63 pression by violence avoided ? Is not the policy of conquest set aside ? Are not affairs directed in a remarkable spirit of conciliation, dignity, loyalty, and legality ? Is it not glorious to see a government hasten to abdicate the exceptional powers with which it was invested, and to disband the vast armies which were at its disposal ? Is not this ardent return, at times imprudent in its precipitancy, and certainly generous, towa • i a normal state of affairs, toward reconstruction, toward liberty, a spectacle calculated to rejoice the eyes and heart ? Docs not the progress of the United States contradict the fears of their enemies and exceed the hopes of their friends ? Yes, indeed ; and I certify this while blessing God. But all is not finished, and there are things which must be finished, under penalty of beginning them anew. The negro question is in this category. I should be an unfaithful friend to America if I did not point out to it to-day, at the risk of displeasing it, the immense peril of postponement. I prefer displeasing to betraying it. If I have any popularity among you, I would willingly sacrifice it to the necessity of being useful to you. Never will a Congress have had the importance of that which is about to assemble. From its first session, it will find before it the whole question of your policy. Its first votes will decide the future; they will have a scope which will equal that of the votes which, in the last century, fixed the bases of your Constitution. Oh ! how formidable is the danger of believing that all is finished ! Precisely because we have commenced well, because we can rejoice by just right at the success which we have obtained, we slumber, we abandon our task, we forget to put the last stroke to the work undertaken, to the edifice which we have constructed, and which lacks only the crowning arch. There is a class of satisfied men among you whom I infinitely distrust. They are those who celebrate with exaggeration your progress toward what is good, in order to prevent
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