* * * * *
My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the
controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children
will be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They
will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the Union
was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were
made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can
not prevent the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to
make a truce with time, by anticipating and accepting its inevitable
verdicts? Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and
material well-being invite us, and offer ample scope for the employment
of our best powers. Let all our people, leaving behind them the
battle-fields of dead issues, move forward, and, in the strength of
liberty and a restored Union, win the grander victories of peace. JAMES
ABRAM GARFIELD.