*Here’s the part of Stevens’s speech that precedes the quote above:

In my youth, in my manhood, in my old age, I had fondly dreamed that when any fortunate chance should have broken up for awhile the foundation of our institutions, and released us from obligations the most tyrannical that ever man imposed in the name of freedom, that the intelligent, pure and just men of this Republic, true to their professions and their consciences, would have so remodeled all our institutions as to have freed them from every vestige of human oppression, of inequality of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor, and the superior caste of the rich.

This bright dream has vanished “like the baseless fabric of a vision.”

Do you inquire why, holding these views and possessing some will of my own, I accept so imperfect a proposition?