confine our powers within limits narrower than we could wish.
It is not a question of individual or class or sectional interest, much
less of party predominance, but of duty--of high and sacred duty--which
we are all sworn to perform. If we can not support the Constitution with
the cheerful alacrity of those who love and believe in it, we must give
to it at least the fidelity of public servants who act under solemn
obligations and commands which they dare not disregard.

The constitutional duty is not the only one which requires the States
to be restored. There is another consideration which, though of minor
importance, is yet of great weight. On the 22d day of July, 1861,
Congress declared by an almost unanimous vote of both Houses that the
war should be conducted solely for the purpose of preserving the Union
and maintaining the supremacy of the Federal Constitution and laws,
without impairing the dignity, equality, and rights of the States or of
individuals, and that when this was done the war should cease. I do not
say that this declaration is personally binding on those who joined in
making it; any more than individual members of Congress are personally
bound to pay a public debt created under a law for which they voted.
But it was a solemn, public, official pledge of the national honor,
and I can not imagine upon what grounds the repudiation of it is to
be justified. If it be said that we are not bound to keep faith with
rebels, let it be remembered that this promise was not made to rebels
only. Thousands of true men in the South were drawn to our standard by
it, and hundreds of thousands in the North gave their lives in the
belief that it would be carried out. It was made on the day after the
first great battle of the war had been fought and lost. All patriotic
and intelligent men then saw the necessity of giving such an assurance,
and believed that without it the war would end in disaster to our cause.
Having given that assurance in the extremity of our peril, the violation
of it now, in the day of our power, would be a rude rending of that good
faith which holds the moral world together; our country would cease to
have any claim upon the confidence of men; it would make the war not
only a failure, but a fraud.

Being sincerely convinced that these views are correct, I would be
unfaithful to my duty if I did not recommend the repeal of the acts of
Congress which place ten of the Southern States under the dominat