African, who was in a far lower circle of development, of equal civil and political privileges with the white must be disallowed; and it be fully conceded that the southern people, leaders and all, were but doing their conscience-commanded duty throughout. Also we of the south must learn that the root-and-branch abolitionist, even in his wildest moments--Sumner refusing in the United States senate to show respect to Butler's gray hairs, Wendell Phillips degrading Washington below Toussaint, Garrison denouncing the slavery-protecting constitution as a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, John Brown's raid into Virginia--was just as conscientious as Robert Lee was when he was defending the soil of his native State. They were each irresistibly constrained by the powers working to save the union to think his particular action right and the highest patriotism. When the quarrel is over, when the broil and the feud have been fought out and the survivors have shaken hands, when the lawsuit has become a thing of the past and the litigants have renewed their old relations, no wise and good man keeps repeating the accusations of bad faith and of unrighteous conduct which he passionately hurled against his adversary during the variance. Rather he confesses to himself, "I wronged him when I said those hot words;" and his repentance does not bring complete peace until he has found his brother and taken all of them back. If it only could be, the nation ought to have a great reunion, a feast of reconcilement, where, with proper solemnities, the people of each section, with their forefathers and leaders, should be fully and finally exculpated as to everything done for or against slavery by the people of the other section. It is plain that both ought to forget and forgive. They ought to do still more. They ought to compete each in utmost effort to vindicate the favorites and loved ones of the other the more intelligently, and to admire and praise them the more enthusiastically. This would be to bring the millennium nearer, and give our country "a nobleness in record upon" all others. It only needs for this consummation to cast aside the remnant of greatly diminished prejudice, and make a brief study of a small volume of material evidence and of the ordinary principles which guide the conduct of the good citizen. Such study will show that southerner and northerner throughout their fell encounter have each the very highest claims to the respect and love of the entire nation. What a golden deed it was of President McKinley when, December 14, 1898, fully using a rare opportunity, he spake in his high place to the members of the Georgia legislature this message of reunion: