4. Emphatic statements such as these, often repeated, insisting that the government of the States must be carefully kept in the hands of those whose loyalty was above suspicion, and advocating severe ordeals for those considered traitors, warranted the people of the nation in their faith in his extreme devotion to a strong Union. Yet soon after his inauguration a change in his attitude could be noticed. In his numerous speeches and interviews he shifts his ground, very gradually at first, but soon meeting the issue squarely, pledging himself to a policy which he faithfully carried into execution, and which the candid student must recognize as being thoroughly believed in by the President. Clemency towards the masses, but severity towards the leaders of the rebellion, was his attitude in his speech of April 21, above alluded to. He expressed his views as follows:[41] "It is not promulgating anything I have not heretofore said, to say that traitors must be made odious, that treason must be made odious, that traitors must be punished and impoverished. They must not only be punished, but their social power must be destroyed. If not, they will still maintain an ascendency, and may again become numerous and powerful; for, in the words of a former senator of the United States, 'when traitors become numerous enough, treason becomes respectable.' And I say that, after making treason odious, every Union man and the Government should be remunerated out of the pockets of those who have inflicted this great suffering upon the country. But do not understand me as saying this in a spirit of anger, for, if I understand my own heart, the reverse is the case; and while I say that the penalties of the law, in a stern and inflexible manner, should be executed upon conscious, intelligent and influential traitors--the leaders, who have deceived thousands upon thousands of laboring men who have been drawn into this rebellion--and while I say, as to the leaders, punishment, I also say leniency, conciliation and amnesty to the thousands whom they have misled and deceived."