I have no other feeling but that of pity for the opposition party, who were deceived and led by adventurers having only their own personal aggrandizement and aims in view, with neither interest, character, nor self-respect at stake; for…

It is all three,--condition, law, compact,--and, as all three, binding.

He knows well what is the technical State, which is found in form, in technicality, in privilege, if you please,--for he has made himself to-night the advocate of privilege.

To my mind the State is the people, and its highest office is their just safeguard; and when it is declared that a State hereafter shall not take away the right of any of its people, here is no infringement of anything that belongs to a…

A State can have no right or privilege to do wrong; nor can the denial of this pretension disparage the State, or in any way impair its complete equality with other States.

The States have no power except to do justice.

Therefore, Sir, in the name of Right, do I insist that it is binding upon the State.

The people constitute the State in the just sense, and it has been always our duty to protect them, and this I now propose to do.

I return to the point, that what it is proposed to prohibit by these fundamental conditions no State can of right do.

Therefore to require that Virginia shall not do these things is no infringement of anything that belongs to a State, for a State can have no such privilege.

Does he not remember how in English history Liberty has been won by just such repetitions?

True, it was all there; but the repetition was needed in order to press it home upon the knowledge and the conscience of the people.

Is not the great distinction in this fact, that England has no written Constitution,--that the Great Charter is a mere Act of Parliament, which may be repealed to-morrow?

With us we have a written Constitution; and when its terms and provisions are once clear, do we not weaken, do we not show our lack of faith, that is, our lack of confidence in the value of the provisions, by reënacting it in the form of a…

And I believe that the time is at hand when another document of our history will stand side by side with the Constitution, and enjoy with it coëqual authority, as it has more than the renown of the Constitution: I mean the Declaration of…

To all the promises and the pledges of that great Declaration are we all pledged, whether as Nation or as State.

Full well, Sir, I know that in other days, when Slavery prevailed in this Chamber, there was a different rule of interpretation; but I had thought that our war had changed all that.

This greatest victory was the establishment of a new rule of interpretation by which the institutions of our country are dedicated forevermore to Human Rights, and the Declaration of Independence is made a living letter instead of a…

I unite with him in his aspirations for that security in the future which I say is the first great object now of our legislation in matters of Reconstruction.

Without security in the future Reconstruction is a failure; and that now should be our first, prime object.

Why, without inquiry, hand over the loyalists of Virginia, bound hand and foot, as victims?” That is what I have said; and it is no answer for my friend to say that I do not declare whether I would have a new election or not.

Now it may be, that, when that inquiry is made, it will appear that I am mistaken,--that this election is not the terrible fraud that I believe it,--that the loyal people, black and white, will hereafter be secure in the State of Virginia…

It is apparent that loyalists will not be secure, that freedmen will suffer unknown peril, unless you now throw over them your protecting arm.

It is strange to see the forgetfulness of great principles into which Senators have been led by partisanship.

Certain Senators forget the people, forget the lowly, only to remember Rebels.