6 against the doctrines which confound rebellion and foreign war, and which transform insurgents into belligerents. Crime has remained crime ; but you have shown yourself ready to mitigate, with rare generosity, the sentences of the tribunals. This was beginning the vast work of reconstruction at the right end. Much more, you have invited the rebel states to reorganize ; you have felt that it was necessary to abridge, as much as possible, the always perilous interval which separates the close of the struggle from the complete re-establishment of order. You have proceeded unhesitatingly in the disbanding of the army. Thanks to the measures which you have taken, the military regime has lost its chance of power, the balance between the receipts and the expenditures has been re-established, the redemption of the national debt has been secured ; lastly, all the friends of America have been permitted to discern the near approaching moment wrhen liberal institutions will resume their full sway, without having been in any manner weakened by civil war, a fact unique in the history of mankind ! I bow before the wisdom of such a policy. It is simple, like everything that is great. It is resolute, like everything that is good. If a few petty mistakes have been made, if the withdrawal of the garrisons from the South has, perhaps, been (fleeted with somewhat excessive haste, these errors are honorable, for they proceed from that trusting generosity which wins the heart and which is the privilege of true strength. I would observe here, moreover, that foreign questions have been treated with not less good sense and decision than internal questions. By the immediate and rapid disbanding you have provided against temptations -which might have been created by your immense armies. You have firmly presented your maritime reclamations with respect to England ; but, without abandoning your just protests against the act which, from the first moment, transformed insurgents into belligerents, you have shown the most obtuse that the discussion in no event will degenerate
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