y South generally, those in our Northern and
Western States, many of them at least, may return to their native land
and its kindlier skies, and thus quiet the nerves of conservative
gentlemen who dread too close a proximity to those whose skins, owing
to some providential oversight, were somehow or other not stamped with
the true orthodox luster.

"The ballot should be given to the negroes as a matter of justice to
them. It should likewise be done as a matter of _retributive_ justice
to the slaveholders and rebels. According to the best information I
can obtain, a very large majority of the white people of this District
have been rebels in heart during the war, and are rebels in heart
still. That contempt for the negro and scorn of free industry, which
constituted the mainspring of the rebellion, cropped out here during
the war in every form that was possible, under the immediate shadow of
the central Government. Meaner rebels than many in this District could
scarcely have been found in the whole land. They have not been
punished. The halter has been cheated out of their necks. I am very
sorry to say that under what seems to be a false mercy, a misapplied
humanity, the guiltiest rebels of the war have thus far been allowed
to escape justice. I have no desire to censure the authorities of the
Government for this fact. I hope they have some valid excuse for their
action. This question of punishment I know is a difficult one. The
work of punishment is so vast that it naturally palsies the will to
enter upon it. It never can be thoroughly done on this side of the
grave. And were it practicable to punish adequately all the most
active and guilty rebels, justice would still remain unsatisfied. Far
guiltier men than they are the rebel sympathizers of the loyal States,
who coolly stood by and encouraged their friends in the South in their
work of national rapine and murder, and while they were ever ready to
go joyfully into the service of the devil, were too cowardly to wear
his uniform and carry his weapons in open day. But Congress in this
District has the power to punish by ballot, and there will be a
beautiful, poetic justice in the exercise of this power. Sir, let it
be applied. The rebels here will recoil from it with horror. Some of
the worst of them, sooner than submit to black suffrage, will
doubtless leave the District, and thus render it an unspeakable
service. To be voted down and governed by Yankee and negro ballot