FIRST WORDS ON RECONSTRUCTION.
Responsibility of the Republican Party -- Its Power and
Position -- Initiatory Step -- Mr. Stevens steaks for
Himself -- Condition of the Rebel States -- Constitutional
Authority under which Congress should act -- Estoppel --
What constitutes Congress -- The First Duty -- Basis of
Representation -- Duty on Exports -- Two important
Principles -- Mr. Raymond's Theory -- Rebel States still in
the Union -- Consequences of the Radical Theory --
Conditions to be Required -- State Sovereignty -- Rebel Debt
-- Prohibition of Slavery -- Two Policies contrasted --
Reply of Mr. Jenckes -- Difference in Terms, not in
Substance -- Logic of the Conservatives leads to the Results
of the Radicals.
Having traced the progress through Congress of the great measures
relating to civil rights and protection of the freedmen, it is now
proper to go back to an earlier period in this legislative history,
and trace what was said and done upon a subject which, more than any
other, awakened the interest and solicitude of the American
people--the subject of _Reconstruction_.
The Republican party had a majority of more than one hundred in the
House, and after all its losses, retained more than two thirds of the
Senate. As a consequence of this great preponderance of power, the
party possessing it was justly held responsible for the manner in
which the country should pass the important political crisis
consequent upon the termination of the war in the overthrow of the
rebellion.
It became an important question for members of the Republican party in
Congress to determine among themselves what line of policy they should
pursue.
The appointment of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction,
was every-where regarded by the constituents of the majority as a most
happy initiatory step. The whole country listened with eagerness to
hear what words would be spoken in Congress to give some clue to the
course the committee would recommend. Words of no uncertain
significance and weight were uttered at an early period in the
session.
On the 18th of December, a fortnight after the opening of the session,
Mr. Stevens announced his opinions on reconstruction with great
boldness and distinctness. At the same time, seeing himself much in
advance of many of his party, and fearing lest his opinions might
alarm the less resolute, he declared: "I do not profess to speak their
sentiments, nor must they be held responsible for them."
Mr. Stevens opened his speech with remarks on the condition of the
rebel States. He said: "The President assumes, what no one doubts,
that the late rebel States have lost their constitutional relations to
the Union, and are incapable of representation in Congress, except by
permission of the Government. It matters but little, with this
admission, whether you call them States out of the Union, and now
conquered territories, or assert that because the Constitution forbids
them to do what they did do, that they are, therefore, only dead as to
all national and political action, and will remain so until the
Government shall breathe into them the breath of life anew and permit
them to occupy their former position. In other words, that they are
not out of the Union, but are only dead carcasses lying within the
Union. In either case, it is very plain that it requires the action of
Congress to enable them to form a State government and send
Representatives to Congress. Nobody, I believe, pretends that with
their old constitutions and frames of government they can be permitted
to claim their old rights under the Constitution. They have torn their
constitutional States into atoms, and built on their foundations
fabrics of a totally different character. Dead men can not raise
themselves. Dead States can not restore their own existence 'as it
was.' Whose especial duty is it to do it? In whom does the
Constitution place the power? Not in the judicial branch of
Government, for it only adjudicates and does not prescribe laws. Not
in the Executive, for he only executes and can not make laws. Not in
the commander-in-chief of the armies, for he can only hold them under
military rule until the sovereign legislative power of the conqueror
shall give them law.
"There is fortunately no difficulty in solving the question. There are
two provisions in the Constitution, under one of which the case must
fall. The fourth article says: 'New States may be admitted by the
Congress into this Union.' In my judgment, this is the controlling
provision in this case. Unless the law of nations is a dead letter,
the late war between two acknowledged belligerents severed their
original compacts, and broke all the ties that bound them together.
The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the
conqueror. They must come in as new States or remain as conquered
provinces. Congress--the Senate and House of Representatives, with the
concurrence of the President--is the only power that can act in the
matter. But suppose, as some dreaming theorists imagine, that these
States have never been out of the Union, but have only destroyed their
State governments so as to be incapable of political action, then the
fourth section of the fourth article applies, which says, 'The United
States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form
of government.' Who is the United States? Not the judiciary; not the
President; but the sovereign power of the people, exercised through
their Representatives in Congress, with the concurrence of the
Executive. It means the political Government--the concurrent action of
both branches of Congress and the Executive. The separate action of
each amounts to nothing either in admitting new States or guaranteeing
republican governments to lapsed or outlawed States. Whence springs
the preposterous idea that either the President, or the Senate, or the
House of Representatives, acting separately, can determine the right
of States to send members or Senators to the Congress of the Union?"
