48 SPEECHES AT THE SOUTH. 



argued, as well as I could, that, though some men honestly believe 

 that our struggle and the triumph therein of the National cause will 

 tend to despotism on this continent, and that some so hold with 

 regard to the German triumph in their great struggle, I, on the 

 contrary, believe that the ultimate tendency and result of these 

 two great consummations will be the promotion and advancement 

 of liberal ideas and institvitions alike in the Old World and the 

 New. 



Well, gentlemen, as I was leaving Texas, a pressing invitation 

 was given me by the Republicans of Galveston to make a speech 

 to them on the last night T spent in their State ; and I acceded to 

 their request. I tiied before them to vindicate the North against 

 the charges made against her in the Soiith, and to prove that the 

 North did not make war on the South (as too many Southern peo- 

 ple still believe she did). I tried to show them that the war was 

 commenced in the South, by the South — nay, in Texas itself — by 

 capturing, through treachery, the United States Army, and turn- 

 ing its arms and munitions against the flag and against the integri- 

 ty of our country ; and that, all the way through, we stood virtual- 

 ly on the defensive, against what seemed to me a most indefensible 

 and wanton aggression. I said what I could to vindicate the 

 Noi'th from the reproach of malignity — of wishing to oppress or 

 plunder or cripple the South ; and tried to make my Sovithern 

 countrymen believe that we were all Americans, and all together 

 interested in and striving for the prosperity and the growth of our 

 whole widely-extended country. [Applause.] Such was my theme 

 at Galveston. 



Well, gentlemen, I have heard it objected that, in my speech at 

 New-Oi'leans, I asserted that, if there had been Universal Amnesty 

 four years ago, there would have been no Ku-Klux in 1871. I do 

 not think I said exactly that ; but 1 did say that I regarded the 

 policy of excluding from office the leading men of the South as a 

 very great mistake, and a very great injury to the National cause 

 and to the Republican party. I said no more than Gen. Sickles had 

 said in substance four years earlier, when he was Military Governor 

 of South Carolina, and declared that he was crippled and enfeebled 

 in his efforts to govern that State well by the fact that her best men, 

 her most intelligent men, her most considerate and conservative men, 

 were not available to him as magistrates, because of an exclusion 

 whereof Andrew Johnson was the author. He said, " I cannot gov- 



