And now, Mr. President, they ask us to do what? To forgive the past and let by-gones be by-gones. You hear on the right hand and on the left, from every quarter, "Let by-gones be by-gones; let us forget the past and rub it out." Sir, we have no disposition to forget the past. We have a record of which we are proud. We have a record that has gone into history. There we propose to let it stand. We never propose to blot out that record. There are no thousand years in the world's history in which so much has been accomplished for human liberty and human progress as has been accomplished by this great Republican party in the short space of ten years. Blot out that record? Never, sir, never! It is a record that will go down in history through all times as the proudest ever made by any political party that ever existed on earth. But, sir, do gentlemen of the Democratic party want to blot out their record? I do not blame them for wanting to, for that record is a record of treason. It, too, has gone into history, and there it must stand through all ages. Sir, the young men of this country are looking at these two records, and they are making up their minds as to which they desire their names to go down to history upon; and I am happy to say that of the young men now coming upon the stage of action, nine out of every ten are joining this great Republican party. They desire that their record shall be associated with those who saved this great nation, and not with those who attempted its overthrow. The day is far distant when that old Democratic party that attempted to overthrow this government will again be entrusted with power by the people of this nation.... Mr. President, if this record of the two parties does not please my Democratic friends, I have only to say to them that they made it deliberately and they have got to stand by it. On June 6, 1872, Mr. Chandler replied in the Senate to that part of Mr. Sumner's elaborate attack upon General Grant in which he declared that Edwin M. Stanton had said, in his last days, "General Grant cannot govern this country." The excessive egotism, which marred Mr. Sumner's character and which inspired that unfortunate speech, was always a cause of impatience with Mr. Chandler, and this display of it aroused his anger. In his reply, he challenged squarely the credibility of Mr. Sumner's statement. He first read from Mr. Stanton's reported speeches, to show that their enthusiastic and repeated commendation of General Grant by name proved that Mr. Sumner's assertion that Mr. Stanton had also said, "In my speeches I never introduced the name of General Grant; I spoke for the Republican cause and the Republican party," was exactly contrary to the fact. He then proceeded: