FELLOW-CITIZENS,--If I have taken little part in the present canvass,
you will do me the justice to believe that it is from no failure of
interest in the cause for which I have so often pleaded; nor is it from
any lukewarmness to the candidates. The cause is nothing less than our
country redeemed from peril and dedicated to Human Rights, so as to
become an example to mankind. The candidates are illustrious citizens,
always loyal to this great cause, both of surpassing merit, and one
of unequalled renown in the suppression of the Rebellion. In this
simple statement I open the whole case. The cause would commend any
candidates, and I might almost add that the candidates would commend
any cause.
It is only in deference to my good physician that I have thus far
forborne those customary efforts to which I was so strongly prompted;
and now I speak in fear of offending against his rules. But I am
unwilling that this contest shall close without my testimony, such as
it is, and without mingling my voice with that general acclaim which is
filling the land.
* * * * *
Indulge me still further while for a moment I allude to myself. The
Republican State Convention has by formal resolution presented me
for reëlection to the Senate, so that this question enters into
the larger canvass. Meeting my fellow-citizens now, it would not
be out of order, I believe, nor should I depart from any of the
proprieties of my position, if I proceeded to give you an account of
my stewardship during the term of service about to expire. But when
I consider that this extends over six busy years, beginning while
the Rebellion still raged and continuing through all the anxious
period of Reconstruction,--that it embraces nothing less than the
Abolition of Slavery, and all the steps by which this transcendent
measure was promoted and consummated, also the various efforts for the
establishment of Equal Rights, especially in the court-room and at the
ballot-box, thus helping the fulfilment of the promises originally
made in the Declaration of Independence,--that it embraces, besides,
all the infinite questions of taxation, finance, railroads, business
and foreign relations, including many important treaties, among which
was that for the acquisition of the Russian possessions in North
America,--and considering, further, how these transactions belong to
the history of our country, where they are already read, I content
myself with remarking that in all of them I have borne a part, I trust
not unworthy of the honored Commonwealth whose representative I am; and
here I invite your scrutiny and candid judgment.
Possibly some of the frequent criticism to which I have been exposed is
already dulled by time or answered by events. A venerable statesman,
eminent in the profession, once rebuked me for the term _Equality
before the Law_, which I had taken from the French, as expressing more
precisely than the Declaration of Independence that equality in rights
which is all that constitutions or laws can secure. My learned critic
had never met this term in the Common Law, or in the English language,
and therefore he did not like the innovation. In the same spirit other
efforts have been encountered, often with virulence, especially those
two fundamentals of Reconstruction,--first, the power of Congress over
the Rebel States, whether as territories, or provinces, or as States
having no republican government, or, according to the language of
President Lincoln, “out of their proper practical relation with the
Union,”[265] and, secondly, the necessity of lifting the freedman into
Equal Rights, civil and political, so as to make him a part of the body
politic. Who can forget the clamor at these two propositions? All this
has happily ceased, except as an echo from Rebels and their allies,
whose leading part is a protest against the power of Congress and the
equal rights of the freedman.
* * * * *
Though formal criticism has tardily died out, there is sometimes a
warning against men of “one idea,” with a finger-point at myself. Here
I meet my accuser face to face. What duty have I failed to perform? Let
it be specified. What interest have I neglected? Has it been finance?
The “Globe” will show my earnest and elaborate effort at the beginning
of the war, warning against an inconvertible currency, and a similar
effort made recently to secure the return to specie payments. Has it
been taxation, or commerce, or railroads, or business in any of its
forms, or foreign relations, with which, as Chairman of the Senate
Committee on this subject, I have been particularly connected? On all
of these I refer to the record. What, then, have I neglected? It is
true, that, while bearing these things in mind and neglecting none,
I felt it a supreme duty to warn my country against the perils from
Slavery, and to insist upon irreversible guaranties for the security of
all, especially those freedmen whom we could not consent to sacrifice
without the most shameful ingratitude. As the urgency was great, I
also was urgent. In season and out of season, at all times, in all
places, here at home and in the Senate, I insisted upon the abolition
of Slavery, and the completion of this great work by the removal of its
whole brood of inequalities, so that it should not reappear in another
form. But my earnestness and constancy only imperfectly represented
the cause. There could be no excess,--nothing too strong. The Republic
was menaced; where was the limit to patriotic duty? Human Rights were
in jeopardy; who that had a heart to feel could be indifferent? Nobody
could do too much. This was not possible. No wisdom too great, no voice
too eloquent, no courage too persevering. Of course, I claim no merit
for effort in this behalf; but I appeal to you, my fellow-citizens,
that the time for reproach on this account is past. We must be
“practical,” says the critic. Very well. Here we agree. But, pray, who
has been “practical”? Is it those laggards, who, after clinging to
Slavery, then denied the power of Congress, and next scouted the equal
rights of the freedman? Permit me to say that the “practical” statesman
foresees the future and provides for it.
