Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/67

 looked upon as outcasts whose influence is not desired, even when they are inclined to use it for the promotion of the common welfare?

The third class excluded consists of those who were members of State conventions, and in those State conventions voted for ordinances of secession. If we may judge from the words which fell from the lips of the senator from Indiana, they were the objects of his particular displeasure. Why this? Here we have a large number of men of local standing who in some cases may have been leaders on a small scale, but most of whom were drawn into the whirl of the revolutionary movement just like the rest of the Southern population. If you accept the proposition that it will be well and wise to permit the intelligence of the country to participate in the management of the public business, the exclusion of just these people will appear especially inappropriate, because their local influence might be made peculiarly beneficial; and if you exclude these persons, whose number is considerable, you tell just that class of people whose cooperation might be made most valuable that their cooperation is not wanted, for the reason that, according to the meaning and intent of your system of disabilities, public affairs are no business of theirs.

You object that they are more guilty than the rest. Suppose they are—and in many cases I am sure they are only apparently so—but if they were not guilty of any wrong, they would need