They were to determine on what terms the men who had taken part in the rebellion should be fully restored to citizenship.

They were to determine the civil and political condition of more than five million people just set free from slavery.

They were to secure fair elections in fifteen States, where for many years neither free elections nor free speech had been tolerated.

They were to confront the greatest temptation that ever besets men of Anglo-Saxon race, a race ever restless and ever hungry for empire.

The people felt that they had suffered a grievous wrong from England, and that unless there were reparation, which England had so far steadily refused either to make or consider, the honor of the country required that we should exact it by…

This put an undue and most dangerous power into the hands of the party controlling the Government.

They had passed, over the veto of President Johnson, an act of disputed and quite doubtful constitutionality, seriously crippling the Executive power of removal from office, without which the President's constitutional duty to see that the…

This not only threatened the freedom of election, but itself brought a corrupting influence into the Administration of the Government.

But there was a still greater danger than all these in the corruption which then, as always, followed a great war.

Unprincipled and greedy men sought to get contracts and jobs from the Government by the aid of influential politicians.

This corruption not only affected all branches of the Civil Service, especially the War and the Navy and the Treasury, but poisoned legislation itself.

Men wounded or disabled in the Military or Naval Service, and their widows and orphans, were to be provided for by a liberal pension system.

Whatever has been accomplished in this period, which seems to me the most brilliant period in legislative history of any country in the world, has been accomplished by the Republican Party over Democratic opposition.

The failure to secure honest National elections and the political and civil rights of the colored people is the failure of the Republican Party and the success of its Democratic antagonist.

With that exception, to all the problems which confronted the country in 1869 the Republican Party has given a simple, wise, final and most successful solution.

It has done it not only without help, but over the constant opposition of its Democratic antagonist.

In spite of dishonest and subtle counsel, and in spite of great temptation, we have dealt with the public debt on the simple and honest principle that the only thing to do with a debt is to pay it.

Indeed the ease with which it can be transported and the certainty of its redemption makes the paper money of the United States better than gold.

The United States has joined the commercial nations of the first rank in making gold the world's standard of value.

The arguments in support of the free coinage of silver were specious and dangerous.

The policy of protection to American industry, which, like the question of honest elections, has been always in contest between the Republican Party and its Democratic antagonist has, unless during the two Administrations of President…

As a consequence of that policy our manufacturing independence has been achieved.

The United States has become the foremost manufacturing nation in the world.

We are penetrating foreign markets, and have built up a domestic commerce, the like of which has never been seen before, and whose extent surpasses the power of human imagination to conceive and almost of mathematics to calculate.

He has fallen at the very gate of an honorable and eminent career, and a thousand hopes are buried in his grave.