26

honest difference of opinion, by extreme men, augurs unfavor-
ably for the success of our free institution, if such is to be per-
mitted to pass without rebuke, by any large class of the peo-
ple of this country. Such a spirit, when carried to the excess
that we have witnessedj cannot fail, sooner or later, to find
its own condemnation. President Johnson fortunately for
himself, is not without his record in the past. Taunted with
his humble origi^ in which he only shares the lot of the me-
chanical and working classes throughout the country, charg-
ed with complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln,
whose friend he was, and whose policy he is steadily and faith-
fully pursuing—denounced as a rebel and a traitor, after hav-
ing sacrificed everything for his country he may find himself
ere long, from the very intensity of a studied persecution, the
rallying point of a more healthy public sentiment, among re-
flecting men of all parties, which if it would save this country
from anarchy and ruin, must curb the intemperate spirit which
rules the hour, and inaugerate a new era of toleration and
forbearance in our national differences, in the midst of the
whirlwind which has been .so unjustly and wantonly provoked,
by excited and impulsive men. Is it not time that this war-
fare, so disparaging to our national character, should cease?

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

A convention of the people of the State to revise the present
Constitution will be advisable at an early day. Some of its
leading provisions were prompted, as is well known, by the
war then raging, and the confused condition of our national
affairs. Happily, the settlement of till these differences ren-
ders their retention as part of our organic law no longer a
matter of policy or necessary precaution. Apart from this,
however, there are measures of practical reform which should
not be lost sight of, in the new career upon which we have
entered. In any action upon this subject, you will be prepar-
ed to reflect the public sentiment in determining whether you
will be content to resort to the power conferred by the Con-
stitution upon the Legislature in making such changes as you
may deem most urgent, or refer the whole subject to the peo-
ple, to he decided by them.

In discharging the duties incumbent upon you in this try-
ing crisis of our national affairs, gentlemen of the Senate and
House of Delegates, I trust that past differences will be buried,
and that the paramount object of re-uniting our distracted and
bleeding country may be uppermost in your deliberations.

The obligations of party must be subordinated to the more
sacred claims growing out of a common origin and a common
nationality; and those who have been brothers in the past
should strive to extinguish, rather than rekindle anew, the
smouldering fires of alienation and strife.