tates; and every man engaged
in that rebellion in that convention, with the intention of superseding
and upturning the civil government which had been recognized by the
Government of the United States, I say that he was a traitor to the
Constitution of the United States; and hence you find that another
rebellion was commenced, _having its origin in the Radical Congress_.

* * * * *

So much for the New Orleans riot. And there was the cause and the origin
of the blood that was shed; and every drop of blood that was shed is
upon their skirts, and they are responsible for it. I could test this
thing a little closer, but will not do it here to-night. But when you
talk about the causes and consequences that resulted from proceedings
of that kind, perhaps, as I have been introduced here, and you have
provoked questions of this kind--though it does not provoke me--I will
tell you a few wholesome things that have been done by this Radical
Congress in connection with New Orleans and the extension of the
elective franchise.

I know that I have been traduced and abused. I know it has come in
advance of me, here as elsewhere, that I have attempted to exercise an
arbitrary power in resisting laws that were intended to be forced upon
the Government; that I had exercised that power; that I had abandoned
the party that elected me, and that I was a traitor, because I exercised
the veto power in attempting and did arrest for a time a bill that was
called a "Freedmen's Bureau" bill; yes, that I was a traitor. And I have
been traduced, I have been slandered, I have been maligned, I have been
called Judas Iscariot and all that. Now, my countrymen, here to-night,
it is very easy to indulge in epithets; it is easy to call a man a Judas
and cry out "traitor;" but when he is called upon to give arguments and
facts he is very often found wanting. Judas Iscariot--Judas. There was
a Judas, and he was one of the twelve apostles. Oh, yes; the twelve
apostles had a Christ. The twelve apostles had a Christ, and he never
could have had a Judas unless he had had twelve apostles. If I have
played the Judas, who has been my Christ that I have played the Judas
with? Was it Thad. Stevens? Was it Wendell Phillips? Was it Charles
Sumner? These are the men that stop and compare themselves with the
Savior, and everybody that differs with them in opinion, and to t