_Origin of Andrew Johnson.--His Speeches in Tennessee.--The Negro’s
Moses.--The Deceived Brahmin.--The Comparison.--Interview with
Southerners.--Northern Delegation.--Delegation of Colored Men.--Their
Appeal._
Springing from the highest circle of the lowest class of whites of the
South, gradually rising, coming up over a tailor’s board, and all the
obstacles that slaveholding society places between an humbly-born man
and social and political elevation, Andrew Johnson entered upon his
presidential duties, at the death of Mr. Lincoln, with the hearty good
feeling of the American people. True, he had taken a glass too much on
the day of his inauguration as vice-president, and the nation had
not forgotten it; yet there were many palliating circumstances to be
offered. The weather was cold, his ride from Tennessee had been long and
fatiguing, he had met with a host of friends, who, like himself, were
not afraid of the “critter.” And, after all, who amongst that vast
concourse of politicians, on that fourth day of March, had not taken a
“Tom and Jerry,” a “whiskey punch,” a “brandy smash,”--or a “cocktail”?
Again: the people had been robbed of their idol, and suddenly plunged
into grief, and felt like looking up the commendable acts of the new
President, rather than finding fault, and were desirous to see how far
he was capable of filling the gap so recently made vacant.
They remembered that when the secessionists were withdrawing from
Congress, in 1860, Mr. Johnson said,
“If I were president, I would try them for treason, and, if convicted,
I would hang them.” This was mark number one in his favor. They had
not forgotten his address to the Tennessee Convention, which, in the
preceding January, had, by an almost unanimous vote, declared slavery in
that State forever abolished.
This speech was made on the 14th of January, and is very uncompromising
and eloquent. “Yesterday,” said he to the Convention, “you broke the
tyrant’s rod, and set the captive free. (Loud applause.) Yes, gentlemen,
yesterday you sounded the death-knell of negro aristocracy, and
performed the funeral obsequies of that thing called slavery.... I feel
that God smiles on what you have done. Oh, how it contrasts with the
shrieks and cries and wailings which the institution of slavery has
brought on the land!”
And his speech to the colored people of Nashville in the preceding
October was exceedingly touching, by reason of its tender, heartfelt
compassion for all the degradation, insult, and cruelty which had been
heaped upon that poor and unoffending people so long. Its scorn and
sarcasm were terrible as he arraigned the “master” class for their long
career of lust, tyranny, and crime. He hoped a Moses would arise to lead
this persecuted people to their promised land of freedom. “You are our
Moses,” shouted first one, and then a great multitude of voices. But the
speaker went on,
“God, no doubt, has prepared, somewhere, an instrument for the great
work he designs to perform in behalf of this outraged people; and in due
time your leader will come forth,--your Moses will be revealed to you.”
“We want no Moses but you!” again shouted the crowd. “Well, then,”
replied Mr. Johnson, “humble and unworthy as I am, if no better shall be
found, I will indeed be your Moses, and lead you through the Red Sea of
war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace.”
These were brave words in behalf of the rights of man, and weighed
heavily in Mr. Johnson’s favor. Also in his first public words, after
taking the oath as President of the United States, Mr. Johnson referred
to _the past_ of his life as an indication of his course and policy in
the future, rather than to make any verbal declarations now; thereby
manifesting an honorable willingness to be judged by his acts, and a
consciousness that the record was one which he need not be ashamed to
own.
What better words or greater promises could be demanded? And, moreover,
the American people are admirers of self-made men. Indeed, it is the
foundation of true republican principles; and those who come to the
surface by their own genius or energies are sure to be well received
by the masses. But was Andrew Johnson a genius? was he shrewd? was he
smart? If not, how could he have attained to such a high position in
his own State? Were the people there all fools, that they should send
a mountebank to the United-States Senate? Or were they, as well as
the National-Republican Convention that nominated him in 1864 for the
Vice-Presidency, deceived?
