and your policy, if it be maintained, promises a redemption the promptitude of which will be a cause for astonishment. Nevertheless the peril is close at hand, and the unconditional admission of the South would speedily endanger your whole policy, beginning with the measures designed to fulfil your most sacred obligations. IV. It is so easy to proceed differently ! The point at stake, Mr. President, is neither to withdraw the generous advances which you have made to the South, nor to strengthen the system of military occupation, nor long to postpone the Southern representation in Congress, but only to insure the results acquired at the cost of so many sacrifices ; to end (and consequently to remove) the cause of enmity which, so long as it subsists in any form whatsoever, will not permit you to enjoy pefice. The point at stake, in a word, is to reestablish a true union. When the loyal states shall have done what they alone are competent to do, when they shall have set the seal on the abolition of slavery, when they shall have guaranteed the complete freedom of men of color in the South, when they shall have secured to them (prudently and progressively, I mean) the civil and political rights without which there are no citizens, when they shall have voted the transitional measures for federal protection, without which these rights would remain a dead letter, and when they shall have received besides the pledge of the South with respect to the national debt, then we shall witness the opening of an era of pacification. The reconciliation, impracticable on the fiery ground on which vou have contended with so much violence, will be- come sincere as soon as the negro question shall have disappeared. New debates, new interests, and new passions, will give birth to new parties. You will discuss, you will contend, you will gain and lose Congressional battles ; but all this will be without peril, for the fundamental quarrel of the North and the South will no longer be at hand to envenom
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