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Richardson, James D. (James Daniel), 1843-1914

"Volume 6, part 2: Andrew Johnson"


I know that I have been traduced and abused. I know it has come in
advance of me, here as elsewhere, that I have attempted to exercise an
arbitrary power in resisting laws that were intended to be forced upon
the Government; that I had exercised that power; that I had abandoned
the party that elected me, and that I was a traitor, because I exercised
the veto power in attempting and did arrest for a time a bill that was
called a "Freedmen's Bureau" bill; yes, that I was a traitor. And I have
been traduced, I have been slandered, I have been maligned, I have been
called Judas Iscariot and all that. Now, my countrymen, here to-night,
it is very easy to indulge in epithets; it is easy to call a man a Judas
and cry out "traitor;" but when he is called upon to give arguments and
facts he is very often found wanting. Judas Iscariot--Judas. There was
a Judas, and he was one of the twelve apostles. Oh, yes; the twelve
apostles had a Christ. The twelve apostles had a Christ, and he never
could have had a Judas unless he had had twelve apostles.


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