Mr. Stevens then cited authorities to prove that "if the so-called
Confederate States of America were an independent belligerent, and
were so acknowledged by the United States and by Europe, or had
assumed and maintained an attitude which entitled them to be
considered and treated as a belligerent, then, during such time, they
were precisely in the condition of a foreign nation with whom we were
at war; nor need their independence as a nation be acknowledged by us
to produce that effect."
Having read from a number of authorities to support his position, Mr.
Stevens continued: "After such clear and repeated decisions, it is
something worse than ridiculous to hear men of respectable standing
attempting to nullify the law of nations, and declare the Supreme
Court of the United States in error, because, as the Constitution
forbids it, the States could not go out of the Union in fact. A
respectable gentleman was lately reciting this argument, when he
suddenly stopped and said: 'Did you hear of that atrocious murder
committed in our town? A rebel deliberately murdered a Government
official.' The person addressed said, 'I think you are mistaken.' 'How
so? I saw it myself.' 'You are wrong; no murder was or could be
committed, for the law forbids it.'
"The theory that the rebel States, for four years a separate power and
without representation in Congress, were all the time here in the
Union, is a good deal less ingenious and respectable than the
metaphysics of Berkeley, which proved that neither the world nor any
human being was in existence. If this theory were simply ridiculous it
could be forgiven; but its effect is deeply injurious to the stability
of the nation. I can not doubt that the late Confederate States are
out of the Union to all intents and purposes for which the conqueror
may choose so to consider them."
Mr. Stevens further maintained that the rebel States should be
adjudged out of the Union on the ground of estoppel. "They are
estopped," said he, "both by matter of record and matter _in pais_.
One of the first resolutions passed by seceded South Carolina in
January, 1861, is as follows:
"_Resolved, unanimously_, That the separation of South
Carolina from the Federal Union is final, and she has no
further interest in the Constitution of the United States;
and that the only appropriate negotiations between her and
the Federal Government are as to their mutual relations as
foreign States."
"Similar resolutions appear upon all their State and Confederate
Government records. The speeches of their members of Congress, their
generals and executive officers, and the answers of their Government
to our shameful suings for peace, went upon the defiant ground that no
terms would be offered or received except upon the prior
acknowledgment of the entire and permanent independence of the
Confederate States. After this, to deny that we have a right to treat
them as a conquered belligerent, severed from the Union in fact, is
not argument but mockery. Whether it be our interest to do so is the
only question hereafter and more deliberately to be considered.
"But suppose these powerful but now subdued belligerents, instead of
being out of the Union, are merely destroyed, and are now lying about,
a dead corpse, or with animation so suspended as to be incapable of
action, and wholly unable to heal themselves by any unaided movements
of their own. Then they may fall under the provision of the
Constitution which says, "the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government." Under that power,
can the judiciary, or the President, or the commander-in-chief of the
army, or the Senate or House of Representatives, acting separately,
restore them to life and reädmit them into the Union? I insist that if
each acted separately, though the action of each was identical with
all the others, it would amount to nothing. Nothing but the joint
action of the two houses of Congress and the concurrence of the
President could do it. If the Senate admitted their Senators, and the
House their members, it would have no effect on the future action of
Congress. The Fortieth Congress might reject both. Such is the ragged
record of Congress for the last four years."
He cited a decision of the Supreme Court to show that "it rests with
Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State,"
and then remarked: "But Congress does not mean the Senate, or the
House of Representatives, and President, all acting severally. Their
joint action constitutes Congress. Hence a law of Congress must be
passed before any new State can be admitted or any dead ones revived.
Until then, no member can be lawfully admitted into either house.
Hence, it appears with how little knowledge of constitutional law each
branch is urged to admit members separately from these destroyed
States. The provision that "each house shall be the judge of the
elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members," has not
the most distant bearing on this question. Congress must create States
and declare when they are entitled to be represented. Then each house
must judge whether the members presenting themselves from a recognized
State possesses the requisite qualifications of age, residence, and
citizenship, and whether the election and returns are according to
law. The houses separately can judge of nothing else.
