Beneficent results, already
apparent, prove that these endeavors are not to be regarded as a
mere experiment, and should sustain and encourage us in our efforts.
Already, in the brief period which has elapsed, the immediate
effectiveness, no less than the justice, of the course pursued is
demonstrated, and I have an abiding faith that time will furnish
its ample vindication in the minds of the great majority of my
fellow-citizens. The discontinuance of the use of the Army for the
purpose of upholding local governments in two States of the Union was
no less a constitutional duty and requirement, under the circumstances
existing at the time, than it was a much-needed measure for the
restoration of local self-government and the promotion of national
harmony. The withdrawal of the troops from such employment was
effected deliberately, and with solicitous care for the peace and good
order of society and the protection of the property and persons and
every right of all classes of citizens.
The results that have followed are indeed significant and encouraging.
All apprehension of danger from remitting those States to local
self-government is dispelled, and a most salutary change in the minds
of the people has begun and is in progress in every part of that
section of the country once the theater of unhappy civil strife,
substituting for suspicion, distrust, and aversion, concord,
friendship, and patriotic attachment to the Union.
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