for two years sat side by
side with me here, whom I learned to respect and admire for his pluck,
his ability, and integrity, and to love for his manly virtues; a man
whom I originally selected as the candidate of the Republican party
for the second office within the gift of that party; a man whom I
urged on the Republican convention at Baltimore as their candidate; a
man whose election I did my utmost to secure against the efforts of
the Senator from Ohio. In the most critical moment of that political
campaign, an assault was made on our presidential candidate in the
same spirit evinced by him yesterday in his attack upon the President.
I defended the candidate of the Republican party against that assault,
and I defend the President of the Republican party against the assault
of yesterday.

"'A despot!' 'A dictator!' In what? In seeking to reconstruct the
rebellious States in violation of the wishes of the Congress of the
United States? When Mr. Johnson took his seat in the presidential
chair, I ask you, sir, what had Congress done? The people of the
United States had done this: Mr. Lincoln had marked out the policy of
reconstruction, since adopted by Mr. Johnson, and the people of the
United States, the party to which the Senator from Ohio and myself
belong, indorsed by triumphant majorities that very reconstruction
policy. A despot for proposing, in violation of the wishes of the
Congress of the United States, to reconstruct the insurrectionary
States upon the theory expressed in that joint resolution annulling
the ordinances of secession, ratifying the amendment to the
Constitution abolishing slavery, repudiating the Confederate debt,
indorsing the national debt, and extending suffrage to all colored men
who can read the Constitution of the United States and sign their
names, and to all colored men owning and paying taxes upon $250 worth
of property!

"Mr. President, I am not as conversant with the constituency of the
Senator from Ohio as he is, but I venture the assertion that outside
of New England there is not a single Northern State in this Union but
will by a majority vote to indorse the policy of reconstruction
advised by President Johnson and expressed in that joint resolution.
You can not carry before the people of this country suffrage to the
unqualified black man. You can not find a State in this Union outside
of New England, in my judgment, that will indorse that policy.
Restrict it to a qualification