Macaulay, in his Criticism on the Poems of Robert Montgomery, says, “A
pious Brahmin, it is written, made a vow, that, on a certain day, he
would sacrifice a sheep; and on the appointed morning he went forth to
buy one. There lived in his neighborhood three rogues, who knew his vow,
and laid a scheme for profiting by it. The first met him, and said, ‘O
Brahmin! wilt thou buy a sheep? I have one fit for sacrifice.’--‘It is
for that very purpose,’ said the holy man, ‘that I came forth this
day.’ Then the impostor opened a bag, and brought out of it an unclean
beast,--an ugly dog, lame and blind. ‘Thereon the Brahmin cried out,
‘Wretch, who touchest things impure, and utterest things untrue, callest
thou that cur a sheep?’--‘Truly,’ answered the other, ‘it is a sheep of
the finest fleece, and of the sweetest flesh. O Brahmin! it will be
an offering most acceptable to the gods!’--‘Friend,’ said the Brahmin,
‘either thou or I must be blind.’ Just then, one of the accomplices came
up. ‘Praised be the gods,’ said this second rogue, ‘that I have been
saved the trouble of going to the market for a sheep! This is such a
sheep as I wanted. For how much wilt thou sell it?’ When the Brahmin
heard this, his mind waved to and fro, like one swinging in the air at
a holy festival. ‘Sir,’ said he to the new-comer, ‘take heed what thou
dost. This is no sheep, but an unclean cur.’--‘O Brahmin!’ said the
new-comer, ‘thou art drunk or mad.’ At this time, the third confederate
drew near. ‘Let us ask this man,’ said the Brahmin, ‘what the creature
is; and I will stand by what he shall say.’ To this the others agreed;
and the Brahmin called out, ‘O stranger! what dost thou call this
beast?’--‘Surely, O Brahmin!’ said the knave, ‘it is a fine sheep.’ Then
the Brahmin said, ‘Surely the gods have taken away my senses!’ and he
asked pardon of him who carried the dog, and bought it for a measure of
rice and a pot of ghee; and offered it up to the gods, who, being wroth
at this unclean sacrifice, smote him with a sore disease in all his
joints!”
The poor Brahmin was never more thoroughly imposed upon in receiving
the dog for a sheep than were the American people in accepting Andrew
Johnson as a statesman, or even as a friend of liberty and republican
institutions. That he hated the slaveocracy, there is not the slightest
doubt; for they were far above him, and all his efforts to be recognized
by them as an equal had failed.
But did he like the negro any better than the master? It is said, that
while in his apprenticeship, on one occasion, young Johnson was passing
along the street with a pair of pants upon his arm, when a well-dressed
free negro accidentally ran against him, pushing the tailor into a
ditch; whereupon, the latter threw a handful of mud at the black man,
soiling his clothes very much. The negro turned, and indignantly said,
“You better mind what you ‘bout, you low white clodhopper, poor white
trash!” This retort of the negro no doubt touched a tender chord; for
it reminded the rising young man of the “pit from whence he was
digged,” and it is said he hated the race ever after. _But it must be
acknowledged_ that Mr. Johnson is a big man in little things; that he
showed some shrewdness in taking advantage of the Union feeling, and
especially the antislavery sentiment, of the North, in wiggling himself
into the Republican party by his bunkum speeches. After all, what is the
real character of the man?
“Great Judas of the nineteenth century,
Foul political traitor of the age,
Persistent speeechmaker, covered with falsity,
Come, sit now for your portrait. I will paint
As others see you,--men who love their God,
And hate not even you, aye you, attaint
With love of self, and power that’s outlawed.
Behold the picture! See a drunken man
Whose age brings nothing but increase of sin,--
A deceptive ‘policy,’ a hateful plan
To deceive the people, and reenslave the sons of Ham!
Now see it stretching out a slimy palm,
And striking hands with rebels. Nay, nay!
It grasps Columbia by the throat and arm,
And seeks to give her to that beast of prey.”
