Quote #31

The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by 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.

More from James A. Garfield

  1. The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the Union em…
  2. No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps unavoi…
  3. Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the gr…
  4. It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said with the utmost emphasis that this ques…
  5. The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did…
  6. It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the …
  7. Fellow-Citizens: We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of national life - a century crowded with perils, but cro…
  8. My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children wi…

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