And State Papers 63 



factors in the progress of humanity. Yet from its 

 very nature it has always and everywhere been 

 liable to dark abuses. 



It behooves us to keep a vigilant watch to pre 

 vent these abuses and to punish those who commit 

 them; but if because of them we flinch from finish 

 ing the task on which we have entered, we show 

 ourselves cravens and weaklings, unworthy of the 

 sires from whose loins we sprang. Oh, my com 

 rades, how the men of the present tend to forget 

 not merely what was done but what was spoken in 

 the past! There were abuses and to spare in the 

 Civil War; and slander enough, too, by each side 

 against the other. Your false friends then called 

 Grant a "butcher" and spoke of you who are listen 

 ing to me as mercenaries, as "Lincoln's hirelings." 

 Your open foes as in the resolution passed by the 

 Confederate Congress in October, 1862 accused 

 you, at great length, and with much particularity, 

 of "contemptuous disregard of the usages of civ 

 ilized war;" of subjecting women and children to 

 "banishment, imprisonment, and death;" of "mur 

 der," of "rapine," of "outrages on women," of 

 "lawless cruelty," of "perpetrating atrocities which 

 would be disgraceful in savages;" and Abraham 

 Lincoln was singled out for especial attack because 

 of his "spirit of barbarous ferocity." Verily, these 

 men who thus foully slandered you have their heirs 

 to-day in those who traduce our armies in the Phil 

 ippines, who fix their eyes on individual deeds of 

 wrong so keenly that at last they become blind to 