Intensely in love with himself, egotistical, without dignity,
tyrannical, ungrateful, and fond of flattery, Mr. Johnson was entirely
unprepared to successfully resist the overtures of the slaveholding
aristocracy, by whom he had so long wished to be recognized. It was some
weeks after the death of the good President, that a committee of these
Southerners visited the White House. They found Mr. Johnson alone; for
they had asked for an audience, which had been readily granted. Humbly
they came, the lords of the lash, the men who, five years before, would
not have shaken hands with him with a pair of tongs ten feet long. Many
of them the President had seen on former occasions: all of them he knew
by reputation. As they stood before him, he viewed them from head to
feet, and felt an inward triumph. He could scarcely realize the fact,
and asked himself, “Is it possible? have I my old enemies before me,
seeking favors?” Yes: it was so; and they had no wish to conceal the
fact. The chairman of the committee, a man of years, one whose very
look showed that he was not without influence among those who knew him,
addressing the Chief Magistrate, said, “Mr. President, we come as a
committee to represent to you the condition of the South, and its wants.
We fear that your Excellency has had things misrepresented to you by
the Radicals; and knowing you to be a man of justice, a statesman of
unsullied reputation, one who to-day occupies the proudest position of
any man in the world, we come to lay our wants before you. We have, in
the past, been your political opponents. In the future, we shall be your
friends; because we now see that you were right, and we were wrong. We
ask, nay, we beg you to permit us to reconstruct the Southern States.
Our people, South, are loyal to a man, and wish to return at once
to their relations in the General Government. We look upon you, Mr.
President, as the embodiment of the truly chivalrous Southerner,--one
who, born and bred in the South, understands her people: to you we
appeal for justice; for we are sure that your impulses are pure.
Your future, Mr. President, is to be a brilliant one. At the next
presidential election, the South will be a unit for the man who saves
her from the hands of these Yankees, who now, under the protection of
the Freedman’s Bureau, are making themselves rich. We shall stand by the
man that saves us; and you are that man. Your genius, your sagacity,
and your unequalled statesmanship, mark you out as the father of his
country. Without casting a single ungenerous reflection upon the great
name of George Washington, allow me to say what I am sure the rest of
the delegation will join me in, and that is, that, a hundred years
to come, the name of Andrew Johnson will be the brightest in American
history.” Several times during the delivery of the above speech, the
President was seen to wipe his eyes, for he was indeed moved to tears.
At its conclusion, he said, “Gentlemen, your chairman has perfectly
overwhelmed me. I was not, I confess, prepared for these kind words,
this cordial support, of the people of the South. Your professions of
loyalty, which I feel to be genuine, and your promises of future aid,
unman me. I thought you were my enemies, and it is to enemies that I
love to give battle. As to my friends, they can always govern me. I will
lay your case before the cabinet.”--“We do not appeal to your cabinet,”
continued the chairman, “it is to you, Mr. President, that we come. Were
you a common man, we should expect you to ask advice of your cabinet;
but we regard you as master, aud your secretaries as your servants. You
are capable of acting without consulting them: we think you the Andrew
Jackson of to-day. Presidents, sir, are regarded as mere tools. We hope
you, like Jackson, will prove an exception. We, the people of the South,
are willing to let you do precisely as you please; and still we will
support you. We are proud to acknowledge you as our leader. All we ask
is, that we shall be permitted to organize our State Governments, elect
our senators and representatives, and return at once into the Union;
and this, Mr. President, lies entirely with you, unless you acknowledge
yourself to be in leading-strings, which we know is not so; for Andrew
Johnson can never play second fiddle to men or parties.” These last
remarks affected Mr. Johnson very much, which he in vain attempted
to conceal. “Gentlemen,” replied the President, “I confess that your
chairman, has, in his remarks, made an impression on my mind that I
little dreamed of when you entered. I admit that I am not pleased with
the manner in which the Radicals are acting.”--“Allow me,” said the
chairman, interrupting the President, “to say a word or two that I
had forgotten.” “Proceed,” said the Chief Magistrate. “You are not
appreciated,” continued the chairman, “by the Radicals. They speak of
you sneeringly as the ‘accidental President,’ just as if you were not
the choice of the people. The people of the North would never elect you
again. No man, except Mr. Lincoln, has ever been elected a second time
to the presidency, from the free States. They have so many peddling
politicians, like so many hungry wolves, seeking office, that they are
always crying, ‘Rotation, rotation.’ But, with us of the South, it is
different. When we find a man with genius, talent, a statesman, we hold
on to him, and keep him in office. You, Mr. President, can carry all
the Southern, and enough of the Northern States to elect you to another
term.”--“Yes,” responded one of the committee, “to two terms more.”
