But all that we have done, next after the safety of the Republic, is for the good of those who were our enemies, and who despitefully used us.

Never before was clemency so sublime; never before was a rebel people surrounded by beneficence so comprehensive.

Great as was the Republic in arms, it is greater still in the majesty of its charity.

They are not harsh, unless it is harsh to give every man his due.

If they are harsh, then is beneficence harsh, then is charity harsh.

But the measure is not only impracticable,--it is inexpedient, as multiplying, instead of simplifying, the forms of currency.

It is only by outraging every principle of justice, stifling every sympathy with Human Rights, and discarding common sense, and, still further, by forgetting all the sacred obligations of country, that we can submit to see political power…

For the sake of the freedman, for the sake of his former master, for the sake of all, and for the sake of the Republic, this must not be.

Two questions are presented by the enemies of these Acts: first, on the Power of Congress; and, secondly, on the Equal Rights of the Freedman.

As well say that the power over the Territories, the war power, the guaranty power, and the power to enforce the abolition of Slavery, do not exist; as well say that the Constitution itself does not exist.

His usurpation has been overthrown, but his testimony to the power of the Nation remains.

When the Nation speaks, it is by Congress,--as the Roman Republic spoke by its Senate and people, Senatus Populusque Romanus, in whose name went forth those great decrees which ruled the world.

I have already exhibited the power of Congress in four different sources; but beyond these is the principle, that Congress, in the exercise of political powers, cannot be questioned.

It is political in every aspect, whether regarded as springing from the necessity of the case, from the rights of war, from the obligation to guaranty a republican government, or from the power to enforce the abolition of Slavery.

Reconstruction is as political as the war, or as any of the means for its conduct.

Congress has done this great act of justice, and, thank God, it cannot be undone.

It has already taken its place in the immortal covenants of history, and become a part of the harmonies of the universe.

As well attempt to undo the Declaration of Independence, or suspend the law of gravitation.

The bloody horrors of San Domingo, where France undertook to cancel Emancipation, testify with a voice of wail that a race once lifted from Slavery cannot be again degraded.

Human Rights, when at last obtained, cannot be wrested back without a conflict in which God will rage against the oppressor.

I defend it in all respects,--not only as an act of essential justice, without which our Nation would be a deformity, but as an irresistible necessity, for the sake of that security without which peace is impossible.

To enfranchise those only who could read and write or pay a certain tax was not enough.

Surely an unlettered Unionist is better than a Rebel, however learned or wise, and on all practical questions will vote more nearly right.

If there is to be exclusion, let it be of the disloyal, and not of the loyal.

Nobody can place the value of education too high; but is it just to make it the prerequisite to any right of citizenship?