(4.) Let pardons issue only on satisfactory assurance that the applicant, who has been engaged for four years in murdering our fellow-citizens, shall sustain the Equal Rights, civil and political, of all men, according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence; that he shall pledge himself to the support of the national debt; and, if he be among the large holders of land, that he shall set apart homesteads for all his freedmen.
Following these simple rules, clemency will be a Christian virtue, and not a perilous folly.
The other proverb has its voice also, saying plainly, Follow common sense, and do not, while escaping one danger, rush upon another. You are now escaping from the whirlpool of war, which has threatened to absorb and ingulf the Republic. Do not rush upon the opposite terror, where another shipwreck of a different kind awaits you, while Sirens tempt with their "song of death." Take warning: Seeking to escape from Charybdis, do not rush upon Scylla.
Alas! the Scylla on which our Republic is now driving is that old rock of concession and compromise which from the beginning of our history has been a constant peril. It appeared in the convention which framed the National Constitution, and ever afterwards, from year to year, showed itself in Congress, until at last the Oligarchy, nursed by our indulgence, rebelled. And now that the war is over, it is proposed to invest this same Rebel Oligarchy with a new lease of immense power, involving the control over loyal citizens, whose fidelity to the Republic has been beyond question. Here, too, are Sirens, in the shape of belligerent traitors, suing softly that the Republic may be lured to the old concession and compromise. Alas! that, escaping from Charybdis, we should rush upon Scylla!
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Æneis, Lib. III. v. 420.
[4] Book XII.
[5] Book II. v. 660.
[6] Ibid. v. 1016.
[7] Merchant of Venice, Act III. Sc. 5.