Mr. Johnson, with suppressed emotion, said, “I will at once lay down a
policy, which, I think, will satisfy the entire people of the South;
but, but--I said that treason should be made odious, and traitors should
be punished: what can I do so as not to stultify myself?”
“I see it as clear as day, Mr. President,” said the chairman. “You have
already made treason odious by those eloquent speeches which you have
delivered at various times on the Rebellion; and now you can punish
traitors by giving them office. St. Paul said, ‘If thine enemy hunger,
feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing, thou shalt heap
coals of fire on his head.’ Now, many of the Southerners are your old
enemies; and they are hungry for office, and thirst for the good liquor
they used to get in the congressional saloons.”
“I am satisfied,” said the President, “that I can restore the Southern
States to their relations to the Union, and let all who held office
before the war, resume their positions again.--“Yes,” remarked a member
of the committee; “and you can build up a new party of your own,
that shall take the place of the Democratic party, which is already
dead.”--“Very true,” replied the President, “there is both room and need
of another political party. You may rest assured, gentlemen, that you
will be re-instated in your former positions.” The committee withdrew.
“My policy” was commenced. The Republicans did not like it; and a
committee was sent to the White House, composed of some of the leading
men of the North, the chairman of which was a man some six feet in
height, stout, and well made; features coarse; full head of hair,
touched with the frost of over fifty winters; dressed in a gray suit,
light felt hat. The committee, on entering, found the President
seated, with his feet under the table. He did not rise to welcome the
delegation, but seemed to push his feet still farther under the table,
for fear that they might think he was going to rise. The chairman, whom
I have already described, said in a rather strong voice, “Mr. President,
we have called to ask you to use your official power to protect the
Union men of the South, white and black, from the murderous feeling of
the rebels.
“As faithful friends, and supporters of your Administration, we most
respectfully petition you to suspend for the present your policy towards
the rebel States. We should not present this prayer if we were not
painfully convinced that, thus far, it has failed to obtain any
reasonable guarantees for that security in the future which is essential
to peace and reconciliation. To our minds, it abandons the freedmen
to the control of their ancient masters, and leaves the national
debt exposed to repudiation by returning rebels. The Declaration
of Independence asserts the equality of all men, and that rightful
government can be founded only on the consent of the governed. We see
small chance of peace unless these great principles are practically
established. Without this, the house will continue divided against
itself.”
“Gentlemen,” replied the President, “I will take your request into
consideration, and give it that attention that it demands.” The
committee left, satisfied that Mr. Johnson was a changed man. Soon
after, the President was called upon by another delegation, a committee
of colored men, consisting of Frederick Douglass, William Whipper,
George T. Downing, and L. H. Douglass. The negro race was singularly
fortunate in having these gentlemen to represent them; for they are not
only amongst the ablest of their class, but are men of culture, and all
of them writers and speakers of distinguished, ability. The delegation,
on entering, found the President seated, with his feet under the table,
and his hands in his breeches pockets, and looking a little sour.
