It was an extraordinary proposition that the South, after all the demoralization wrought by the war, should be called upon to exhibit a higher degree of political justice and virtue than the North was willing to practice.
Blaine points out the unfairness of expecting the South to demonstrate political virtue when the North was not doing the same.
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These divergent practices had been allowed to develop for seventy-seven years of the nation's life, when, admonished by the Stockton case of the latitudinary results to which loose methods might lead, Congress took jurisdiction of the…
Their convention did more to popularize the Fourteenth Amendment as a political issue than any other instrumentality of the year.
Their success as civil magistrates, as legislators, as executives was not less marked and meritorious than their illustrious service in war.
I refer myself not to the men of my time, but to the judgment of history.
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