"It is obvious from all this, that the first duty of Congress is to
pass a law declaring the condition of these outside or defunct States,
and providing proper civil government for them. Since the conquest,
they have been governed by martial law. Military rule is necessarily
despotic, and ought not to exist longer than is absolutely necessary.
As there are no symptoms that the people of these provinces will be
prepared to participate in constitutional government for some years, I
know of no arrangement so proper for them as territorial government.
There they can learn the principles of freedom and eat the fruit of
foul rebellion. Under such governments, while electing members to the
territorial legislatures, they will necessarily mingle with those to
whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In territories
Congress fixes the qualifications of electors, and I know of no better
place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror
to practice justice to all men and accustom themselves to make and
obey equal laws."
Mr. Stevens proceeded to specify amendments to the Constitution which
should be made before the late rebel States "would be capable of
acting in the Union." The first of those amendments would be to change
the basis of representation among the States from federal numbers to
actual voters. After explaining the operation of this amendment, he
depicted the consequences of reädmitting the Southern States without
this guarantee. "With the basis unchanged," said he, "the eighty-three
Southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best of times be
elected from the North, will always give them the majority in Congress
and in the Electoral College. They will, at the very first election,
take possession of the White House and the halls of Congress. I need
not depict the ruin that would follow. Assumption of the rebel debt or
repudiation of the Federal debt would be sure to follow; the
oppression of the freedmen, the reämendment of their State
constitutions, and the reëstablishment of slavery would be the
inevitable result."
Mr. Stevens thus set forth the importance of a proposed amendment to
allow Congress to lay a duty on exports: "Its importance can not well
be overstated. It is very obvious that for many years the South will
not pay much under our internal revenue laws. The only article on
which we can raise any considerable amount is cotton. It will be grown
largely at once. With ten cents a pound export duty, it would be
furnished cheaper to foreign markets than they could obtain it from
any other part of the world. The late war has shown that. Two million
bales exported, at five hundred pounds to the bale, would yield
$100,000,000. This seems to be the chief revenue we shall ever derive
from the South. Besides, it would be a protection to that amount to
our domestic manufactures. Other proposed amendments--to make all laws
uniform, to prohibit the assumption of the rebel debt--are of vital
importance, and the only thing that can prevent the combined forces of
copper-heads and secessionists from legislating against the interests
of the Union whenever they may obtain an accidental majority.
"But this is not all that we ought to do before these inveterate
rebels are invited to participate in our legislation. We have turned,
or are about to turn, loose four million slaves, without a hut to
shelter them or a cent in their pockets. The infernal laws of slavery
have prevented them from acquiring an education, understanding the
commonest laws of contract, or of managing the ordinary business of
life. This Congress is bound to provide for them until they can take
care of themselves. If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and
hedge them around with protective laws; if we leave them to the
legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in
bondage. Their condition would be worse than that of our prisoners at
Andersonville. If we fail in this great duty now, when we have the
power, we shall deserve and receive the execration of history and of
all future ages.
"Two things are of vital importance: 1. So to establish a principle
that none of the rebel States shall be counted in any of the
amendments of the Constitution until they are duly admitted into the
family of States by the law-making power of their conqueror. For more
than six months the amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery
has been ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States
that acted on its passage by Congress, and which had Legislatures, or
which were States capable of acting, or required to act, on the
question.
"I take no account of the aggregation of whitewashed rebels, who,
without any legal authority, have assembled in the capitals of the
late rebel States and simulated legislative bodies. Nor do I regard
with any respect the cunning by-play into which they deluded the
Secretary of State by frequent telegraphic announcements that 'South
Carolina had adopted the amendment,' 'Alabama has adopted the
amendment, being the twenty-seventh State,' etc. This was intended to
delude the people and accustom Congress to hear repeated the names of
these extinct States as if they were alive, when, in truth, they have
now no more existence than the revolted cities of Latium, two-thirds
of whose people were colonized, and their property confiscated, and
their rights of citizenship withdrawn by conquering and avenging
Rome."
A second thing of vital importance to the stability of this republic,
Mr. Stevens asserted to be "that it should now be solemnly decided
what power can revive, recreate, and reinstate these provinces into
the family of States, and invest them with the rights of American
citizens. It is time that Congress should assert its sovereignty, and
assume something of the dignity of a Roman senate. It is fortunate
that the President invites Congress to take this manly attitude. After
stating, with great frankness, in his able message, his theory--which,
however, is found to be impracticable, and which, I believe, very few
now consider tenable--he refers the whole matter to the judgment of
Congress. If Congress should fail firmly and wisely to discharge that
high duty, it is not the fault of the President."
