“The last of the Southern States is admitted to its full privileges as a member of the brotherhood of States; the Constitutional Amendments intended to secure the principles established by the war and subsequent events have been accepted as valid. There can be no fear or danger of their being disturbed.”[196] But these things are forgotten; the Sermon on the Mount is forgotten also; the Beatitudes are put aside. A great writer of the Middle Ages, after dwelling on what is best for us, says:-- “Hence it is that not riches, not pleasures, not honors, not length of life, not health, not strength, not comeliness, was sung to the shepherds from on high, but peace.”[197] The supporters of reëlection will not hearken to this song, and the proffered hand is rejected. If not war, they would preserve at least the passions of war, and instead of peace would scatter distrust and defiance. The old fable is renewed:-- “Emboldened now on fresh attempt he goes, With serpent’s teeth the fertile furrows sows; The glebe fermenting with enchanted juice Makes the snake’s teeth a human crop produce.”[198] For me there can be but one course on this issue, and the moment it was presented I seemed to behold, for the first time, the dawn of that better era in our country when the Equal Rights of All should be placed under the safeguard of assured Peace and Reconciliation. Had I failed to sympathize with this endeavor, I should have been false to the record of my life. My first public utterance, as far back as July 4, 1845, was to commend the cause of Peace, which from that early day, amidst the contentions of public duty and the terrible responsibilities of war, has never been absent from my mind. While insisting on the Abolition of Slavery, while urging Enfranchisement, while vindicating the Equal Rights of All, and while pressing Reconstruction, I have constantly declared that all these were for no purpose of vengeance or punishment, but only for the security of the citizen and the establishment of government on just foundations, and that when this was done nobody should outdo me in those generosities that become the conqueror more than his conquest. PERSONAL RECORD. Here the testimony is complete. If I open it now, it is less to show the obligations which constrain me personally than to make these witnesses plead again the cause which from the beginning I have had at heart. I follow the order of time, letting each speak in a few words. There are some among us who may remember that early speech before the Republican State Convention at Worcester, October 1, 1861, which excited at the time so much discussion, when, after calling for Emancipation, I united this cause with Peace:-- “Two objects are before us, _Union and Peace_, each for the sake of the other, and both for the sake of the country; but without Emancipation how can we expect either?”[199] Thus at the beginning was I mindful of Peace.