Whoever does anything with his whole heart makes it for the time his
“one idea.” Every discoverer, every inventor, every poet, every artist,
every orator, every general, every statesman, is absorbed in his work;
and he succeeds just in proportion as for the time it becomes his
“one idea.” The occasion must not be unworthy or petty; but the more
complete the self-dedication, the more effective is the result. I know
no better instance of “one idea” pursued to a triumphant end than when
our candidate, after planning his campaign, announced that he meant “to
fight it out on this line, if it took all summer.” Here was no occasion
for reproach, except from Rebels, who would have been glad to see him
fail in that singleness of idea which gave him the victory. There are
other places where the same singleness is needed and the idea is not
less lofty. The Senate Chamber has its battles also; and the conflict
embraces the whole country. Personally, I have nothing to regret,
except my own inadequacy. I would have done more, if I could. Call it
“one idea.” That idea is nothing less than country, with all that is
contained in that inspiring word, and with the infinite vista of the
same blessings for all mankind.
* * * * *
From these allusions, suggested by my own personal relations, I come
directly to the issues of this canvass. Others have presented them so
fully that there is less need of any minute exposition on my part, even
if the heralds of triumph did not announce the certain result. But you
will bear with me while I state briefly what is to be decided. This may
be seen in general or in detail.
Speaking generally, you are to decide on the means for the final
suppression of the Rebellion, and the establishment of security for
the future. Shall the Rebellion which you have subdued on the bloody
field be permitted to assert its power again, or shall it be trampled
out, so that its infamous pretensions shall disappear forever? These
general questions involve the whole issue. If you sympathize with the
Rebellion, or decline to take security against its recurrence, then
vote for Seymour and Blair. I need not add, that, if you are in earnest
against the Rebellion, and seek just safeguards for the Republic, then
vote for Grant and Colfax. The case is too plain for argument.
It may be put more precisely still: _Shall the men who saved the
Republic continue to rule it, or shall it be handed over to Rebels and
their allies?_ Such is the simple issue, stripped of all hypocritical
guise; for here, as in other days, the real question is concealed by
the enemy. The plausible terms of Law and Constitution, with even the
pretence of generosity, now employed to rehabilitate the Rebellion, are
unmasked by the witty touch of “Hudibras,” whose words are as pointed
now as under Charles the Second:--
“What’s liberty of conscience,
I’ th’ natural and genuine sense?
’Tis to restore, with more security,
Rebellion to its ancient purity.”[266]
On the one side are loyal multitudes, and the generous freedmen
who bared themselves to danger as our allies, with Grant still at
their head; and on the other are Rebels, under the name of the
Democratic Party, all dripping with blood from innumerable fields of
slaughter where loyal men gasped away life,--from Fort Pillow, from
Andersonville, from pirate decks,--hurrying, with Seymour at their
head, to govern the Republic in the name of the Lost Cause. Not so
fast, ye men of blood! Stand back! They who encountered you before will
encounter you again.
I would not make this statement too strong. I wish to keep within
bounds. But the facts are too patent to admit of doubt. Yes, it is the
old Democracy, which, after giving to the Rebellion its denationalizing
pretension of State Rights, and all its wicked leaders, from Davis to
Forrest and Semmes,--after thwarting every measure for its suppression
as “unconstitutional,” from the Proclamation of Emancipation to
the firing of a gun or the condemnation of Vallandigham,--after
interfering with enlistments also as “unconstitutional,”--after
provoking sympathetic riots,--after holding up “blue lights” for
the guidance of the enemy,--after hanging upon the country like a
paralysis,--and after, finally, under the lead of Seymour, declaring
the war a “failure,”--this same Democracy, still under the lead of
Seymour, champions the Lost Cause. Under the pretence of restoring
Rebels to rights, it seeks to restore them to power; and this is the
very question on which you are to vote. The Tories at the end of
the Revolution were more moderate. They did not insist upon instant
restoration to rights forfeited by treason; nor did they bring forward
a candidate against Washington. This is reserved for the Tories of our
day.
* * * * *
All this is general. Descending to details, we find that the issue now
presented reappears in other questions. Of these none is more important
than that of the Reconstruction Acts, which have been openly assailed
as “unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void.”[267] In nothing more
than in this declaration, associated with the letter of its candidate,
do we behold the audacity of the Rebel Party. Even while professing
allegiance and asking your vote, they proclaim war in a new form.
Instead of _Secession_ maintained by arms, it is now _Nullification_
maintained by arms. In no other way can we interpret the party
platform, and the programme of Mr. Blair, when, with customary
frankness, he calls upon the President “to declare these Acts null
and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, and
disperse the carpet-bag State governments.”[268] Here is Nullification
with a vengeance,--that very Nullification which, in a much milder
type, made Andrew Jackson threaten to hang its authors high as Haman.
Secession is declared to be settled by the war; but Nullification is
openly recognized. What is the difference between the two? The answer
is plain. Secession is war out of the Union; Nullification is war in
the Union. And this is the open menace of the Rebel Party.