Mr. Stevens closed his speech by setting the seal of reprobation upon
a doctrine which is becoming too fashionable, that "this is a white
man's Government." He uttered a severe rebuke to those who thus
"mislead and miseducate the public mind."
There were some Republicans in Congress who disagreed with Mr. Stevens
in his theory of the condition of the late rebel States, yet no one
ventured immediately, to use a contemporary expression, "to take the
Radical bull by the horns."
At length, three days afterward, Mr. Raymond, as a representative of
the "Conservatives," ventured a reply. He thus set forth his theory as
in opposition to that of Mr. Stevens: "I can not believe that these
States have ever been out of the Union, or that they are now out of
the Union. I can not believe that they ever have been, or are now, in
any sense a separate power. If they were, sir, how and when did they
become so? They were once States of this Union--that every one
concedes; bound to the Union and made members of the Union by the
Constitution of the United States. If they ever went out of the Union,
it was at some specific time and by some specific act. Was it by the
ordinance of secession? I think we all agree that an ordinance of
secession passed by any State of this Union is simply a nullity,
because it encounters in its practical operation the Constitution of
the United States, which is the supreme law of the land. It could have
no legal, actual force or validity. It could not operate to effect any
actual change in the relations of the States adopting it to the
National Government, still less to accomplish the removal of that
State from the sovereign jurisdiction of the Constitution of the
United States.
"Well, sir, did the resolutions of these States, the declarations of
their officials, the speeches of members of their Legislatures, or the
utterances of their press accomplish the result? Certainly not. They
could not possibly work any change whatever in the relations of these
States to the General Government. All their ordinances and all their
resolutions were simply declarations of a purpose to secede. Their
secession, if it ever took place, certainly could not date from the
time when their intention to secede was first announced. After
declaring that intention, they proceeded to carry it into effect. How?
By war. By sustaining their purpose by arms against the force which
the United States brought to bear against it. Did they sustain it?
Were their arms victorious? If they were, then their secession was an
accomplished fact; if not, it was nothing more than an abortive
attempt, a purpose unfulfilled. This, then, is simply a question of
fact, and we all know what the fact is. They did not succeed. They
failed to maintain their ground by force of arms; in other words, they
failed to secede.
"But the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] insists that they
did secede, and that this fact is not in the least affected by the
other fact that the Constitution forbids secession. He says that the
law forbids murder, but that murders are, nevertheless, committed. But
there is no analogy between the two cases. If secession had been
accomplished; if these States had gone out, and overcome the armies
that tried to prevent their going out, then the prohibition of the
Constitution could not have altered the fact. In the case of murder
the man is killed, and murder is thus committed in spite of the law.
The fact of killing is essential to the committal of the crime, and
the fact of going out is essential to secession. But in this case
there was no such fact. I think I need not argue any further the
position that the rebel States have never for one moment, by any
ordinances of secession, or by any successful war, carried themselves
beyond the rightful jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United
States. They have interrupted for a time the practical enforcement and
exercise of that jurisdiction; they rendered it impossible for a time
for this Government to enforce obedience to its laws; but there has
never been an hour when this Government, or this Congress, or this
House, or the gentleman from Pennsylvania himself, ever conceded that
those States were beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws
of the United States."
Referring to the citation of authorities made by Mr. Stevens, Mr.
Raymond maintained that they did not lend the "slightest countenance
to the inference which was drawn from them."
In reply to the theory maintained by Mr. Stevens, that States
forfeited their State existence by the fact of rebellion, Mr. Raymond
said: "I do not see how there can be any such forfeiture involved or
implied. The individual citizens of those States went into the
rebellion. They thereby incurred certain penalties under the laws and
Constitution of the United States. What the States did was to endeavor
to interpose their State authority between the individuals in
rebellion and the Government of the United States, which assumed, and
which would carry out the assumption, to declare those individuals
traitors for their acts. The individuals in the States who were in
rebellion, it seems to me, were the only parties who, under the
Constitution and laws of the United States, could incur the penalties
of treason. I know of no law, I know of nothing in the Constitution of
the United States, I know of nothing in any recognized or established
code of international law, which can punish a State as a State for any
act it may perform. It is certain that our Constitution assumes
nothing of the kind. It does not deal with States, except in one or
two instances, such as elections of members of Congress and the
election of electors of President and Vice-President.
