Louis Kossuth was no less a traitor than
Jefferson Davis, and yet the United States solicited his release
from a Turkish prison, and sent a national ship to bring him
hither as the nation's guest. The people of the United States
have held from the first "the right of insurrection," and have
given their moral support to every insurrection in the Old or New
World they discovered, and for them to treat with severity any
portion of the Southern secessionists, who, at the very worst,
only acted on the principles the nation had uniformly avowed and
pronounced sacred, would be regarded, and justly, by the
civilized world as little less than infamous.
Not only the fair fame, but the interest of the Union forbids any
severity toward the people lately in arms against the government.
The interest of the nation demands not the death or the expulsion
of the secessionists, and, least of all, of those classes
proscribed by the President's proclamation of the 29th of May,
1865, nor even their disfranchisement, perpetual or temporary;
but their restoration to citizenship, and their loyal
co-operation with all true-hearted Americans, in hearing the
wounds inflicted on the whole country by the civil war. There
need be no fear to trust them. Their cause is lost; they may or
may not regret it, but lost it is, and lost forever. They
appealed to the ballot-box, and were defeated; they appealed from
the ballot-box to arms, to war, and have been again defeated,
terribly defeated.
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