* * * * *
The Reconstruction Acts err from what they fail to do rather than from
what they do. They do too little rather than too much. They should have
secured a piece of land to the landless freedman, whose unrewarded toil
has mingled for generations in the soil; and they should have secured
a system of common schools open to all. In these demands, as in every
other measure of Reconstruction, I would do nothing in severity or
triumph, nothing to punish or humble. Nor is it only in justice to the
freedman, who has a bill against his former master for unpaid wages,
and also against the country for an infinite debt, but it is for the
good of all constituting the community, including the former master.
Nothing can be truer than that under such influences society will be
improved, character will be elevated, and the general resources will be
enlarged. Only in this way will the Barbarism of Slavery be banished,
and a true civilization organized in its place. Our simple object is
expressed in the words of Holy Writ: “Let us build these cities, and
make about them walls and towers, gates and bars, while the land is
yet before us.”[269] By contributing to this work, by laboring for its
accomplishment, by sending it our God-speed, we perform a service at
once of the highest charity and the highest patriotism, which hereafter
the children of the South, emancipated from error, will rejoice to
recognize. With Human Rights under a permanent safeguard, there can
be no limit to prosperity. As under this sunshine the land yields
its increase and the gardens bloom with beauty, while commerce and
manufactures enjoy a new life, they will confess that we did well for
them, and will hail with pride the increased glory of the Republic. If,
as in ancient Rome, we demanded the heads of senators and orators,--if,
as in England, we took the life and estate of all traitors,--if, as in
Germany, we fatigued the sword with slaughter, and cried “havoc,”--if,
as in France, we set up guillotines, and worked them until the blood
stood in puddles beneath,--if, as in all these historic countries, we
acted in pitiless vengeance,--if in anything we have done or attempted
there was one deed of vengeance,--then we, too, might deserve a
chastening censure. But all that we have done, next after the safety
of the Republic, is for the good of those who were our enemies, and
who despitefully used us. Never before was clemency so sublime; never
before was a rebel people surrounded by beneficence so comprehensive.
Great as was the Republic in arms, it is greater still in the majesty
of its charity.
So far as the Reconstruction Acts have been assailed, I am ready to
defend them against all comers. And I repel at the outset every charge
or suggestion of harshness. They are not harsh, unless it is harsh to
give every man his due. If they are harsh, then is beneficence harsh,
then is charity harsh. It is only by outraging every principle of
justice, stifling every sympathy with Human Rights, and discarding
common sense, and, still further, by forgetting all the sacred
obligations of country, that we can submit to see political power in
the hands of Rebels. No judgment is too terrible for us, if we consent
to the sacrifice. For the sake of the freedman, for the sake of his
former master, for the sake of all, and for the sake of the Republic,
this must not be. Therefore were the Reconstruction Acts adopted by
immense majorities in both Houses of Congress as the guaranty of peace.
The aspiration of our candidate was in every line and word, “Let us
have peace.”
* * * * *
Two questions are presented by the enemies of these Acts: first, on the
Power of Congress; and, secondly, on the Equal Rights of the Freedman.
* * * * *
Too often have I asserted the plenary power of Congress with arguments
that have never been answered, to feel it necessary now to occupy
time on this head. The case may be proved in so many ways that it is
difficult to know which to select. Whether the power is derived from
the necessity of the case, because the Rebel States were without
governments, which is the reason assigned by Chief Justice Marshall
for the jurisdiction of Congress over the Territories,--or from the
universal rights of war, following the subjection of belligerents
on land,--or from the obligation of the United States to guaranty
a republican government to each State,--or from the Constitutional
Amendment abolishing Slavery, with its supplementary clause conferring
upon Congress power to enforce this abolition,--whether the power is
derived from one or all of these bountiful sources, it is clear that it
exists. As well say that the power over the Territories, the war power,
the guaranty power, and the power to enforce the abolition of Slavery,
do not exist; as well say that the Constitution itself does not exist.
If any confirmation of this irresistible conclusion were needed, it
might be found in the practical admissions of Andrew Johnson, who,
while perversely usurping the power of Reconstruction, did it in the
name of the Nation. In the prosecution of this usurpation, he summoned
conventions of delegates made eligible by his proclamation, and chosen
by electors invested by him with the right of suffrage; and through
these conventions, to which he gave the law by telegraphic wire,
he assumed to institute local governments. Thus has Andrew Johnson
testified to the power of the Nation over Reconstruction, while, with
an absurdity of pretension which history will condemn even more than
any contemporary judgment, he assumed that he was the Nation. His
usurpation has been overthrown, but his testimony to the power of the
Nation remains. When the Nation speaks, it is by Congress,--as the
Roman Republic spoke by its Senate and people, _Senatus Populusque
Romanus_, in whose name went forth those great decrees which ruled the
world.
