proclaiming "liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants
thereof."

The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of
citizenship is the most important political change we have known since
the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. NO thoughtful man can fail to
appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It
has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has
added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It
has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which
wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own
guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened
to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given
new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races by making labor
more honorable to the one and more necessary to the other. The
influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with
the coming years.

No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our
Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps
unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember that
under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race
between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent
disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield
its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration
places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.

The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With
unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not
born of fear, they have "followed the light as God gave them to see the