44 preserve all their hopes ; their partial defeat has increased their passions without lessening their pretensions. Is your question finished ? No, indeed. I admit, doubtless, with pleasure that you have done much already ; I shall not go so far as to ask whether slavery is really abolished. But the negro question (this is its name) contains something more than the abolition of slavery. It contains besides the equality of the races. It was in the name of the inferiority of the negro race, that the insurrection of the South was accomplished. Its manifesto, set forth with frankness in the celebrated speech of Mr. Stephens, showed us the new system of society which it was about to found, reposing firmly upon the natural subordination of the African—on that block of black marble, styled the negro. The enemy, therefore, is still living ; so long as you have not proclaimed the equality of the races, you have not done with the South ; the negro question is not finished. Do not forget, moreover, the difference between ancient slavery and your own ; the latter relates exclusively to color, that is, to race. It is clear, in consequence, that slavery will remain standing in part, so long as color shall be an absolute cause of inferiority throughout a whole section of the United States. That there may be henceforth among you neither conquerors nor conquered, no one admits and desires more than myself, but on one condition, namely, that slavery itself shall be conquered. Of the rebellious South you have asked but one thing—you must really obtain it. If the cause which fired upon your flag at Fort Sumter still subsists, whether in a great or small degree, your war has been a useless massacre, your peace is scarcely a truce, and your whole policy is in danger of being a bitter deception. We will not speak of justice or humanity ; from the standpoint of the national interest, what should earnest men propose to themselves in America ? The suppression of dissensions with the South. Now, dissensions are suppressed only by finishing questions. You certainly, Mr. President, desire that civil war shall not break out afresh ; that the
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