This article is reprinted from Edward Spencer, An
Outline Public Life and Services Of Thomas F. Bayard, Senator of the
United States from the State Of Delaware, 1869-1880. With Extractions
from His Speeches and the Debates Of Congress (1880) and is published in honor of Bayard’s birthday, October 29.
The war was fought
for the Union. Whatever may have been the hopes or desires of some of
the leaders, the people of the North contended for the Union alone. No
other motive would have brought them to bear patiently the burdens of
such a strife, and to pour out their blood on a hundred fields of
battle, but that devotion to the Union which was intensified by the fear
of its destruction until love almost became idolatry. And, when they
conquered at last, they had a right to the prize they had so dearly won.
Not merely justice and consistency, but good policy pointed to the same
course. The war had swept a great part of the land with devastation,
had wasted the population, paralysed many industries, made bankrupt
eleven States, and loaded the rest with debt. The only road to renewed
prosperity, north and south, lay in healing the wounds of the past; in
such a course of action as would encourage industry, protect thrift,
restore confidence, and bring back peace over all the land.
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