last in a fiery conflict,
even more fierce and bloody than that which has now been suppressed.

It is no disparagement to truth, that it can only prevail where reason
prevails. War begins where reason ends. The thing worse than rebellion
is the thing that causes rebellion. What that thing is, we have been
taught to our cost. It remains now to be seen whether we have the needed
courage to have that cause entirely removed from the Republic. At any
rate, to this grand work of national regeneration and entire purification
Congress must now address Itself, with full purpose that the work shall
this time be thoroughly done. The deadly upas, root and branch, leaf and
fibre, body and sap, must be utterly destroyed. The country is evidently
not in a condition to listen 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