It might have surprised those English critics to learn that the opponents of the Reconstruction policy at home could find nothing to say of it so denunciatory or so concentrated in bitterness as that the National Government was trying to…

The comparison of the Southern States under the measures of Reconstruction, with Ireland under the measures of the British Government, naturally suggested by hostile criticism in the English press, is not without its useful lessons.

But in Ireland, according to eminent British statesmen and historian, the suffering was from directly opposite causes.(3) Self-government of all the people was the rule established in the Southern States: subjection of all the people and…

A race gifted with many of the noblest qualities of humanity, strong in intellect and quick in apprehension, could not for centuries complain of grievances if they did not exist, and the grievances could not exist for centuries without…

The one safeguard against an evil so great was the restoration of self-government to the people who had rebelled, the broadening of the elective franchise, the abolition of caste and privilege.

If Englishmen had studied the Reconstruction policy instead of deriding it, they might have learned that the American Government accomplished for the South in four years what their own Government has failed to accomplish for Ireland…

Sumner said: "If the case against England is strong, and if our claims are unprecedented in magnitude, it is only because the conduct of that power at a trying period was most unfriendly, and the injurious consequences of this conduct were…

The truth must be told, not in anger, but in sadness.

England has done to the United States an injury most difficult to measure.

At a great epoch of history, not less momentous than that of the French Revolution or that of the Reformation, when civilization was fighting a last battle with slavery, England gave her influence, her material resources, to the wicked…

It would certainly be an unjust imputation upon the magnanimity and upon the courage of the people of the United States to represent them as waiting for an opportunity to inflict harm upon England for her conduct towards this Government in…

It was not by indirection, or by stealthy blows, or by secret connivance with enemies, or by violations of international justice, that the United States would ever have sought to avenge herself on England for the wrongs she had received.

Conscience does make cowards of us all; and Great Britain, foreseeing the possibility of being herself engaged in a European war, was in a position to dread lest her ill intentions and her misdeed in the time of our civil struggle should…

But the Government of England has been unwilling to perform the duty which had thus been agreed upon, and this refusal gives rise to the impression that England does not desire to bind itself with other nations as she has bound herself…

I alone remain, and after finishing the threescore years and ten that are the days of our years, am selected by my country to uphold its rights.

Wars have grown out of less aggravation and dispute between nations; but the Government of the United States had never anticipated such a result as possible, and felt assured that in the end Great Britain would not refuse to make the…

I should have affirmed then, as, undeterred by what has occurred since then, I affirm now, that secession was a right, that separation is a fact, and that reconstruction is an impossibility." Mr.

They furnish the raw material of our industry, and they consume the produce which we manufacture from it.

With them, therefore, every interest must lead us to cultivate friendly relations, and we have seen that when the war began they at once recurred to England as their natural ally.

I know that language will strike the heart of the peace party in this country, but it will also strike the heart of the insolent people who govern America.

America while she was united ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world.

Eighty years made the Republic such a power, that if she had continued as she was a few years longer she would have been the great bully of the world. . . .

As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union. . . .

I say then that the Southern States have indicated their right to recognition; they hold out to us advantages such as the world has never seen before.

The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.