’57 the opposition, the hazards, in a word, of orderly and loyal liberty. Let me tell you, Mr. President, that what I have admired most of all in your policy has been that trait which Mr. Lincoln had in common with you—confidence. To believe in goodness is a principle which is rarely wrong. Confidence is a sign of strength ; it is contagious ; it disposes men to reciprocal generosity ; it paves the way for sincere and truthful reconciliations. Distrust perverts everything; it weakens and divides men. See what it has made of you ! Through its means, you would be drawn into a vicious circle ; the North would distrust the South, because it would see certain hostile tendencies still subsisting therein ; the South, in its turn, would passionately cling to these tendencies, because they were distrusted ; and distrust would engender hatred. This is not the way to re-establish the Union. If the prospect of hostilities arrests you, yon will never be reconciled. Yes, there will be hostility, there will be opposition, there will be embarrassment. He who shrinks from embarrassment will never do anything great. Doubtless, it would be more convenient indefinitely to govern and occupy the South ; only this convenient system would lead you to vast standing armies, and to vast expenditures, that is to say, to a military regime, to ruin, to despotism. It is to your honor, Mr. President, that you have understood this ; that you have desired that neither the local nor the general liberties of the United States should incur peril, and that you have pointed your storm-beaten vessel from the first moment to the port of refuge—the port of the ancient law, the ancient constitution, the American liberties as they were before the rebellion, and as they will be in the future. Perhaps I am authorized to say these things to-day, since I have been saying them for the last four years. We, your European friends, have unceasingly repeated to you this exhortation : After conquering the rebellion, and ending the negro question, open your arms to the South ; return quickly to the system of legality ; put an end to exceptional regimes, 8
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