Mr. Downing, the delegate from New England, first addressed the Chief
Magistrate; and his finely chosen-words, and well-rounded periods, no
doubt made the President not a lit-, tie uneasy, for he looked daggers
at the speaker. The reflection of Downing’s highly cultivated mind, as
seen through his admirable address, doubtless reminded the President
of his own inferiority, and made him still more petulant; for, when he
replied to the delegate, he said,--
“I am free to say to you that I do not like to be arraigned by some who
can get up handsomely-rounded periods, and deal in rhetoric, and talk
about abstract ideas of liberty, who never perilled life, liberty, or
property. This kind of theoretical, hollow, unpractical friendship,
amounts to very little.”
After Downing, came the strong words of Douglass. Of this speaker, the
President had heard much, and appeared to eye him from head to feet;
took his hands out of his pockets; and rested his elbows upon the table.
Douglass, no doubt, reminded him of the well-dressed free negro, who,
nearly forty years before, had pushed him into the ditch; and this
recollection brought up, also, that hateful tailor’s bench, and, still
back of that, his low origin.
Mr. Douglass also reminded the President of his promise to be the
negro’s Moses. This last remark was cruel in the speaker, for it carried
Mr. Johnson back to the days when he was carrying out that deceptive
policy by which he secured the nomination on the ticket with Mr.
Lincoln; and he appeared much irritated at the remark. His whole reply
to the delegation was weak, unfair, and without the slightest atom of
logic. Mr. Downing addressed the President as follows:--
“We present ourselves to your Excellency to make known, with pleasure,
the respect which we are glad to cherish for you,--a respect which is
your due as our Chief Magistrate. It is our desire that you should
know that we come, feeling that we are friends meeting friends. We may,
however, have manifested our friendship by not coming to further tax
your already much-burdened and valuable time; but we have another object
in calling. We are in a passage to equality before the law. God hath
made it by opening a Red Sea. We would have your assistance through the
same. We come to you in the name of the United States, and are delegated
to come by some who have unjustly worn iron manacles on their bodies;
by some whose minds have been manacled by class legislation in States
called free. The colored people of the States of Illinois, Wisconsin,
Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the New-England States, and the
District of Columbia, have specially delegated us to come. Our coming
is a marked circumstance. We are not satisfied with an amendment
prohibiting slavery; but we wish that amendment enforced with
appropriate legislation. This is our desire. We ask for it
intelligently, with the knowledge and conviction that the fathers of
the Revolution intended freedom for every American; that they should be
protected in their rights as citizens, and be equal before the law. We
are Americans,--native-born Americans. We are citizens. We are glad
to have it known to the world that we bear no doubtful record on this
point. On this fact, and with confidence in the triumph of justice, we
base our hope. We see no recognition of color or race in the organic law
of the land. It knows no privileged class, and therefore we cherish the
hope that we may be fully enfranchised, not only here in this district,
but throughout the land. We respectfully submit, that rendering any
thing less than this will be rendering to us less than our just due;
that granting any thing less than our full rights will be a disregard of
our just rights,--of due respect for our feelings. If the powers that be
do so, it will be used as a license, as it were, or an apology, for
any community or individual, so disposed, to outrage our rights and
feelings. It has been shown in the present war that the Government may
justly reach its strong arm into States, and demand from them--from
those who owe it--their allegiance, assistance, and support. May it not
reach out a like arm to secure and protect its subjects upon whom it has
a claim?”
Following Mr. Downing, Mr. Frederick Douglass advanced, and addressed
the President, saying,--
“Mr. President, we are not here to enlighten you, sir, as to your duties
as the Chief Magistrate of this republic, but to show our respect,
and to present in brief the claims of our race to your favorable
consideration. In the order of divine Providence, you are placed in a
position where you have the power to save or destroy us, to bless or
blast us,--I mean our whole race. Your noble and humane predecessor
placed in our hands the sword, to assist in saving the nation; and we do
hope that you, his able successor, will favorably regard the placing in
our hands the ballot with which to save ourselves. We shall submit no
argument on that point. The fact that we are the subjects of government,
and subject to taxation, subject to volunteer in the service of the
country, subject to being drafted, subject to bear the burdens of
the State, makes it not improper that we should ask to share in the
privileges of this condition. I have no speech to make on this occasion.
