patiently to pleas for
postponement, however plausible, nor will it permit the responsibility
to be shifted to other shoulders. Authority and power are here
commensurate with the duty imposed. There are no cloud-flung shadows to
obscure the way. Truth shines with brighter light and intenser heat at
every moment, and a country torn and rent and bleeding implores relief
from its distress and agony.

If time was at first needed, Congress has now had time. All the
requisite materials from which to form an intelligent judgment are now
before it. Whether its members look at the origin, the progress, the
termination of the war, or at the mockery of a peace now existing, they
will find only one unbroken chain of argument in favor of a radical
policy of reconstruction. For the omissions of the last session, some
excuses may be allowed. A treacherous President stood in the way; and it
can be easily seen how reluctant good men might be to admit an apostasy
which involved so much of baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that
they should seek to save him by bending to him even when he leaned to
the side of error. But all is changed now. Congress knows now that
it must go on without his aid, and even against his machinations. The
advantage of the present session over the last is immense. Where that
investigated, this has the facts. Where that walked by faith, this may
walk by sight. Where that halted, this must go forward, and where that
failed, this must succeed, giving the country whole measures where that
gave us half-measures, merely as a means of saving the elections in a
few doubtful districts. That Congress saw what was right, but distrusted
the enlightenment of the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust
of the people must now be done with a full knowledge that the people
expect and require it. The members go to Washington fresh from the
inspiring presence of the people. In every considerable public
meeting, and in almost every conceivable way, whether at court-house,
school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out, the subject has been
discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced in favor of a
radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency and compromise
with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into
demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been
spoken in favor of equal rights and impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so
far from being odious, is not the po