Excerpt from The South Faithful to Her Duties: Speech of Hon. Matt W. Ransom, of North Carolina, in the United States Senate, February 17, 1875

Mr. President, not in India, not in South America, not in Mexico, not in Jamaica, not in Rome in the last and bloodiest days of her de cline, not in lawless and impious modern Italy, has there ever been found a people so lost, so blind, so callous to every sense of justice and humanity as the people of the South are, if one-half that. Has been charged in this Chamber be true. And yet we behold that peo ple surrounded by and possessed of all the incidents of the highest type of civilization.

If Senators will examine their own hearts, if they will weigh this question with calm judgment, they will find that they have deceived themselves. They will find that they express what in their deepest convictions they do not feel.

I do not intend to irritate or to give offense in what I shall say here. If any person thinks so he mistakes me. I wish to pour oil on these troubled waters. I desire to heal these wounds. I seek to cure this malady. I do'not intend to aggravate or continue it. I am speaking to-day with all the solemnity of a man who defends a great people, and if 'i should utter one word that might retard, or prevent, or in any way hinder a thorough reconciliation between the sections, I should deplore the day that I was born. I ask Senators now to think with' me on this question. It has been a custom in this Senate - which is the most deliberate, the most courteous, the most refined, the most exalted legislative body upon the earth, where every propriety of Speech, every courtesy of manner, every sentiment of duty is strictly observed, where Senators are tender of the feelings of brother Sen ators - to speak of the southern people as traitors, as red-handed murderers, as stained with barbarism, as having attempted. The dark est and the bloodiest horror in human history. Senators, it is but just to you for me to say that when you so. Speak you do not utter your own convictions. You are obliged to say you do not in jus tice to yourselves. For if you think that the southern people, eight millions of them, the leaders of them, are traitors, murderers, and assassins, how dare you, in the light of your duty to your country, to your families, and to your God, consent to embrace them as country men and brothers? You did not believe it; you do not believe it. You know you do not believe it.

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