Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/66

 there is in such conduct, it was in his; and yet, in spite of all this, the president nominated him for an office, and your consent, senators, made him a public dignitary.

Why did you break the rule in his case? I will not say that you did it because he had become a Republican, for I am far from attributing any mere partizan motive to your action. No; you did it because his conduct after the close of hostilities had been that of a well-disposed and law-abiding citizen. Thus, then, the rule which you, senators, have established for your own conduct is simply this: you will, in the case of officers of the army or the navy, waive the charge of peculiar faithlessness and ingratitude if the persons in question after the war had become law-abiding and well-disposed citizens. Well, is it not a fact universally recognized, and I believe entirely uncontradicted, that of all classes of men connected with the Rebellion there is not one whose conduct since the close of the war has been so unexceptionable, and in a great many instances so beneficial in its influence upon Southern society, as the officers of the army and the navy, especially those who before the war had been members of our regular establishments? Why, then, except them from this act of amnesty? If you take subsequent good conduct into account at all, these men are the very last who as a class ought to be excluded. And would it not be well to encourage them in well-doing by a sign on your part that they are not to be