The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield / Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and Letters

by E. E. Brown

[From a Speech at Faneuil Hall, Boston, September 11, 1878.]

The Republican party of this country has said, and it says to-day, that, forgetting all the animosities of the war, forgetting all the fierceness and the passion of it, it reaches out both its hands to the gallant men who fought us, and offers all fellowship, all comradeship, all feelings of brotherhood, on this sole condition, and on that condition they will insist forever: That in the war for the Union we were right, forever right, and that in the war against the Union they were wrong, forever wrong. We never made terms, we never will make terms, with the man who denies the everlasting rightfulness of our cause. That would be treason to the dead and injustice to the living; and on that basis alone our pacification is complete. We ask that it be realized, and we shall consider it fully realized when it is just as safe and just as honorable for a good citizen of South Carolina to be a Republican there as it is for a good citizen of Massachusetts to be a Democrat here.