“I share all that gentleman’s aspirations for peace, for good government at the South; and I believe I can safely assure him that the great majority of the nation shares the same aspirations. But he will allow me to say that he has not fully stated the elements of the great problem to be solved by the statesmanship of to-day. The actual field is much broader than the view he has taken. And before we can agree that the remedy he proposes is an adequate one, we must take in the whole field, comprehend all the conditions of the problem, and then see if his remedy is sufficient. The change he proposes is not like the ordinary change of a ministry in England when the government is defeated on a tax-bill or some routine measure of legislation. He proposes to turn over the custody and management of the Government to a party which has persistently, and with the greatest bitterness, resisted all the great changes of the last fifteen years; changes which were the necessary results of a vast revolution—a revolution in national policy, in social and political ideas—a revolution whose causes were not the work of a day nor a year, but of generations and centuries. The scope and character of that mighty revolution must form the basis of our judgment when we inquire whether such a change as he proposes is safe and wise. “In discussing his proposition we must not forget that, as the result of this revolution, the South, after the great devastations of war, the great loss of life and treasure, the overthrow of its social and industrial system, was called upon to confront the new and difficult problem of two races—one just relieved from centuries of slavery, and the other a cultivated, brave, proud, imperious race—to be brought together on terms of equality before the law. New, difficult, delicate, and dangerous questions bristle out from every point of that problem. “But that is not all of the situation. On the other hand, we see the North, after leaving its 350,000 dead upon the field of battle and bringing home its 500,000 maimed and wounded to be cared for, crippled in its industries, staggering under the tremendous burden of public and private debt, and both North and South weighted with unparalleled burdens and losses—the whole nation suffering from that loosening of the bonds of social order which always follows a great war, and from the resulting corruption both in the public and the private life of the people. These, Mr. Chairman, constitute the vast field which we must survey in order to find the path which will soonest lead our beloved country to the highway of peace, of liberty and prosperity. Peace from the shock of battle; the higher peace of our streets, of our homes, of our equal rights, we must make secure by making the conquering ideas of the war every-where dominant and permanent. “With all my heart I join with the gentleman in rejoicing that—