r opposition to its adoption. It is very
seldom in the history of political issues, even when partisan feeling
is most deeply developed, that so absolute a division is found as was
recorded upon the question of adopting the Fourteenth Amendment. It
has not been easy in succeeding years to comprehend the deep-seated,
all-pervading hostility of the Democratic party to this great measure.
Even on the Thirteenth Amendment, containing the far more radical
proposition to abolish slavery, a few Democrats, moved by philanthropic
motives, broke from the restraint of party and honored themselves by
recording their votes on the side of humanity and justice; but on the
Fourteenth Amendment the line of Democratic hostility in Nation and
in State was absolutely unbroken.

It seems incredible that Democrats can be satisfied with the record
made by their party on this most grave and important question. Every
one of the many objects aimed at in the Fourteenth Amendment is
founded upon a basis of justice, of liberty, of an enlarged and
enlightened nationality. Its minor provisions might be regarded as
temporary in their nature, but its leading provisions are permanent
and are essential to the vitality of a true republic. Even those which
may be held as temporary deeply affect more than one generation of
American citizens, and are of themselves sufficiently important to
justify a great struggle for their adoption.

It was certainly of inestimable concern to the honor of the country
that those who had shed their blood and those who had given their
treasure for its defense, should have their claims upon the national
justice placed beyond the whim, or the caprice, or the malice of an
accidental majority in Congress. Nor would it have been wise to leave
open to those who in the conflict of arms had lost their slaves, the
temptation to besiege Congress and the Legislatures of their States
for compensation. Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the
public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.
The Republican therefore said, "We shall incorporate the right of the
soldier to repayment, in the very Constitution of the Republic; and
shall in the same solemn manner decree that as slavery instigated the
drawing of the sword against the life of the nation, and justly
perished by the sword, its assumed value shall not be placed upon the
free people of the United States as a mortgage whose payment may be
exacted