They must be paid, unless a promise can be delayed so long as to amount to a fulfillment. They must be paid. The question is, "How?" The answer is, "By the industry and prosperity of the people." They cannot be paid by law. Law made them; labor must pay them; and they must be paid out of the profits of the people. We must pay the debt with eggs, not with goose. In a terrible war we spent thousands of millions; all the bullets thrown; all the powder burned; all the property destroyed, of every sort, kind, and character; all the time of the people engaged--all these things were a dead loss. The debt represents the loss. Paying the debt is simply repairing the loss. When we, as a people, shall have made a net amount, equal to the amount thrown, as it were, away in war, or somewhere near that amount, we will resume specie payment; we will redeem our promises. We promised on paper, we shall pay in gold and silver. We asked the people to hold this paper until we got the money, and they are holding the paper and we are getting the money. As soon as the slaves were free, the Republican party said, "They must be citizens, not vagrants." The Democratic party opposed this just, this generous measure. The freedmen were made citizens. The Republican party then said, "These citizens must vote; they must have the ballot, to keep what the bullet has won." The Democratic party said "No." The negroes received the ballot. The Republican party then said, "These voters must be educated, so that the ballot shall be the weapon of intelligence, not of ignorance." The Democratic party objected. But schools were founded, and books were put in the hands of the colored people, instead of whips upon their backs. We said to the Southern people, "The colored men are citizens; their rights must be respected; they are voters, they must be allowed to vote; they were and are our friends, and we are their protectors." All this was accomplished by the Republican party. It changed the organic law of the land, so that it is now a proper foundation for a free government; it struck the cruel shackles from four million human beings; it put down the most gigantic rebellion in the history of the world; it expunged from the statute books of every State, and of the Nation, all the cruel and savage laws that Slavery had enacted; it took whips from the backs, and chains from the limbs, of men; it dispensed with bloodhounds as the instruments of civilization; it banished to the memory of barbarism the slave-pen, the auction block, and the whipping-post; it purified a Nation; it elevated the human race.