It comprehends nothing less than the absolute consolidation of sixteen States,--not by liberty of speech, or public discussion, or freedom of suffrage, but by a tyranny of opinion which threatens timid dissentients with social ostracism…

It is a contest for equal rights under the Constitution, for simple justice between citizens of the same Republic.

Principle will re-assert itself; local and state interest will command a change.

Diversity of employment, the spirit of industrial enterprise, the unification of financial interests, will tend more and more to assimilate the populations, more and more to enforce an agreement, if not as to measures, yet assuredly as to…

No man in the North, valuing the freedom for which a great war was waged, desires to control the vote of a single individual in the South.

He only desires that every individual in the South, as in the North, shall control his own vote, and when that is done the result, whatever it may be, will always be cheerfully accepted.

Contention between sections, divided by a fixed line, is the most undesirable form of political controversy.

But consolidation on one side leads naturally and always to consolidation on the other side.

The growth of the country will ultimately effect an adjustment, but the reason of men should not wait for the mere power of numbers to settle questions which properly belong in the domain of reason alone.

As this increase continues, no policy could possibly be devised so fatal to Southern prosperity as that which Southern leaders have pursued since the close of the war.

Ceasing to be a slave the colored man must be a citizen.

He cannot be permanently held in a condition between the two.

His numbers will ultimately command what should now be yielded on the ground of simple justice and wise policy.

With the National arms triumphant, with the Union of the States made strong, the American people, in the quiet of domestic peace, in the enjoyment of wide-spread prosperity, should not forget the dangers and sacrifices which secured to…

Congress had the foresight, the philanthropy, the courage to choose the latter course, and to transform four millions of slaves into four millions of citizens.

A common danger awakened them to a sense of their aggregate strength, and that awakening proved to be the beginning of a new progress.

The dominance of the State-rights' school had created in the minds of the people a distrust of the power of the General Government,--a fact which no doubt was taken into the calculations of those who revolted against its authority.

Lincoln, in the midst of gigantic outlays for the war, authorized the building of the Pacific Railroad, and successfully used the Government credit to complete it in less time than the State-rights' leaders had been abortively debating the…

It is no exaggeration to say that the construction and repair of railway lines in the twenty years preceding 1881 involved an expenditure of money larger than the total National debt at the close of the war.

No period of history had been more marked by generous expenditure for worthy ends.

The provision made for those who suffered in the civil war has perhaps no parallel at home or abroad.

Such progress is not only unprecedented but phenomenal.

It could not have been made except under wise laws, honestly and impartially administered.

If the institution of Slavery could be rendered secure, the dominant minds of the South saw political power and boundless wealth within their grasp.

They saw that they could control the product and regulate the price of a staple in constant demand among every people on the globe.