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acter, I will be found standing by the Constitution as the chief rock of our safety, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberty. Yes, let us cling to it as the mariner clings to his last plank when night and tempest close around him. Accept my thanks for the indulgence you have given me in making the extemporaneous remarks I have upon this occasion. Let us go forward, forgetting the past and looking to the future, and try to restore our country. Trusting in Him who rules on high that ere long our Union will be restored, and that we will have peace, not only on earth, but especially with the people of the United States, and good-will, I thank you, my countrymen, for the spirit you have manifested on this occasion. When your country is gone, and you are about, look out and you will find the humble individual who now stands before you weeping over its final dissolution."

A New York paper refers to the reception of the above remarkable speech of President Johnson in Europe in the following terms:

"The English papers praise in the strongest terms the President's speech delivered on Washington's birthday. That speech has put before the world the true, clear view of the state of parties here, and has extorted, for the leader of the people, expressions of the most earnest admiration from quarters hitherto content to cavil and sneer at all that originates on this side the Atlantic. The speech that the radicals denounced as horrible, vulgar, unfortunate, and outrageous; that some of the President's friends even

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were inclined to excuse and explain, and that the Herald declared to be greater and finer than any thing in Demosthenes, receives from Europe the highest possible meed of praise for its energetic simplicity, and for its sentiments is declared to be 'not unworthy the great founder of the American republic.' Such a speech, says the London Times, 'has not often been heard in America—a speech entirely free from tawdry ornament or ambitious metaphor, but conveying the firmest determination and the most enlightened principles in the plainest and simplest language.' And the same paper says in another article: 'There is a stamp of reality and proud self-confidence in this appeal to the sovereign people, which obliterates the effect of some indiscreet expressions, and makes us feel that Mr. Johnson is equal to guiding the destinies of a great nation through a perilous crisis. No hereditary monarch, nor even an elective emperor, inheriting the traditions and administrative system of an hereditary monarchy, can ever be placed in the same position as President Johnson, and it is to be feared that few princes born in the purple would be capable of facing a great emergency with equal courage and dignity!' Mr. Johnson, it is said, 'if any man ever did, occupies nobly and worthily a great historic position. The destinies of millions of the human race depend upon him, and he rises fully to the height of the occasion. Men whose nerves are shaken by the holiday politics of such a country as ours will stand aghast at the audacity with which President Johnson confronts his adversaries.' Such is the European verdict, and the country may thus see that, viewed from a proper distance-a distance that en

ables one to take in its full proportions and relations to the state of the country-the President's speech is not less great and statesman-like than we declared it to be from the first."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.-THE PRESIDENT'S VETO.

THE Veto by President Johnson of the "Civil Rights Bill," is generally acknowledged as one of the ablest state papers ever emanating from the Executive Department. It shows that Mr. Johnson has a mind at once logical and capable of a complete comprehension of any subject before him. The veto is unanswerable, and though Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, undertook a reply to it, he utterly failed in demolishing it, and only succeeded in advertising the inconsistency of his own political opinion. "There," said a Radical to a Johnson man, "read Mr. Trumbull's speech" (handing him a copy), "and see how completely Mr. Johnson is answered." "Yes," replied the Johnson man, "if Mr. Trumbull has answered Mr. Johnson, he has also demolished himself, for I have an extract from a speech delivered by Mr. T. in the Senate, on the 12th of December, 1859, in which I find this language :

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"In my judgment, there is a distinction between the white and black races, made by Omnipotence itself. I do not believe these two races can live happily or pleasantly together.'

This extract silenced his Radical friend, if it did not convince him that Mr. Trumbull was like the lawyer, that he is trying to make the worse appear the better reason. Mr. Johnson's veto is so able and statesmanlike a letter that I make no apology in presenting it to my readers in full. The following is the message:

To the Senate of the United States :

I regret that the bill which has passed both Houses of Congress, entitled "An Act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication," contains provisions. which I cannot approve, consistently with my sense of duty to the whole people, and my obligations to the Constitution of the United States. I am, therefore, constrained to return it to the Senate (the House in which it originated) with my objections to its becoming a law.

By the first section of the bill, all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States. This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called Gipsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood. Every individual of these races, born in the United States, is by the bill made a citizen of the United States. It does not purport to declare or confer any other right of citizenship than Federal citizenship; it does not propose to give these classes of persons any status as citizens of States, except that

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