"Indeed, the main feature which distinguishes the Union under the
Constitution from the old Confederation is this: that whereas the old
Confederation did deal with States directly, making requisitions upon
them for supplies and relying upon them for the execution of its laws,
the Constitution of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
Union, made its laws binding on the individual citizens of the several
States, whether living in one State or in another. Congress, as the
legislative branch of this Government, enacts a law which shall be
operative upon every individual within its jurisdiction. It is binding
upon each individual citizen, and if he resists it by force, he is
guilty of a crime, and is punished accordingly, any thing in the
constitution or laws of his State to the contrary notwithstanding. But
the States themselves are not touched by the laws of the United States
or by the Constitution of the United States. A State can not be
indicted; a State can not be tried; a State can not be hung for
treason. The individuals in a State may be so tried and hung, but the
State as an organization, as an organic member of the Union, still
exists, whether its individual citizens commit treason or not."
Mr. Raymond subsequently cited some of the consequences which he
thought must follow the acceptance of the position assumed by Mr.
Stevens. "If," said Mr. Raymond, "as he asserts, we have been waging
war with an independent Power, with a separate nation, I can not see
how we can talk of treason in connection with our recent conflict, or
demand the execution of Davis or any body else as a traitor. Certainly
if we were at war with any other foreign Power, we should not talk of
the treason of those who were opposed to us in the field. If we were
engaged in a war with France, and should take as prisoner the Emperor
Napoleon, certainly we could not talk of him as a traitor or as liable
to execution. I think that by adopting any such assumption as that of
the honorable gentleman, we surrender the whole idea of treason and
the punishment of traitors. I think, moreover, that we accept,
virtually and practically, the doctrine of State sovereignty, the
right of a State to withdraw from the Union, and to break up the Union
at its own will and pleasure.
"Another of the consequences of this doctrine, as it seems to me,
would be our inability to talk of loyal men in the South. Loyal to
what? Loyal to a foreign, independent Power, as the United States
would become under those circumstances? Certainly not. Simply disloyal
to their own Government, and deserters, or whatever you may choose to
call them, from that to which they would owe allegiance, to a foreign
and independent State.
"Now, there is another consequence of the doctrine which I shall not
dwell upon, but simply suggest. If that confederacy was an independent
Power, a separate nation, it had the right to contract debts; and we,
having overthrown and conquered that independent Power, according to
the theory of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, would become the
successors, the inheritors, of its debts and assets, and we must pay
them."
Mr. Raymond set forth his theory of the conditions and relations of
the late rebel States in the following language: "I certainly do not
think these States are to be dealt with by us as provinces--as simply
so much territory--held to us by no other ties than those of conquest.
I think we are to deal with them as States having State governments,
still subject to the jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws of the
United States, still under the constitutional control of the National
Government; and that in our dealings with them we are to be guided and
governed, not simply by our sovereign will and pleasure as conquerors,
but by the restrictions and limitations of the Constitution of the
United States, precisely as we are restrained and limited in our
dealings with all other States of the American Union."
In answer to the question how we are to deal with the late rebel
States, Mr. Raymond remarked: "I think we have a full and perfect
right to require certain conditions in the nature of guarantees for
the future, and that right rests, primarily and technically, on the
surrender we may and must require at their hands. The rebellion has
been defeated. A defeat always implies a surrender, and, in a
political sense, a surrender implies more than the transfer of the
arms used on the field of battle. It implies, in the case of civil
war, a surrender of the principles and doctrines, of all the weapons
and agencies, by which the war has been carried on. The military
surrender was made on the field of battle, to our generals, as the
agents and representatives of the Commander-in-chief of the armies of
the United States.
"Now, there must be at the end of the war, a similar surrender on the
political field of controversy. That surrender is due as an act of
justice from the defeated party to the victorious party. It is due,
also, and we have a right to exact it, as a guarantee for the future.
Why do we demand the surrender of their arms by the vanquished in
every battle? We do it that they may not renew the contest. Why do we
seek, in this and all similar cases, a surrender of the principles for
which they fought? It is that they may never again be made the basis
of controversy and rebellion against the Government of the United
States.
