once more all the horrors of the
Rebellion, the wickedness of its conception, how terrible its
incidents were, and how harrowing its consequences. Sir, I admit it
all; I will not combat the correctness of the picture; and yet if I
differ with the gentlemen who drew it, it is because, had the
conception of the Rebellion been still more wicked, had its
incidents been still more terrible, its consequences still more
harrowing, I could not permit myself to forget that in dealing with
the question now before us we have to deal not alone with the past,
but with the present and future of this republic.

What do we want to accomplish as good citizens and patriots? Do we
mean only to inflict upon the late rebels pain, degradation,
mortification, annoyance, for its own sake; to torture their
feelings without any ulterior purpose? Certainly such a purpose
could not by any possibility animate high-minded men. I presume,
therefore, that those who still favor the continuance of some of the
disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment do so because they
have some higher object of public usefulness in view, an object of
public usefulness sufficient to justify, in their minds at least,
the denial of rights to others which we ourselves enjoy.

What can those objects of public usefulness be? Let me assume that,
if we differ as to the means to be employed, we are agreed as to the
supreme end and aim to be reached. That end and aim of our endeavors
can be no other than to secure to all the States the blessings of
good and free government and the highest degree of prosperity and
well-being they can attain, and to revive in all citizens of this
republic that love for the Union and its institutions, and that
inspiring consciousness of a common nationality, which, after all,
must bind all Americans together.

What are the best means for the attainment of that end? This, Sir,
as I conceive it, is the only legitimate question we have to decide.

APPENDIX III

A TYPICAL COLLEGE FORENSIC

The forensic which follows is the one which was used by the State
University of Iowa in its debates with the University of Wisconsin and
the University of Minnesota in 1908. In the form in which it appears
here it was given in a home contest a few evenings before the
Inter-State Debate. It is quoted here with the permission of