassments. In any case I console myself with the reflection that as wisdom was not born with the administration of Abraham Lincoln, so it will not die with the administration of Andrew Johnson.

I have not entertained you on this occasion, my friends, with eulogiums upon your candidates or any of them; or with aspersions of

the candidates of your opponents or any of them. I need scarcely remind you that I have no such habit. Certainly there is no occasion now for that line of debate. All those candidates are well known, more widely known, indeed, than any candidates who have ever before been named for the high offices for which they are designated, since the first administration of the government. They are better known, because they are historically identified with national trials of surpassing magnitude, and of deep interest to all mankind.

'It remains only now to thank you for your indulgence. If I have come among you late, I have, nevertheless, come in time. I have neither questioned the opinions nor the motives which have governed your civil conduct since we last met. I have troubled you with no explanations of my own. We have come together again at a time when I am approaching the end of a service in the Executive Department of our government as long as has ever been vouchsafed by this nation to any citizen in the Department which I have conducted. Practically, I am already returned among you a private citizen, as I was when I was called into that service. The responsibilities and trials which have attended the government during that period have transcended in dignity and in interest any through which our government had previously passed, except, perhaps, in the Revolution. I trust that no equal responsibilities or trials are in reserve for the next administration, or are to be encountered by any future administration for many generations to come. I am by no means confident that I have not often erred. I have, nevertheless, a humble trust that at least these things can be said of me, by those of you whose friendship I am still permitted to enjoy, namely, that no act or word of mine brought on or hastened the lamentable civil war whose wounds it is our present object to heal; but, on the contrary, no act that I could perform, nor any word that I could utter, to prevent or even delay that calamity, was withheld. When that civil war came it found me on the ramparts of the Constitution, and so long as it was waged, no act or word of mine encouraged an enemy of the United States, at home or abroad; while, on the contrary, every act that I could lawfully perform, and every word that I could lawfully utter to save the national life, fearfully exposed at home and abroad, was performed and spoken. No act or word of mine has consented to the prolongation of slavery a single day. On