But I am bound to say, indeed it is but to repeat what I have said many times, that my long conflict with their leaders has impressed me with an ever-increasing admiration of the great and high qualities of our Southern people.

We may well take pattern from them in some of the great virtues which make up the strength, as they make the glory, of Free States.

Now, my friends, we cannot afford to live, we don't wish to live, and we will not live, in a state of estrangement from a people who possess these qualities.

They are our kindred; bone of our bone; flesh of our flesh; blood of our blood, and whatever may be the temporary error of any Southern State I, for one, if I have a right to speak for Massachusetts, say to her, 'Entreat me not to leave…

They received what I had to say, although they knew I differed from them on some of the gravest matters which concerned the State, and had been an anti-slavery man from my youth, with a respect and courtesy which left nothing to be desired.

My own endeavor, during my long public life, has been to maintain the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, which declares the right of every man to political equality by virtue of his manhood, and of every people to self-government…

This our fathers meant to lay down as the fundamental law of States and of the United States, having its steadfast and immovable foundation in the law of God.

It was never their purpose to declare that ignorance or vice or want of experience of the institutions of a country should not disqualify men from a share in the Government.

But they did not mean that the accident of birthplace, or the accident of race, or the accident of color, should enter into the question at all.

I would deal with the Negro or the German or the Frenchman or the Italian on the same principle.

But the one thing I have never consented to is that a man shall be kept out of this country, or kept in a position of inferiority, while he is in it, because of his color, because of his birthplace, or because of his race.

On the other hand, in the Senate, where there is no cloture rule, any single member, or at best, a very few members, can defeat an Appropriation Bill and compel an extra session by exercising their right of uncontrolled debate.

I prepared a Constitutional amendment providing that the inauguration should take place on the last Thursday in April.

If that had been adopted, if the session were to begin in the middle of November, a week after the November elections-- which could be accomplished by an act of Congress--instead of thirteen weeks, to which the session is now limited…

The public danger is found in the fact that there is no provision in the Constitution for the case where the President-elect dies before inauguration.

Strictly construed, it is only in the case of the death, inability, etc., of a President, that a Vice-President can succeed, or in the case of the death, inability, etc., of the President and Vice-President both, that Congress has power to…

That his is not an imaginary danger is shown by the fact of the well-known scheme to assassinate Lincoln on his way to the seat of the Government, and also by the fact that either the President or the Vice-President has died in office so…

I have also drawn and repeatedly procured the passage through the Senate of an amendment to the Constitution to protect the country against this danger.

In case of removal, death, resignation or inability of both the President and the Vice-President of the United States, the President of the Senate, or, if there is none, then the Speaker of the House, for the time being, shall act as…

On the other hand, the Secretary of State is always a member of the party that has prevailed in the last election, and is usually the member of the party, next to the President himself, highest in its confidence.

Our Secretaries of State, with rare exceptions, have been among the very ablest public men of the country.

On the other hand, the list of Presidents of the Senate contains few names of any considerable distinction.

I had no political sympathy with Senator Hill, still less with the claim often imputed to the Senate by writers of newspapers, but of which I have never seen the slightest evidence, that Senators have the right to dictate such appointments.

I should like to put on record my great esteem for his character as a man, and the excellence of his service as a Senator.

He was industrious, wise, conservative, courteous, and fair, a most admirable lawyer, full of public spirit, well acquainted with the mechanism of the Government, and doing always much more than his full share of the work of the Committee…