at stake is merely a dispute as to the constitutional form of procedure ; but it is to know whether you shall remain the masters of your future—whether you shall finish what you have begun. The problem of the colored race, which must be shown in all its fullness, and called by its true name, will not suffer a division. It must be resolved entire. After freeing the colored race, you cannot leave it, so to speak, suspended in the air, halfway between heaven and earth, between servitude and freedom. Neither can you introduce into your Congress the states which have just fought for slavery before insuring to their slaves of yesterday the guarantees of common law. Two connected and inseparable discussions are thus opened. Permit me to accost them without further preamble. I feel the more at liberty to enter with you into these questions, inasmuch as I have hitherto sincerely admired the acts of your administration. After the death of Mr. Lincoln, I trembled, I confess. In mourning this great citizen, in mourning, I almost dare say, as one mourns a friend, I could not help fearing lest the inheritance might be too heavy for his successor. But your attitude speedily reassured me. It was firm and commanding ; we all felt, on seeing you thus resolute, that the destinies of a great people did not depend, thank God ! on the pistol of an assassin. You have been firm and gentle ; you have comprehended that civil wars are ended only by kindness ; you have not permitted the political scaffold to be erected in the United States. You have given to your victory that character of complete magnanimity, the example of which has been unknown to our old world. At the same time, you have maintained the sacred rights of justice. You have given, not a hackneyed amnesty, but individual pardons. You have desired that the leader of the rebellious government should be subjected to trial, and that judgment should precede pardon. You have thus protested
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