I invite the attention, not of Congress, but of the people of the United States, to the causes and effects of these unhappy questions.

Is there not a disposition on one side to magnify wrongs and outrages, and on the other side to belittle them or justify them?

If public opinion could be directed to a correct survey of what is and to rebuking wrong and aiding the proper authorities in punishing it, a better state of feeling would be inculcated, and the sooner we would have that peace which would…

I believe on the part of our citizens of the Southern States--the better part of them--there is a disposition to be law abiding, and to do no violence either to individuals or to the laws existing.

I sympathize with their prostrate condition, and would do all in my power to relieve them, acknowledging that in some instances they have had most trying governments to live under, and very oppressive ones in the way of taxation for…

But can they proclaim themselves entirely irresponsible for this condition?

While I remain Executive all the laws of Congress and the provisions of the Constitution, including the recent amendments added thereto, will be enforced with rigor, but with regret that they should have added one jot or tittle to…

Let there be fairness in the discussion of Southern questions, the advocates of both or all political parties giving honest, truthful reports of occurrences, condemning the wrong and upholding the tight, and soon all will be well.

Under existing conditions the negro votes the Republican ticket because he knows his friends are of that party.

Many a good citizen votes the opposite, not because he agrees with the great principles of state which separate parties, but because, generally, he is opposed to negro rule.

Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter, as he is and must remain, and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle.

I recommend the restoration of this bounty to all such.

They are all old persons, who could have taken no part in the rebellion, and the services for which they were awarded pensions were in defense of the whole country.

I have stated that three elements of prosperity to the nation--capital, labor, skilled and unskilled, and products of the soil--still remain with us.

If employment can be given to all the labor offering itself, prosperity necessarily follows.

I have expressed the opinion, and repeat it, that the first requisite to the accomplishment of this end is the substitution of a sound currency in place of one of a fluctuating value.

How to induce capital to employ labor is the question.

If anything better can be done to direct the country into a course of general prosperity, no one will be more ready than I to second the plan.

Our liberties remain unimpaired; the bondmen have been freed from slavery; we have become possessed of the respect, if not the friendship, of all civilized nations.

One hundred years ago the cotton gin, the steamship, the railroad, the telegraph, the reaping, sewing, and modern printing machines, and numerous other inventions of scarcely less value to our business and happiness were entirely unknown.

The extraordinary effect produced in our country by a resort to diversified occupations has built a market for the products of fertile lands distant from the seaboard and the markets of the world.

The American system of locating various and extensive manufactories next to the plow and the pasture, and adding connecting railroads and steamboats, has produced in our distant interior country a result noticeable by the intelligent…

But for the extraordinary genius and ability of our mechanics, the achievements of our agriculturists, manufacturers, and transporters throughout the country would have been impossible of attainment.

So with iron, which formed scarcely an appreciable part of our products half a century ago, we now produce more than the world consumed at the beginning of our national existence.

The development of gold and silver mines in the United States and Territories has not only been remarkable, but has had a large influence upon the business of all commercial nations.