WASHINGTON, _March 23, 1867_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I have considered the bill entitled "An act supplementary to an act
entitled 'An act to provide for the more efficient government of the
rebel States,' passed March 2, 1867, and to facilitate restoration,"
and now return it to the House of Representatives with my objections.
This bill provides for elections in the ten States brought under the
operation of the original act to which it is supplementary. Its details
are principally directed to the elections for the formation of the State
constitutions, but by the sixth section of the bill "all elections"
in these States occurring while the original act remains in force are
brought within its purview. Referring to these details, it will be found
that, first of all, there is to be a registration of the voters. No one
whose name has not been admitted on the list is to be allowed to vote at
any of these elections. To ascertain who is entitled to registration,
reference is made necessary, by the express language of the supplement,
to the original act and to the pending bill. The fifth section of the
original act provides, as to voters, that they shall be "male citizens
of the State, 21 years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or
previous condition, who have been residents of said State for one
year." This is the general qualification, followed, however, by many
exceptions. No one can be registered, according to the original act,
"who may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion"--a
provision which left undetermined the question as to what amounted to
disfranchisement, and whether without a judicial sentence the act
itself produced that effect. This supplemental bill superadds an oath,
to be taken by every person before his name can be admitted upon the
registration, that he has "not been disfranchised for participation in
any rebellion or civil war against the United States." It thus imposes
upon every person the necessity and responsibility of deciding for
himself, under the peril of punishment by a military commission if
he makes a mistake, what works disfranchisement by participation in
rebellion and what amounts to such participation. Almost every man--the
negro as well as the white--above 21 years of age who was resident in
these ten States during the rebellion, voluntarily or involuntarily, at
some time and in some way did participate in resistance to the lawful
authority of the General Government. The question with the citizen to
whom this oath is to be proposed must be a fearful one, for while the
bill does not declare that perjury may be assigned for such false
swearing nor fix any penalty for the offense, we must not forget that
martial law prevails; that every person is answerable to a military
commission, without previous presentment by a grand jury, for any charge
that may be made against him, and that the supreme authority of the
military commander determines the question as to what is an offense
and what is to be the measure of punishment.
The fourth section of the bill provides "that the commanding general of
each district shall appoint as many boards of registration as may be
necessary, consisting of three loyal officers or persons." The only
qualification stated for these officers is that they must be "loyal."
They may be persons in the military service or civilians, residents of
the State or strangers. Yet these persons are to exercise most important
duties and are vested with unlimited discretion. They are to decide what
names shall be placed upon the register and from their decision there is
to be no appeal. They are to superintend the elections and to decide all
questions which may arise. They are to have the custody of the ballots
and to make return of the persons elected. Whatever frauds or errors
they may commit must pass without redress. All that is left for the
commanding general is to receive the returns of the elections, open the
same, and ascertain who are chosen "according to the returns of the
officers who conducted said elections." By such means and with this
sort of agency are the conventions of delegates to be constituted.
As the delegates are to speak for the people, common justice would seem
to require that they should have authority from the people themselves.
No convention so constituted will in any sense represent the wishes of
the inhabitants of these States, for under the all-embracing exceptions
of these laws, by a construction which the uncertainty of the clause as
to disfranchisement leaves open to the board of officers, the great body
of the people may be excluded from the polls and from all opportunity of
expressing their own wishes or voting for delegates who will faithfully
reflect their sentiments.
I do not deem it necessary further to investigate the details of this
bill. No consideration could induce me to give my approval to such an
election law for any purpose, and especially for the great purpose of
framing the constitution of a State. If ever the American citizen should
be left to the free exercise of his own judgment it is when he is
engaged in the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to
live. That work is his work, and it can not properly be taken out of his
hands. All this legislation proceeds upon the contrary assumption that
the people of each of these States shall have no constitution except
such as may be arbitrarily dictated by Congress and formed under the
restraint of military rule. A plain statement of facts makes this
evident.
In all these States there are existing constitutions, framed in the
accustomed way by the people. Congress, however, declares that these
constitutions are not "loyal and republican," and requires the people to
form them anew. What, then, in the opinion of Congress, is necessary to
make the constitution of a State "loyal and republican"? The original
act answers the question: It is universal negro suffrage--a question
which the Federal Constitution leaves exclusively to the States
themselves. All this legislative machinery of martial law, military
coercion, and political disfranchisement is avowedly for that purpose
and none other. The existing constitutions of the ten States conform to
the acknowledged standards of loyalty and republicanism. Indeed, if
there are degrees in republican forms of government, their constitutions
are more republican now than when these States, four of which were
members of the original thirteen, first became members of the Union.