In considering the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts,
there is a distinction, recognized by repeated judgments of the
Supreme Court, which has not been sufficiently regarded, even by our
friends. The Rebel Party, especially in their platform at New York,
forget it entirely. They tell us that the Reconstruction Acts are
“unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void,” and Wade Hampton boasts
that he prompted this declaration. I have already exhibited the
power of Congress in four different sources; but beyond these is the
principle, _that Congress, in the exercise of political powers, cannot
be questioned_. So says the Supreme Court. Thus it has been decided,
in general terms, “that the action of _the political branches_ of the
Government in a matter that belongs to them is conclusive.”[270] And
in the famous case of _Luther_ v. _Borden_, it is announced, that,
where the National Government interferes with the domestic concerns
of a State, “the Constitution of the United States, as far as it has
provided for an emergency of this kind, _has treated the subject as
political in its nature, and placed the power in the hands of that
department_”; and it is further added, that “its decision is binding
on every other department of Government, and could not be questioned
in a judicial tribunal.”[271] In the face of these peremptory words,
it is difficult to see what headway can be made in contesting the
validity of the Reconstruction Acts, except by arms. If ever a question
was political, it is this. It is political in every aspect, whether
regarded as springing from the necessity of the case, from the rights
of war, from the obligation to guaranty a republican government, or
from the power to enforce the abolition of Slavery. Never before was
any question presented so completely political. Reconstruction is as
political as the war, or as any of the means for its conduct. It is
political from beginning to end. It is nothing, if not political.
Therefore, by unassailable precedents under the Constitution, are these
Acts fixed and secured so that no court can touch them,--nothing but
the war which Mr. Blair has menaced.
* * * * *
The Equal Rights conferred upon the freedman are all placed under
this safeguard. Congress has done this great act of justice, and,
thank God, it cannot be undone. It has already taken its place in the
immortal covenants of history, and become a part of the harmonies of
the universe. As well attempt to undo the Declaration of Independence,
or suspend the law of gravitation. This cannot be. The bloody horrors
of San Domingo, where France undertook to cancel Emancipation, testify
with a voice of wail that a race once lifted from Slavery cannot be
again degraded. Human Rights, when at last obtained, cannot be wrested
back without a conflict in which God will rage against the oppressor.
But I do not content myself with showing the essential stability of
this measure of Reconstruction. I defend it in all respects,--not
only as an act of essential justice, without which our Nation would
be a deformity, but as an irresistible necessity, for the sake of
that security without which peace is impossible. It is enough that
justice commanded it; but the public exigency left no opportunity
for any fine-spun system, with educational or pecuniary conditions,
even if this were consistent with the fundamental principle that “all
just government stands only on the consent of the governed.” As the
strong arms of this despised race had been needed for the safety of
the Republic, so were their votes needed now. The cause was the same.
Without them loyal governments would fail. They could not be organized.
To enfranchise those only who could read and write or pay a certain
tax was not enough. They were too few. All the loyal are needed at the
ballot-box to counterbalance the disloyal.
* * * * *
It was at this time, and under this pressure, that conditions,
educational or pecuniary, were seen to be inadmissible; and many,
considering the question in the light of principle, were led to ask,
if, under any circumstances, such conditions are just. Surely an
unlettered Unionist is better than a Rebel, however learned or wise,
and on all practical questions will vote more nearly right. If there
is to be exclusion, let it be of the disloyal, and not of the loyal.
Nobody can place the value of education too high; but is it just
to make it the prerequisite to any right of citizenship? There are
many, whose only school has been the rough world, in whom character
is developed to a rare degree. There are freedmen unable to read or
write who are excellent in all respects. If willing to reject such
persons as allies, can you justly exclude them from participation in
the Government? Can you justly exclude any good citizen from such
participation?
It is recorded of the English statesman, Charles James Fox, that, after
voting at a contested election, and finding his coachman, who had
driven him to the polls, voting the other way, he protested pleasantly
that the coachman should have told him in advance how he was to
vote, that the two might have paired off and stayed at home. Here is
Fox at the polls neutralized by his coachman. A similar incident is
told of Judge Story, here in Cambridge. Both stories have been used
to discredit suffrage by the people. They have not this effect on
my mind. On the contrary, I find in them a beautiful illustration
of that Equality before the Law which is the promise of republican
institutions. At the ballot-box the humblest citizen is the equal of
the great statesman or the great judge. If this seems unreasonable, it
must not be forgotten that the eminent citizen exercises an influence
which is not confined to his vote. It extends with his fame or
position, so that, though he has only a single vote, there are many,
perhaps multitudes, swayed by his example. This is the sufficient
compensation for talent and education exerted for the public weal,
without denying to anybody his vote. The common man may counterbalance
the vote of the great statesman or great judge, but he cannot
counterbalance this influence. The common man has nothing but his vote.
Who would rob him of this?
* * * * *
Thus far I have shown the Reconstruction Acts to be constitutional,
natural, and valid, in contradiction to the Rebel platform, asserting
them to be “unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void.” But these Acts
may be seen in other aspects. I have shown what they accomplish. See
now what they prevent; and here is another series of questions, every
one of which is an issue on which you are to vote.
