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not in a condition to listen patiently to pleas for postponement, . hcwever plausible, nor will it permit the responsibility to be shifted to other shoulders. Authority and pcwer are here corrnensurate with the duty iirposed. There are no cloud-flung shadows to obscure the way. Truth shines with brighter light and intenser heat at every moment, and a country torn and rent and bleeding irrplores relief from its distress and agony.
If time was at first needed, Congress has now had time.
All the requisite materials fron which to form an intelligent
judgment are now before it. Whether its meirtoers look at the origin,
the progress, the termination of the war, or at the mockery of
a peace now existing, they will find only one unbroken chain of argument
in favor of a radical policy of reconstruction. For the emissions
of the last session, some excuses irey be allowed. A treacherous
President stood in the way; and it can be easily seen how reluctant
good men might be to admit an apostasy which involved so much
of baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that they should seek
to save him ky bending to him even when he leaned to the side
of error. But all is changed now. Congress knows now that it mast
go on without Ms aid, and even against his irac±±nations.
The advantage of the present session over the last is immense.
Where that investigated, this has die facts. Where that walked ty faith,
this way walk ty sight. Where that halted, this rrust go forward,
and where that failed, this rtust succeed, giving the country whole
measures where that gave us half-measures, merely as a means of
saving the elections in a fev doubtful districts. That Congress saw
what was right, but distrusted the enlightenment of the loyal nesses;
but what ves forborne in distrust of the people most now be done
with a full knowledge that the people expect and require it.
The msrbers go to Washington fresh from the inspiring presence of the people
In every considerable public meeting, and in almost every conceivable way,
whether at court-house, school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out,
the subject has been discussed, and the people have orphatically pronounced
in favor of a radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency
and conprcraise with pity, impatience, and disgust, the/ have everywhere
broken into doronstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word
has been spoken in favor of equal rights and irrpartial suffrage.
Radicalism, so far from being odious, is not the popular passport to pcwer.
The men most bitterly charged with it go to Congress with the
largest majorities, while the timid and doubtful are sent iy lean majorities
or else left at hone. The strange controversy between the President
and the Congress, at one time so t±ireatening/ is disposed of ty the people.
The high reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously,
and haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly repudiate
while those claimed ty Congress have been confirmed.
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