"Now, what are those principles which should be thus surrendered? The
principle of State sovereignty is one of them. It was the corner-stone
of the rebellion--at once its animating spirit and its fundamental
basis. Deeply ingrained as it was in the Southern heart, it must be
surrendered. The ordinances in which it was embodied must not only be
repealed, the principle itself must be abandoned, and the ordinances,
so far as this war is concerned, be declared null and void, and that
declaration must be embodied in their fundamental constitutions."
The speech was here interrupted by Mr. Bingham, who insisted that the
adoption of the principle in the State constitutions would not be
sufficient guarantee. Adoption in the Constitution of the United
States was essential to its permanent effective force.
Mr. Raymond thought the Constitution of the United States as plain as
possible in its declaration against the doctrine of State sovereignty.
If any more explicit denial could be got into the Constitution, he
would favor it.
"Another thing," said Mr. Raymond, "to be surrendered by the defeated
rebellion is the obligation to pay the rebel war debt. We have the
right to require this repudiation of their debt, because the money
represented by that debt was one of the weapons with which they
carried on the war against the Government of the United States.
"There is another thing which we have the right to require, and that
is the prohibition of slavery. We have the right to require them to do
this, not only in their State constitutions, but in the Constitution
of the United States. And we have required it, and it has been
conceded. They have also conceded that Congress may make such laws as
may be requisite to carry that prohibition into effect, which includes
such legislation as may be required to secure for them protection of
their civil and personal rights--their 'right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.'"
Mr. Spalding having inquired whether there was any limit to the right
to make these requisitions, except the good judgment of Congress, Mr.
Raymond answered:
"My impression is that these requisitions are made as a part of the
terms of surrender which we have a right to demand at the hands of the
defeated insurgents, and that it belongs, therefore, to the President,
as Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, to
make them, and to fix the limit, as to what they shall embrace."
By way of setting forth the opinions of the "Radicals" in as strong a
light as possible, Mr. Raymond said: "It may be for the welfare of
this nation that we shall cherish toward the millions of our people
lately in rebellion feelings of hatred and distrust; that we shall
nurse the bitterness their infamous treason has naturally and justly
engendered, and make that the basis of our future dealings with them.
Possibly we may best teach them the lessons of liberty, by visiting
upon them the worst excesses of despotism. Possibly they may best
learn to practice justice toward others, to admire and emulate our
republican institutions, by suffering at our hands the absolute rule
we denounce in others. It may be best for us and for them that we
discard, in all our dealings with them, all the obligations and
requirements of the Constitution, and assert as the only law for them
the unrestrained will of conquerors and masters."
In contrast with this, he placed what he supposed to be a different
policy: "I would exact from them, or impose upon them through the
constitutional legislation of Congress, and by enlarging and
extending, if necessary, the scope and powers of the Freedmen's
Bureau, proper care and protection for the helpless and friendless
freedmen, so lately their slaves. I would exercise a rigid scrutiny
into the character and loyalty of the men whom they may send to
Congress, before I allowed them to participate in the high prerogative
of legislating for the nation. But I would seek to allay rather than
stimulate the animosities and hatred, however just they may be, to
which the war has given rise. But for our own sake as well as for
theirs, I would not visit upon them a policy of confiscation which has
been discarded in the policy and practical conduct of every civilized
nation on the face of the globe."
Mr. Raymond having closed his speech, it was moved that the Committee
of the Whole should rise, but the motion was withdrawn to allow Mr.
Jenckes, of Rhode Island, five minutes for reply. He said: "The
gentleman states, and properly, that every act or ordinance of
secession was a nullity. Undoubtedly it was. Upon that question of law
we do not disagree. But he seems to me to overlook entirely what was
the state of facts from the time of the passage of the ordinances of
secession until the time of the surrender of Lee's army. During that
period what were the relations which all that territory--I will not
use the term States, but all that territory--between the Potomac and
the Rio Grande sustained to the Government of the United States? Who
could see States there for any purpose for which legislation was
required by the Constitution of the United States?