* * * * *
Are you ready for the revival of Slavery? I put this question plainly;
for this is involved in the irreversibility of the Reconstruction
Acts. Let these be overthrown or abandoned, and I know no adequate
safeguard against an outrageous oppression of the freedman, which
will be Slavery under another name. The original type, as received
from Africa and perpetuated here, might not appear; but this is not
the only form of the hateful wrong. Not to speak of peonage, as it
existed in Mexico, there is a denial of rights, with exclusion from
all participation in the Government and subjection to oppressive
restraints, which of itself is a most direful slavery, under which the
wretched bondman smarts as beneath the lash. And such a slavery has
been deliberately planned by the Rebels. It would be organized, if
they again had power. Of this there can be no doubt. The evidence is
explicit and authentic.
I have here a Congressional document, containing the cruel legislation
of the Rebel States immediately after the close of the Rebellion,
under the inspiration of the Johnson governments.[272] Here are its
diabolical statutes, fashioned in the spirit of Slavery, with all that
heartlessness which gave to Slavery its distinctive character. The
emancipated African, shut out from all participation in the Government,
despoiled of the ballot, was enmeshed in a web of laws which left him
no better than a fly in the toils of a spider. If he moved away from
his place of work, he was caught as a “vagrant”; if he sought work
as a mechanic or by the job, he was constrained by the requirement
of a “license”; if he complained of a white man, he was subjected to
the most cunning impediments; if he bought arms for self-defence, he
was a violator of law;--and thus, wherever he went, or whatever he
attempted, he was a perpetual victim. In Mississippi he could not
“rent or lease any lands or tenements except in incorporated towns or
cities,” thus keeping him a serf attached to the soil of his master.
Looking at these provisions critically, it appears, that, while
pretending to regulate vagrants, apprentices, licenses, and civil
rights, the freedman was degraded to the most abject condition; and
then, under a pretence for the public peace, he was shut out from
opportunities of knowledge, and also from keeping arms, while he was
subjected to odious and exceptional punishments, as the pillory, the
stocks, the whipping-post, and sale for fine and costs. Behind all
these was violence, assassination, murder, with the Ku-Klux-Klan
constituting the lawless police of this new system. The whole picture
is too horrible; but it is true as horrible. In the face of this
unanswerable evidence, who will say that it was not proposed to revive
Slavery? To call such a condition Liberty is preposterous. If not a
slave of the old type, the freedman was a slave of a new type, invented
by his unrepentant master as the substitute for what he had surrendered
to the power of the Nation. Beginning with a caste as offensive and
irreligious as that of Hindostan, and adding to it the pretensions of
an oligarchy in government, the representatives of the old system were
preparing to trample upon an oppressed race. The soul sickens at the
thought.
* * * * *
With all this indubitable record staring us in the eyes, with the daily
report of inconceivable outrage darkening the air, with wrong in every
form let loose upon the long-suffering freedman, General Lee breaks the
respectable silence of his parole to deny that “the Southern people
are hostile to the negroes, and would oppress them, if in their power
to do it.” The report, he asserts, is “entirely unfounded,”--that
is the phrase,--“entirely unfounded”; and then he dwells on the old
patriarchal relation, with the habit from childhood of “looking upon
them with kindness” (witness the history of Slavery in its authentic
instances!); and then he insists that “the change in the relations of
the two races has wrought no change in feelings towards them,” that
“without their labor the land of the South would be comparatively
unproductive, and therefore _self-interest would prompt the whites
of the South to extend to the negroes care and protection_.” Here
is the threadbare pretension with which we were so familiar through
all the dreary days of the old Barbarism, now brought forward by the
Generalissimo of the Rebellion to vindicate the new,--and all this with
an unabashed effrontery, which shows, that, in surrendering his sword,
he did not surrender that insensibility to justice and humanity which
is the distinctive character of the slave-master. The freedman does not
need the “care and protection” of any such person. He needs the rights
of an American citizen; and you are to declare by your votes if he
shall have them.
* * * * *
The opposition to the Reconstruction Acts manifests itself in an
inconceivable brutality, kindred to that of Slavery, and fit prelude
to the revival of this odious wrong. Shall this continue? Outrage in
every form is directed against loyal persons, without distinction of
color. It is enough that a man is a patriot for Rebels to make war upon
him. Insulted, abused, and despoiled of everything, he is murdered on
the highway, on the railway, or, it may be, in his own house. Nowhere
is he safe. The terrible atrocity of these acts is aggravated by the
rallying cries of the murderers. If the victim is black, then it is a
“war of races”; if white, then he is nothing but a “carpet-bagger”;
and so, whether black or white, he is a victim. History has few scenes
of equal guilt. Persecution in all its untold cruelties, ending in
martyrdom, rages over a wide-spread land.
If there be a “war of races,” as is the apologetic defence of the
murderers, then it is war declared and carried on by whites. The
other race is inoffensive and makes no war, asking only its rights.
The whole pretension of a “war of races” is an invention to cover the
brutality of the oppressors. Not less wicked is the loud-mouthed attack
on immigrants, whom Rebels choose to call “carpet-baggers,”--that is,
American citizens, who, in the exercise of the rights of citizenship,
carry to the South the blood, the capital, and the ideas of the North.
