These people have discovered that they must tolerate the opinions of others, but their intolerant spirits have not yet been sufficiently disciplined to it; and so it happens that sometimes, now, their utter impotence only serves to increase their malice.
Reid comments on the struggle of Southern people to accept differing opinions post-Civil War, highlighting their lingering malice.
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Public sentiment was against the sale of lands to the Yankees; “Get white laborers,” they urged, “and in a year you’ll make enough to be able to hold on to your lands.
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.
Let those who invoke the Supreme Law of the land learn and bow to it.
Brushing aside, then, these bugbears, gentlemen, what are the obvious duties of the hour?