I simply submit these observations as a limited expression of the views
and feelings of the delegation with which I have come.”
I omit Mr. Johnson’s long and untruthful speech, and give the reply of
the delegation, which he would not listen to:--
“Mr. President, in consideration of a delicate sense of propriety, as
well as your own repeated intimation of indisposition to discuss or to
listen to a reply to the views and opinions you were pleased to express
to us in your elaborate speech to-day, we would respectfully take this
method of reply thereto.
“Believing, as we do, that the views and opinions expressed in that
address are entirely unsound, and prejudicial to the highest interests
of our race, as well as of our country, we cannot do otherwise than
expose the same, and, so far as may be in our power, arrest their
dangerous influence.
“It is not necessary at this time to call attention to more than two or
three features of your remarkable address.
“The first point to which we feel especially bound to take exception is
your attempt to found a policy opposed to our enfranchisement, upon
the alleged ground of an existing hostility on the part, of the former
slaves towards the poor white people of the South.
“We admit the existence of this hostility, and hold that it is entirely
reciprocal.
“But you obviously commit an error by drawing an argument from an
incident of a state of slavery, and making it a basis for a policy
adapted to a state of freedom.
“The hostility between the whites and blacks of the South is easily
explained. It has its root and sap in the relation of slavery, and was
incited on both sides by the cunning of the slave-masters. These masters
secured their ascendency over both the poor whites and the blacks by
putting enmity between them. They divided both to conquer each.
“There was no earthly reason why the blacks should not hate and dread
the poor whites when in a state of slavery; for it was from this class
that their masters received their slave-catchers, slave-drivers, and
overseers. They were the men called in upon all occasions by the masters
when any fiendish outrage was to be committed upon the slave.
“Now, sir, you cannot but perceive that, the cause of this hatred
removed, the effect must be removed also. Slavery is abolished. The
cause of antagonism is removed; and you must see that it is altogether
illogical--‘putting new wine into old bottles, mending new garments with
old clothes’--to legislate from slave-holding and slave-driving premises
for a people whom you have repeatedly declared your purpose to maintain
in freedom. Besides, even if it were true, as you allege, that the
hostility of the blacks toward the poor whites must necessarily be the
same in a state of freedom as in a state of slavery, in the name of
Heaven, we reverently ask, how can you, in view of your professed desire
to promote the welfare of the black man, deprive him of all means of
defence, and clothe him whom you regard as his enemy in the panoply of
political power?
“Can it be that you would recommend a policy which would arm the strong
and cast down the defenceless? Can you, by any possibility of reasoning,
regard this as just, fair, or wise?
“Experience proves that those are oftenest abused who can be abused with
the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.
Peace between races is not to be secured by degrading one race, and
exalting another; by giving power to one race, and withholding it
from another: but by maintaining a state of equal justice between all
parties,--first pure, then peaceable.
“On the colonization theory that you were pleased to broach, very much
could be said. It is impossible to suppose, in view of the usefulness of
the black man in time of peace as a laborer in the South, and in time
of war as a soldier at the North, and the growing respect for his rights
among the people, and his increasing adaptation to a high state of
civilization in this his native land, that there can ever come a time
when he can be removed from this country without a terrible shock to its
prosperity and peace.
“Besides, the worst enemy of the nation could not cast upon its fair
name a greater infamy than to suppose that negroes could be tolerated
among them in a state of the most degrading slavery and oppression, and
must be cast away and driven into exile for no other cause than having
been freed from their chains.”
The most unhandsome and untruthful remarks of the President to the
delegation are those in which he charges the slave-masters and the slave
with combining to keep the poor whites in degradation.
The construction which he put upon his promise to the blacks of
Tennessee--to be the “Moses to lead the black race through the Red Sea
of bondage” to--expatriation--was mean in the extreme, and shows a mind
whose moral degradation is without its parallel.