little the best of it.

The sword, at any rate, settled the controversy. But that is behind us.
We have now a great and glorious future in front of us, and it is
Virginia's duty to do all that she can to promote the honor and glory of
this country. We fought to the best of our ability for four years; and
it would be a great mistake to assume that you could bring men from
their cabins, from their plows, from their houses, and from their
families to make them fight as they fought in that contest unless they
were fighting for a belief. Those men believed that they had the right
construction of the Constitution, and that a state that voluntarily
entered the Union could voluntarily withdraw from it. They did not fight
for Confederate money. It was not worth ten cents a yard. They did not
fight for Confederate rations--you would have had to curtail the demands
of your appetite to make it correspond with the size and quality of
those rations. They fought for what they thought was a proper
construction of the Constitution.

They were defeated. They acknowledged their defeat. They came back to
their father's house, and there they are going to stay. But if we are to
continue prosperous, if this country, stretching from the gulf to the
lakes and from ocean to ocean, is to be mindful of its own best
interests, in the future, we will have to make concessions and
compliances, we will have to bear with each other and to respect each
other's opinions. Then we will find that that harmony will be secured
which is as necessary for the welfare of states, as it is for the
welfare of individuals.

I have become acquainted with Governor Beaver--I met him in Richmond.
You could not make me fight him now. If I had known him before the war,
perhaps we would not have got at it. If all the Governors had known each
other, and if all the people of different sections had been known to
each other, or had been thrown together in business or social
communication, the fact would have been recognized at the outset, as it
is to-day, that there are just as good men in Maine as there are in
Texas, and just as good men in Texas as there are in Maine. Human nature
is everywhere the same; and when intestine strifes occur, we will
doubtless always be able by a conservative, pacific course to pass
smoothly over the rugged, rocky edges, and the old Ship of State will be
brought into a safe, commodious, Constitutional harbor with the flag of
the Union flying ove