Having taken the responsibility of freeing them, first by Proclamation of the President and then by Amendment of the Constitution, it would have been a lasting reproach to the Government not to extend protection and assistance to such of them as were thrown into dire extremity of want.
Blaine asserts that the government had a moral obligation to assist freedmen after taking the step to free them.
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As slavery had been the chief inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die.
Of course the Rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor permit the Government to do it without their help. . . .
The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds.
That is his work and it cannot properly be taken out of his hands.
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