"At the time of the passage of the ordinance of secession, States were
organized there, in existence, in action, known to the Constitution
and the constitutional authorities under it. But were they loyal? Did
they obey the Constitution of the United States? This is a question
that needs no answer other than that which is conveyed to every mind
by the recollection of the last four years of war, with their
expenditure of treasure and blood. Those States were not destroyed, in
the technical language of the law--they simply died out. As their
Governors passed out of office, as the terms of their legislatures
expired, who knew those facts? None but themselves. And yet, behind
this grand cordon of armies, stretching from here to the Rio Grande,
there were States in existence, organized as States, but States in
rebellion, occupying the territory belonging to the people of the
United States. They were not acting in concert with this Government,
but against it. That, Mr. Chairman, is a matter of fact. My eyes are
not dimmed or blinded by the parchment upon which constitutions or
laws are written. I, like the men who carried the bayonets and planted
the cannon, recognize the fact that was before us during all this
time. There was a state of rebellion. There were in that part of our
territory no States known to our Constitution or the laws that we
enact, or the officers whose duty it is to enforce those laws.
"I recognize, too, the next fact. Bear in mind, I am simply stating
now what I conceive to be the facts. The question as to what may be
the law can be reserved for discussion on another occasion. I
recognize fully the duties of the Executive. And it was the duty of
the President of the United States, as the head of the civil and
military power of this great republic--not 'empire;' God forbid that
this country should ever be so designated with applause or even with
toleration--to beat down armed opposition to it, whether it came from
a foreign power or from domestic insurrection. That was the duty of
the President, and he recognized it; and it was not the duty of any
one in this Congress to gainsay it. It was written on the face of the
Constitution that the President was to see that the laws should be
faithfully executed, and the power of this republic maintained, and he
did so.
"The next fact--the fact which seems to me to be the one most
pertinent for consideration now--is that the military power which was
opposed to this Government has been destroyed. It was the duty of the
Executive to see that this was done, and to report to the Congress of
the United States that it has been done. But what then? Then there
comes the third question of fact, intimately connected with the last,
and hardly separable from it, because it requires the immediate action
of the Executive and of Congress. All the power that existed in the
shape of Confederated States behind rebel bayonets and fortifications
has fallen to the earth. The territory which these States in rebellion
occupied was the property of the people of the United States, and
never could be taken from us. I hold it to be a question of public
law, worthy of consideration by the representatives of the American
people, by the President and the Administration generally, to
ascertain what existed in the shape of civil constitutions and laws
behind the military government that has been overthrown. I hesitate
not to say, here or elsewhere, that the Executive of this Government
has done his duty in this matter. All conquering nations, when they
overcome a rebellious people by overthrowing their military power,
look, as did the Government of Great Britain when it had overcome the
mutiny in India, to see what government of a civil kind has existed or
may exist from custom among the people who are conquered. I see no
reason in this view to discriminate between the argument of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania and the argument of the gentleman from New
York. It seems to me, that if they will look at the particular
questions which are now before us, and which require our action, the
differences would be in terms and not in substance."
The people of the predominant party generally acquiesced in the
opinion of Mr. Jenckes, as expressed in the conclusion of his remarks
as above presented. They conceived that the difference between the
various views of the whole question was "one of details and not of
essence." The question of reconstruction was purely practical. All
shades of opinion in the Republican party blended in this: that the
States in question were not to be restored until satisfactory pledges
were given to the United States. All speculation or attempt at
argument in reference to their abstract condition was consequently
superfluous--"a pernicious abstraction," in the language of Mr.
Lincoln.
If some were not prepared to accept the deductions of Mr. Stevens, yet
accepting the logic of Mr. Raymond, they would be carried almost as
far. The latter held that the citizens of those States were defeated
insurgents who must submit to any conditions of surrender imposed by
the victorious commander. Certain concessions could be rightfully
demanded as parts of their surrender and conditions of their
restoration. Their acquiescence had been required in a constitutional
amendment affecting the great social and industrial interests of
Southern society. After this none could deny the right, whatever might
be the expediency, of requiring their assent to other amendments
bearing upon the political structure of the Southern States.
Some of the predominant party were willing to stop short in their
demands upon the rebel States with requiring acceptance of the
emancipation amendment, repudiation of the rebel debt, legal
protection of freedmen, and revocation of the ordinances of secession.
The majority, however, were disposed to go still further, and demand
other conditions and guarantees which should become a part of the
fundamental law of the land. This was the practical work of
reconstruction for which the Joint Committee of Fifteen was preparing
the way, and upon which Congress was soon to enter.