It has always seemed to me that in the exercise of the pardoning power it would have been easy for the President to require that the person who was to receive a pardon should allot a certain portion of his lands to his freedmen.

A President properly inspired, and disposed to organize a true Reconstruction, could not have hesitated in such a requirement.

Where Congress has done so much, I am unwilling to believe it cannot do all that the emergency requires.

We must assure peace and security to these people, and, to that end, consider candidly, gently, carefully, the proper requirements, and then fearlessly provide for them.

Can he hesitate to say that every one of these requirements is in the nature of a guaranty, without which we shall not obtain that complete security for the future which our country has a right to expect?

Certainly not my friend from Oregon: he will not doubt the importance of education as a corner-stone of Reconstruction.

Let us apply ourselves to them, and I do not doubt that we can secure substantially to every head of a family among the freedmen a piece of land, and we may then go further, and, in the way of machinery, provide a vote by ballot instead of…

Let these resolutions be adopted and go to the country, and you will find that the gratitude of the American people, and of all Union men at the South, will come up to Congress for your act.

Justice in the way of a homestead can never be burden or penalty.

Each is a sacred duty which the nation owes to those who rightfully look to us for protection.

Now, at this moment, in the development of events, the people at the South rightfully look to us for protection.

They rightfully look to us, that, in laying the foundation-stone of future security, we shall see that those things are done which will make the security real, and not merely nominal.

I would not impose a burden even upon those who have trespassed so much against the Republic.

Never has one word fallen from my lips asking for their punishment, for any punishment of the South.

All that I ask is the establishment of human rights on a permanent foundation.

I am sure that my friend from Ohio seeks the establishment of future security; but he will allow me to say, that to my mind he abandons it at the beginning,--he fails at the proper moment to require guaranties without which future security…

I had the audacity then to assert the paramount power of Congress over the whole Rebel region.

A year ago I asserted on this floor that we must give the suffrage to all colored persons by Act of Congress and without Constitutional Amendment, founding myself on two grounds.

One was the solemn guaranty in the Constitution of a republican form of government; and I undertook to show that any denial of rights on account of color was unrepublican to such extent that the government sanctioning it could not be…

I then went further, and insisted, that, from the necessity of the case, at the present moment, Congress must accord the suffrage to all persons at the South, without distinction of color.

I insisted that it could be under the existing text of the Constitution; nay, more, that from the necessity of the case it must be in this way.

I have already said, I impose no burdens upon any man; but I insist upon the protection of rights.

And now, at this moment, as we are engaged in this great work of Reconstruction, I insist that the work shall be completely done.

And now, when I ask that my country, a republic, heir of all the ages, foremost in the tide of time, should do on this question only what the Emperor of Russia has done, I am met by grave Senators with the reproach that I am imposing new…

I am only asking new advantages for all in that distracted region, with new securities for my country, to the end that it may be safe, great, and glorious.