To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!
And now, Mr. President, permit me to say that Senators can no more realize my regret than they can measure my amazement that my colleague should have felt it incumbent upon him to join the assaulting column in this Chamber. He first introduces the consideration of my political consistency, and he next introduces me, with the eighty-odd thousand of his fellow-citizens who sent me here, to this honorable body as a repudiator of public obligations. The sense of justice of fellow Senators renders it unnecessary for me to apologize for noticing my colleague’s criticisms on the one hand and his perversions on the other. However much he and his friends may endeavor, by the chop-logic of the attorney, to demonstrate what I ought to be, I know by my convictions and by my sense of duty what I am. In this particular I have largely the advantage of my colleague; for if I take him by his record, diminutive as it is, he neither knows what he was, what he is, or what duty he came here to perform. A very brief recital of Virginia political history, covering but a decade, will give a clear view of the Virginia situation as it is represented on this floor. My colleague gave the first page, and then, like the lazy, truant school-boy, skipped many pages, or, like the shifty lawyer, read only so much of the authority as suited his case. I am duly grateful to him for the small meed of praise he would deal out to me for the humble part I bore in the great liberal movement of 1869, which was undertaken to return our State to her normal condition in the Union.
I am the more grateful because the organs of the faction he represents here have recently published columns to prove that I was breathed into political existence subsequently to that momentous period. Not being sworn, my colleague thought it was sufficient for him to tell the truth without the usual obligation to tell the whole truth. It is now my privilege, as well as duty, to supply all deficiencies. The views I entertained then I still adhere to, and though, as far as my information goes, we had no material assistance from him in that severe and trying ordeal of 1869, I do know that after his election to this body he confessed himself in entire accord with all that had been done by Virginia as a condition precedent to her restoration, and with the zeal of a new convert expressed the hope that other States of the Union without the same propelling cause should do likewise. In a letter addressed to the then governor of Virginia (Walker) he wrote as follows:
JOHNSTON TO GOVERNOR WALKER IN 1869.
Believing fully not only that we in Virginia could not prosper, but that our continued exclusion from the Union interfered with the business of the whole country, I have been anxious for an early compliance with the reconstruction laws, and that the State should itself inaugurate some movement similar to that which resulted in your election for the purpose, and not wait, like Micawber, “for something to turn up.”
The fifteenth amendment, which I trust will soon be adopted by States enough to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States, will end a question which has agitated the country for half a century. I entirely approve of the principles of that amendment, and as we have invested the freedman with the right to vote, let us give him a fair opportunity to vote understandingly. He has civil rights, and it is our interest he should know their value.