This term of reproach does not belong to the Northerner alone. The
carpet-bag is the symbol of our whole population: there is nobody who
is not a “carpet-bagger,” or at least the descendant of one. Constantly
the country opens its arms to welcome “carpet-baggers” from foreign
lands. And yet the cry ascends that “carpet-baggers” are to be driven
from the South. Here permit me to say, that, if anybody is driven from
anywhere, it will not be the loyal citizen, whether old or new.
On all this you are to vote. It will be for you to determine if there
shall be peace between the two races, and if American citizens shall
enjoy everywhere within the jurisdiction of the Republic all the rights
of citizenship, free from harm or menace, and with the liberty of
uttering their freest thoughts.
There is another issue at this election. It is with regard to the
unpatriotic, denationalizing pretensions of State Rights. In their
name was the Rebellion begun, and now in their name is every measure
of Reconstruction opposed. Important as are the functions of a State
in the administration of local government, especially in resisting an
overbearing centralization, they must not be exalted above the Nation
in its own appropriate sphere. Great as is the magic of a State, there
is to my mind a greater magic in the Nation. The true patriot would not
consent to see the sacrifice of the Nation more than the true mother
before King Solomon would consent to see the sacrifice of her child.
It is as a Nation--all together making one--that we have a place at
the council-board of the world, to excite the pride of the patriot and
the respect of foreign powers. It is as a Nation that we can do all
that becomes a civilized government; and “who dares do more is none.”
But all this will be changed, just in proportion as any State claims
for itself a sovereignty which belongs to all, and reduces the Nation
within its borders to be little more than a tenant-at-will,--just
in proportion as the National Unity is assailed or called in
question,--just in proportion as the Nation ceases to be a complete
and harmonious body, in which each State performs its ancillary part,
as hand or foot to the natural body. There is an irresistible protest
against such a sacrifice, which comes from the very heart of our
history. It was in the name of “the good people of these Colonies,”
called “one people,” that our fathers put forth the Declaration of
Independence, with its preamble of Unity, and its dedication of the new
Nation to Human Rights. And now it is for us, their children, to keep
this Unity, and to perform all the national promises thus announced.
The Nation is solemnly pledged to guard its Unity, and to make Human
Rights coextensive with its boundaries. Nor can it allow any pretension
of State Rights to interfere with this commanding duty.
* * * * *
There is still another issue, which is subordinate to Reconstruction
and dependent upon it, so, indeed, as to be a part of it. I refer to
the Financial Question, with the menace of Repudiation in different
forms. Let the Reconstruction Acts be maintained in peace, in other
words, let peace be established in the Rebel States, and the menace
of Repudiation will disappear from the scene,--none so poor to do
it reverence. If it find any acceptance now, it is only in that
revolutionary spirit which assails all the guaranties of peace.
Repudiation of the Reconstruction Acts, with all their securities for
Equal Rights, is naturally followed by repudiation of the National
Debt. The Acts and the Debt are parts of one system, being the means
and price of peace. So strongly am I convinced of the potency of this
influence, that I do not doubt the entire practicability of specie
payments on the fourth of July next after the inauguration of General
Grant.
Nay, more, it is my conviction, not only that we _can_ have specie
payments at that time, but that we _ought_ to have them. If we can,
we ought; for this is nothing but the honest payment of what we owe.
A failure to pay may be excused, but never justified. Our failure
was originally sanctioned only under the urgency of war; but this
sanction cannot extend beyond the urgency. It is sometimes said that
necessity renders an action just, and Latin authority is quoted: _Id
enim justissimum quod necessarium_. But it is none the less untrue.
Necessity may excuse an action not in itself just, but it is without
the force to render it just; for justice is immutable. The taking of
the property of another under the instigation of famine is excused,
and so is the taking of the property of citizens by the Government
during war,--in both cases from necessity. But as the necessity ceases,
the obligations of justice revive. Necessity has no rights, but only
privileges, which disappear with the exigency. Therefore do I say that
the time has passed when the Nation can be excused for refusing to
pay according to its promise. But it is vain to expect this important
change from a political party which emblazons Repudiation on its
banners.
* * * * *
It is in two conspicuous forms that Repudiation flaunts: first, in
the barefaced proposition to tax the bonds, contrary to the contract
at the time the money was lent; and the other, not less barefaced, to
pay interest-bearing bonds with greenbacks, or, in other words, mere
promises to pay without interest.
* * * * *
The exemption from taxation was a part of the original obligation,
having, of course, a positive value, which entered into the price of
the bond at the time of subscription. This additional price was taken
from the pocket of the subscriber and transferred to the National
Treasury, where it has been used for the public advantage. It is so
much property to the credit of the bond-holder, which it is gravely
proposed to confiscate. Rebel property you will not confiscate; but you
are considering how to confiscate that of the loyal citizen. Taxation
of the bonds is confiscation.
