Whitelaw Reid: “Secondly, as the legitimate and necessary consequence of our own previous acts, it has become our national and…”

In November nothing could exceed the hatred which seemed everywhere felt to the freedmen.

Here was the opportunity for a statesman to grasp.

No matter what we wish, the old continental isolation is gone forever.

Congress is supreme, and, for all the purposes of this department, has all the powers of the people of the United States, except such as have been expressly or by implication reserved in the prohibitions of the Constitution.