ended. I feel, and I am rejoiced to find that members on the other side
of the House feel, that the great problem now before us is to restore
the Union to its old integrity, purified from everything that interfered
with the full development of the spirit of liberty which it was made
to enshrine. I trust that we shall have a general concurrence of the
members of this House and of this Congress in such measures as may be
deemed most fit and proper for the accomplishment of that result. I am
glad to assume and to believe that there is not a member of this House,
nor a man in this country, who does not wish, from the bottom of his
heart, to see the day speedily come when we shall have this nation--the
great American Republic--again united, more harmonious in its action
than it ever has been, and forever one and indivisible. We in this
Congress are to devise the means to restore its union and its harmony,
to perfect its institutions, and to make it in all its parts and in all
its action, through all time to come, too strong, too wise, and too
free ever to invite or ever to permit the hand of rebellion again to be
raised against it.
Now, sir, in devising those ways and means to accomplish that great
result, the first thing we have to do is to know the point from which
we start, to understand the nature of the material with which we have
to work--the condition of the territory and the States with which we are
concerned. I had supposed at the outset of this session that it was the
purpose of this House to proceed to that work without discussion, and
to commit it almost exclusively, if not entirely, to the joint committee
raised by the two Houses for the consideration of that subject. But,
sir, I must say that I was glad when I perceived the distinguished
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens), himself the chairman on the
part of this House of that great committee on reconstruction, lead off
in a discussion of this general subject, and thus invite all the rest of
us who choose to follow him in the debate. In the remarks which he made
in this body a few days since, he laid down, with the clearness and
the force which characterize everything he says and does, his point of
departure in commencing this great work. I had hoped that the ground he
would lay down would be such that we could all of us stand upon it and
co-operate with him in our common object. I feel constrained to say,
sir--and do it without the slightest disposition to create or to
exaggerate differences--that there were features in his exposition of
the condition of the country with which I cannot concur. I cannot for
myself start from precisely the point which he assumes.
In his remarks on that occasion he assumed that the States lately in
rebellion were and are out of the Union. Throughout his speech--I will
not trouble you with reading passages from it--I find him speaking of
those States as "outside of the Union," as "dead States," as having
forfeited all their rights and terminated their State existence. I find
expressions still more definite and distinct; I find him stating that
they "are and for four years have been out of the Union for all legal
purposes"; as having been for four years a "separate power," and "a
separate nation."
His position therefore is that these States, having been in rebellion,
are now out of the Union, and are simply within the jurisdiction of the
Constitution of the United States as so much territory to be dealt with
precisely as the will of the conqueror, to use his own language, may
dictate. Now, sir, if that position is correct, it prescribes for us one
line of policy to be pursued very different from the one that will be
proper if it is not correct. His belief is that what we have to do is to
create new States out of this territory at the proper time--many
years distant--retaining them meantime in a territorial condition, and
subjecting them to precisely such a state of discipline and tutelage
as Congress or the Government of the United States may see fit to
prescribe. If I believed in the premises which he assumes, possibly,
though I do not think probably, I might agree with the conclusion he has
reached.
But, sir, I cannot believe that this is our condition. I cannot believe
that these States have ever been out of the Union, or that they are now
out of the Union. I cannot 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. I regret that the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) is not now in his seat. I should have been
glad to ask him by what specific act, and at what precise time, any one
of those States took itself out of the American Union. 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 State 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 the 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.
During all these four years of war Congress has been making laws for the
government of those very States, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania has
voted for them, and voted to raise armies to enforce them. Why was this
done if they were a separate nation? Why, if they were not part of the
United States? Those laws were made for them as States. Members have
voted for laws imposing upon them direct taxes, which are apportioned,
according to the Constitution, only "among the several States" according
to their population. In a variety of ways--to some of which the
gentleman' who preceded me has referred--this Congress has, by its
action, assumed and asserted that they were still States in the Union,
though in rebellion, and that it was with the rebellion that we were
making war, and not with the States themselves as States, and still less
as a separate, as a foreign Power.
* * * * *
Why, sir, if there be no constitution of any sort in a State, no
law, nothing but chaos, then that State would no longer exist as an
organization. But that has not been the case, it never is the case
in great communities, for they always have constitutions and forms of
government. It may not be a constitution or form of government adapted
to its relation to the Government of the United States; and that would
be an evil to be remedied by the Government of the United States. That
is what we have been trying to do for the last four years. The practical
relations of the governments of those States with the Government of
the United States were all wrong--were hostile to that Government. They
denied our jurisdiction, and they denied that they were States of the
Union, but their denial did not change the fact; and there was never any
time when their organizations as States were destroyed. A dead State is
a solecism, a contradiction in terms, an impossibility.
These are, I confess, rather metaphysical distinctions, but I did not
raise them. Those who assert that a State is destroyed whenever its
constitution is changed, or whenever its practical relations with
this Government are changed, must be held responsible for whatever
metaphysical niceties may be necessarily involved in the discussion.