Congress does not now demand that a single provision of their
constitutions be changed except such as confine suffrage to the white
population. It is apparent, therefore, that these provisions do not
conform to the standard of republicanism which Congress seeks to
establish. That there may be no mistake, it is only necessary that
reference should be made to the original act, which declares "such
constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed
by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for
electors of delegates." What class of persons is here meant clearly
appears in the same section; that is to say, "the male citizens of said
State 21 years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous
condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous
to the day of such election."
Without these provisions no constitution which can be framed in any one
of the ten States will be of any avail with Congress. This, then, is the
test of what the constitution of a State of this Union must contain to
make it republican. Measured by such a standard, how few of the States
now composing the Union have republican constitutions! If in the
exercise of the constitutional guaranty that Congress shall secure to
every State a republican form of government universal suffrage for
blacks as well as whites is a _sine qua non_, the work of reconstruction
may as well begin in Ohio as in Virginia, in Pennsylvania as in North
Carolina.
When I contemplate the millions of our fellow-citizens of the South
with no alternative left but to impose upon themselves this fearful
and untried experiment of complete negro enfranchisement--and white
disfranchisement, it may be, almost as complete--or submit indefinitely
to the rigor of martial law, without a single attribute of freemen,
deprived of all the sacred guaranties of our Federal Constitution, and
threatened with even worse wrongs, if any worse are possible, it seems
to me their condition is the most deplorable to which any people can be
reduced. It is true that they have been engaged in rebellion and that
their object being a separation of the States and a dissolution of the
Union there was an obligation resting upon every loyal citizen to treat
them as enemies and to wage war against their cause.
Inflexibly opposed to any movement imperiling the integrity of the
Government, I did not hesitate to urge the adoption of all measures
necessary for the suppression of the insurrection. After a long and
terrible struggle the efforts of the Government were triumphantly
successful, and the people of the South, submitting to the stern
arbitrament, yielded forever the issues of the contest. Hostilities
terminated soon after it became my duty to assume the responsibilities
of the chief executive officer of the Republic, and I at once endeavored
to repress and control the passions which our civil strife had
engendered, and, no longer regarding these erring millions as enemies,
again acknowledged them as our friends and our countrymen. The war had
accomplished its objects. The nation was saved and that seminal
principle of mischief which from the birth of the Government had
gradually but inevitably brought on the rebellion was totally
eradicated. Then, it seemed to me, was the auspicious time to commence
the work of reconciliation; then, when these people sought once more our
friendship and protection, I considered it our duty generously to meet
them in the spirit of charity and forgiveness and to conquer them even
more effectually by the magnanimity of the nation than by the force of
its arms. I yet believe that if the policy of reconciliation then
inaugurated, and which contemplated an early restoration of these people
to all their political rights, had received the support of Congress,
every one of these ten States and all their people would at this moment
be fast anchored in the Union and the great work which gave the war all
its sanction and made it just and holy would have been accomplished.
Then over all the vast and fruitful regions of the South peace and its
blessings would have prevailed, while now millions are deprived of
rights guaranteed by the Constitution to every citizen and after nearly
two years of legislation find themselves placed under an absolute
military despotism. "A military republic, a government founded on mock
elections and supported only by the sword," was nearly a quarter of a
century since pronounced by Daniel Webster, when speaking of the South
American States, as "a movement, indeed, but a retrograde and disastrous
movement, from the regular and old-fashioned monarchical systems;" and
he added:
If men would enjoy the blessings of republican government, they must
govern themselves by reason, by mutual counsel and consultation, by a
sense and feeling of general interest, and by the acquiescence of the
minority in the will of the majority, properly expressed; and, above
all, the military must be kept, according to the language of our bill of
rights, in strict subordination to the civil authority. Wherever this
lesson is not both learned and practiced there can be no political
freedom. Absurd, preposterous is it, a scoff and a satire on free forms
of constitutional liberty, for frames of government to be prescribed by
military leaders and the right of suffrage to be exercised at the point
of the sword.
I confidently believe that a time will come when these States will again
occupy their true positions in the Union. The barriers which now seem so
obstinate must yield to the force of an enlightened and just public
opinion, and sooner or later unconstitutional and oppressive legislation
will be effaced from our statute books. When this shall have been
consummated, I pray God that the errors of the past may be forgotten and
that once more we shall be a happy, united, and prosperous people, and
that at last, after the bitter and eventful experience through which the
nation has passed, we shall all come to know that our only safety is in
the preservation of our Federal Constitution and in according to every
American citizen and to every State the rights which that Constitution
secures.