Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume Two).djvu/39

Rh ices they are sure to command, they will assume the war debt of the South. When you have assumed that debt, and taken the obligation to pay it, these men of the South will treat the obligation lightly, and upon the first pretext will renew secession and will march straight out of the Union, and you, with your embarrassed finances, will find yourselves unable to institute military proceedings for their subjugation. Therefore I say that by the reconstruction some men desire you render secession certain, bankruptcy throughout the North certain. The repudiation of the Public Debt is not a matter of expectation or fear, it is a matter of certainty, if you assent to any reconstruction of this Union through the instrumentality of Jefferson Davis and his associates. You must either drive them into exile or exterminate them. Break down the military power of the people, and exterminate or exile their leaders, and bring up men at the South in favor of the Union, who are opposed to the assumption of the war debt of the South—there is no other way of security to yourselves. (Cheers.) Now, then, are you prepared to cease hostilities with the expectation of negotiations with Jefferson Davis for the dissolution of the Union or for its restoration? (Voices—“No!”) Either course is alike fatal to you, for the war must go on until peace is conquered. (Loud cheers and voices—“That’s so.”) On the one side they offer you as negotiators Franklin Pierce, perhaps, and A. H. Stevens; on the other, possibly one of the Seymours, either of Connecticut or New York, Wise of Virginia, Vallandigham of Ohio, and Soule of Louisiana. The only negotiators, gentlemen, to be trusted so long as the war continues or there is a rebel in arms—the only negotiators are Grant upon one line and Sherman upon the other. (Tremendous cheers.)

A Voice—“You have left out Mr. Harris of Maryland.”

Mr. Boutwell—“According to the reports, etc., we have