68 without first terminating the negro question, to abandon to the Southern states the regulation of the right of suffrage, would be unreservedly to deliver over to them the colored population ; it would not be testifying confidence in them, but sacrificing the victors to the vanquished. - There are two kinds of confidence. There is that which maintains principles, while opening the arms to persons; that which you have nobly practised, and in which you cannot too earnestly persevere. There is also that which puts principles in peril in order the better to welcome persons ; do not suffer yourself to be led astray by this. You will not suffer yourself to be thus led astray. You will listen to the voice, removed from all suspicion, of the friends of America, in whose counsels there enters no suspicion of hidden malevolence or opposition. I have often observed, as you know, how Mr. Lincoln modified his first opinions. It is the mark of free and sincere minds that they are always learning. Mr. Lincoln certainly did not entertain, at the beginning of his presidency, the designs which he accomplished, with respect to slavery. He learned, he kept his heart and eyes open to the teachings which God gave through great events. o o o What these great events taught both Mr. Lincoln, and your country, and us all, was, that one cannot be too faithful to his principles, that he cannot too firmly believe what he believes, that he cannot too completely do what he does ; and that he must finish what he has begun. There has not been a hesitation of which you have not repented, not a compromise which has not cost you dear, not a middle course the success of which has not been a public calamity. The most moderate have comprehended this teaching of your four years’ strife. The South, doubt not, has not been the last to comprehend it. The same mail that brought us your conversation with Mr. Stearns, also brought us the letter addressed by John Reagan, Ex-Postmaster-Gcneral of the Confederate States, to Governor Hamilton of Texas. •Mr. Reagan sees like us that, for the conflict of slavery to
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=