The whole case can be stated with perfect simplicity. To tax the
bonds is to break the contract _because you have the power_. It is an
imitation of the Roman governor, a lieutenant of Cæsar, who, after
an agreement by the people of Gaul to pay a certain subsidy monthly,
arbitrarily changed the number of months to fourteen. The subtraction
from the interest by taxation is kindred in dishonesty to the increase
of the Gaulish subsidy by adding to the months. Of course, in private
contracts between merchant and merchant no such thing could be done.
But there can be no rule of good faith binding on private individuals
which is not binding on the Nation, while there are exceptional reasons
for extraordinary scrupulousness on the part of the Nation. As the
transaction is vast, and especially as the Nation is conspicuous, what
is done becomes an example to the world which history cannot forget.
A Nation cannot afford to do a mean thing. There is another reason,
founded on the helpless condition of the creditor, who has no power to
enforce his claim, whether of principal or interest. It was Charles
James Fox who once exclaimed against a proposition kindred to that now
made: “Oh, no, no! His claims are doubly binding who trusts to the
rectitude of another.” This is only according to an admitted principle
in the Laws of War, constraining the stronger power to the best of
faith in dealing with a weaker power, because the latter is without the
capacity to redress a wrong. This benign principle, borrowed from the
Laws of War, cannot be out of place in the Laws of Peace; and I invoke
it now as a sufficient protection against taxation of the bonds, even
if common sense in its plainest lessons, and the rule of right in its
most imperious precepts, did not forbid this thing.
The cheat of paying interest-bearing bonds in promises without interest
is kindred in character to that of taxing the bonds. It is flat
Repudiation. No subtlety of technicality, no ingenuity of citation, no
skill in arranging texts of statutes, can make it anything else. It is
so on the face, and it is so the more the transaction is examined. Here
again I invoke that rule of conduct to a weaker party, and I insist,
that, if, from any failure of explicitness excluding all contrary
conclusion, there can be any reason for Repudiation, every such
suggestion must be dismissed as the frightful well-spring of disastrous
consequences impossible to estimate, while it is inconsistent with that
Public Faith which is the supreme law.
Elsewhere I have considered this question so fully,[273] that I content
myself now with conclusions only. Do you covet the mines of Mexico and
Peru, the profits of extended commerce, or the harvest of your own
teeming fields? All these and more you will multiply infinitely, if
you will keep the Public Faith inviolate. Do you seek stability in the
currency, with the assurance of solid business, so that extravagance
and gambling speculations shall cease? This, too, you will have through
the Public Faith. Just in proportion as this is discredited, the Nation
is degraded and impoverished. If nobody had breathed Repudiation,
we should all be richer, and the national debt would be at a lower
interest, saving to the Nation millions of dollars annually. Talk of
taxation; here is an annual tax of millions imposed by these praters of
Repudiation.
Careless of all the teachings of history, you are exhorted to pay the
national debt in greenbacks, knowing that this can be done only by
creating successive batches, counted by hundreds of millions, which
will bring our currency to the condition of Continental money, when a
night’s lodging cost a thousand dollars, or the condition of the French
_assignats_, the paper currency of the Revolution, which was increased
to a fearful amount, precisely as it is now proposed to increase ours,
until the story of Continental money was repeated. Talk of clipping
the coin, or enfeebling it with alloy, as in mediæval times; talk of
the disgraceful frauds of French monarchs, who, one after another in
long succession, debased their money and swore the officers of the Mint
to conceal the debasement; talk of persistent reductions in England,
from Edward the First to Elizabeth, until coin was only the half of
itself; talk of unhappy Africa, where Mungo Park found that a gallon
of rum, which was the unit of value, was half water;--talk of all
these; you have them on a colossal scale in the cheat of paying bonds
with greenbacks. If not taught by our own memorable experience, when
Continental money, which was the currency of the time, was lost, like
the river Rhine at its mouth, in an enormous outstretched quicksand,
then be taught by the experience of another country. Authentic history
discloses the condition to which France was reduced. Carlyle, in his
picturesque work on the Revolution, says: “There is, so to speak, no
trade whatever, for the time being. _Assignats_, long sinking, emitted
in such quantities, sink now with an alacrity beyond parallel.” The
hackney-coachman on the street, when asked his fare, replied, “Six
thousand livres.”[274] And still the _assignats_ sunk, until at last
the nation was a pauper. The Directory, invested for the time with
supreme power, on repairing to the palace of the Luxembourg, found it
without a single article of furniture. Borrowing from the door-keeper
a rickety table, an inkstand, and a sheet of letter-paper, they
draughted their first official message, announcing the new government.
There was not a solitary piece of coin in the Treasury; but there
was a printing-press at command. _Assignats_ were fabricated in the
night, and sent forth in the morning wet from the press.[275] At last
they ended in nothing,--but not until a great and generous people was
enveloped in bankruptcy and every family was a sufferer. Bankruptcy
has its tragedies hardly inferior to those which throb beneath the
“sceptred pall.”
