If the negroes of the South, four million strong, had been endowed with the elective franchise, and had united with the white people of that region in the work of rebellion, your armies would have been powerless to subdue that rebellion, and you would to-day have seen your territory limited by the Potomac and the Ohio.
He argues that if Southern blacks had been granted voting rights, the outcome of the Civil War would have been different.
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More from George Boutwell
General Grant was not indisposed to see the territories of the Republic extended, but his love of justice and fair dealing was such that he would have used only honorable means in his intercourse with other nations.
There was never in his career any ostentatious display of power, never any exercise of wanton or unnecessary authority.
He possessed wit, sarcasm and irony in every form.
I believe now, as I did then, that it was for the best interests of this country, for the people of Santo Domingo, and all concerned, that the proposition should be received favorably.
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