Similar misconduct among us must result in similar consequences, with
all the tragedies of bankruptcy. Not a bank, not a corporation, not
an institution of charity, which would not suffer,--each sweeping
multitudes into the abyss which it could not avoid. Business would
be disorganized, values would be uncertain; nobody would know that
the paper in his pocket to-day would buy a dinner to-morrow. There is
no limit to the depreciation of inconvertible paper. Down, down it
descends, as the plummet, to the bottom, or up, up, as the bubble in
the air, until, whether down or up, it disappears. It is hard to think
of the poor, or of those who depend on daily wages, under the trials of
this condition. The rich may, for the time, live from their abundance;
but the less favored class can have no such refuge. Therefore, for the
poor, and for all who labor, do I now plead, when I ask that you shall
not hearken to this painful proposition.
I plead, also, for the business of the country. So long as the currency
continues in its present uncertainty, it cannot answer the demands
of business. It is a diseased limb, no better than what is known in
India as a “Cochin leg,” or an excrescence not unlike the pendulous
goitre which is the pitiful sight of an Alpine village. But it must
be uncertain, unless we have peace. Therefore, for the sake of the
currency, do I unite with our candidate in his longing. Business must
be emancipated. How often are we told by the lawyers, in a saying
handed down from antiquity, that “a wretched servitude exists where the
law is uncertain”! But this is not true of the law only. Nothing short
of that servitude which denies God-given rights can be more wretched
than the servitude of an uncertain currency. And now that, by the
blessing of God, we are banishing that terrible wrong which was so long
the curse and shame of our Nation, let us apply ourselves to this other
servitude, whose yoke we are all condemned to bear in daily life.
Looking into the travels of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, you
will find that he encountered in China paper money on a large scale,
being an inconvertible currency standing on the credit of the Grand
Khan, not unlike our greenbacks. Describing the celestial city of
Kin-sai, the famous traveller says, “The inhabitants are idolaters,
and they use paper money”; and then describing another celestial city,
Ta-pin-zu, he says, “The inhabitants worship idols, and use paper
money.”[276] I know not if Marco Polo intended by this association
to suggest any dependence of paper money upon the worship of idols.
It is enough that he puts them together. To my mind they are equally
forbidden by the Ten Commandments. If one Commandment enjoins upon us
not to worship any graven image, does not another say expressly, “Thou
shalt not steal”?
* * * * *
There is another consideration, which I have reserved for the last, and
which I would call an issue in the pending election. It is nothing less
than the good name of the Republic, and its character as an example
to the Nations. All this is directly in question. If you are true
to the great principles of Equal Rights, declared by our fathers as
the foundation of just government,--if you stand by the freedman and
maintain him in well-earned citizenship,--if you require full payment
of the national debt in coin, principal and interest, at the pleasure
of the holder, so that the Republic shall have the crown of perfect
honesty, as also of perfect freedom,--I do not doubt that it will
exercise a far-reaching sway. Nothing captivates more than the example
of virtue,--not even the example of vice. _By this sign conquer_: by
fidelity to declared principles, by the performance of all promises,
by a good name. Then will American history supply the long-sought
definition of a Republic, and our Western star will illumine the
Nations.
Reverse the picture, let the Rebel Party prevail, and what do we
behold? The bonds of the Nation repudiated, and the Equal Rights of the
freedman, which are nothing but bonds of the Nation, repudiated also.
Alas! the example of the Republic is lost, and our Western star is
quenched in darkness. But this cannot be without a shock, as when our
first parents tasted the forbidden fruit:--
“Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.”
The shock will begin at home; but it will spread wherever there are
hearts to thrill with anguish. The struggling people in foreign lands,
now turned to us with hope, will sink in despair as they observe the
disastrous eclipse.
I would not seem too confident in the destinies of my country; but
I cannot doubt, that, if only true to herself, there is nothing too
vast for her peaceful ambition. Here again I catch the aspiration of
our leader in war, “Let us have peace.” Out of peace will spring all
else. Abroad there will be welcome and acceptance, with the might
of our example constantly increasing. At home there will be safety
and opportunity for all within our borders, with freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, freedom of travel, and the equal rights of
citizenship, like the rights of the national creditor, all under the
perpetual safeguard of that Public Faith which is the golden cord of
the Republic. Let despots break promises, but not our Republic. A
Republic is where every man has his due. Equality of rights is the
standing promise of Nature to man, and the Republic has succeeded to
this promise.
In harmony with the promise of Nature is the promise of our fathers,
recorded in the Declaration of Independence, to which the Republic has
succeeded also. It is the twofold promise, first, that all are equal in
rights, and, secondly, that just government stands only on the consent
of the governed,--being the two great political commandments on which
hang all laws and constitutions. Keep these truly, and you will keep
all. Write them in your statutes; write them in your hearts. _This
is the great and only final settlement of all existing questions._
Under its kindly influence the past Rebellion will disappear, alike in
its principles and its passions; future Rebellion will be impossible;
and there will be a peace never to be disturbed. To this sublime
consecration of the Republic let me aspire. With nothing less can I be
content.