I do not know, sir, that I have made my views on this point clear to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelley), who has questioned me upon it,
and I am still more doubtful whether, even if they are intelligible, he
will concur with me as to their justice. But I regard these States as
just as truly within the jurisdiction of the Constitution, and therefore
just as really and truly States of the American Union now as they were
before the war. Their practical relations to the Constitution of the
United States have been disturbed, and we have been endeavoring, through
four years of war, to restore them and make them what they were before
the war. The victory in the field has given us the means of doing this;
we can now re-establish the practical relations of those States to
the Government. Our actual jurisdiction over them, which they vainly
attempted to throw off, is already restored. The conquest we have
achieved is a conquest over the rebellion, not a conquest over the
States whose authority the rebellion had for a time subverted.
For these reasons I think the views submitted by the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) upon this point are unsound. Let me next
cite some of the consequences which, it seems to me, must follow the
acceptance of his position. If, as he asserts, we have been waging war
with an independent Power, with a separate nation, I cannot see how we
can talk of treason in connection with our recent conflict, or demand
the execution of Davis or anybody 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 would 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. I do not see how upon those premises we can escape that
conclusion. If the States that engaged in the late rebellion constituted
themselves, by their ordinances of secession or by any of the acts with
which they followed those ordinances, a separate and independent Power,
I do not see how we can deny the principles on which they professed
to act, or refuse assent to their practical results. I have heard no
clearer, no stronger statement of the doctrine of State sovereignty as
paramount to the sovereignty of the nation than would be involved in
such a concession. Whether he intended it or not, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) actually assents to the extreme doctrines of
the advocates of secession.
THADDEUS STEVENS,
OF PENNSYLVANIA. (BORN 1792, DIED 1868.)
ON THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION BILL;
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 3, 1867
MR. SPEAKER:
What are the great questions which now divide the nation? In the midst
of the political Babel which has been produced by the intermingling
of secessionists, rebels, pardoned traitors, hissing Copperheads, and
apostate Republicans, such a confusion of tongues is heard that it
is difficult to understand either the questions that are asked or the
answers that are given. Ask what is the "President's policy," and it is
difficult to define it. Ask what is the "policy of Congress," and the
answer is not always at hand. A few moments may be profitably spent in
seeking the meaning of each of these terms.
In this country the whole sovereignty rests with the people, and is
exercised through their Representatives in Congress assembled. The
legislative power is the sole guardian of that sovereignty. No other
branch of the government, no other department, no other officer of the
government, possesses one single particle of the sovereignty of the
nation. No government official, from the President and Chief-Justice
down, can do any one act which is not prescribed and directed by the
legislative power. Suppose the government were now to be organized
for the first time under the Constitution, and the President had
been elected, and the judiciary appointed; what could either do until
Congress passed laws to regulate their proceedings? What power would
the President have over any one subject of government until Congress had
legislated on that subject? * * * The President could not even create
bureaus or departments to facilitate his executive operations. He must
ask leave of Congress. Since, then, the President cannot enact, alter,
or modify a single law; cannot even create a petty office within his
own sphere of operations; if, in short, he is the mere servant of the
people, who issue their commands to him through Congress, whence does
he derive the constitutional power to create new States, to remodel old
ones, to dictate organic laws, to fix the qualifications of voters, to
declare that States are republican and entitled to command Congress, to
admit their Representatives? To my mind it is either the most ignorant
and shallow mistake of his duties, or the most brazen and impudent
usurpation of power. It is claimed for him by some as commander-in-chief
of the army and navy. How absurd that a mere executive officer should
claim creative powers. Though commander-in-chief by the Constitution,
he would have nothing to command, either by land or water until Congress
raised both army and navy. Congress also prescribes the rules
and regulations to govern the army; even that is not left to the
Commander-in-chief.
Though the President is commander-in-chief, Congress is his commander;
and, God willing, he shall obey. He and his minions shall learn that
this is not a government of kings and satraps, but a government of
the people, and that Congress is the people. * * * To reconstruct the
nation, to admit new States, to guarantee republican governments to
old States, are all legislative acts. The President claims the right to
exercise them. Congress denies it, and asserts the right to belong to
the legislative branch. They have determined to defend these rights
against all usurpers. They have determined that, while in their keeping,
the Constitution shall not be violated with impunity. This I take to
be the great question between the President and Congress. He claims the
right to reconstruct by his own power. Congress denies him all power in
the matter except that of advice, and has determined to maintain such
denial. "My policy" asserts full power in the Executive. The policy of
Congress forbids him to exercise any power therein.
Beyond this I do not agree that the "policy" of the parties is defined.
To be sure, many subordinate items of the policy of each may be easily
sketched. The President * * * desires that the traitors (having sternly
executed that most important leader Rickety Wirz, as a high example)
should be exempt from further fine, imprisonment, forfeiture, exile, or
capital punishment, and be declared entitled to all the rights of
loyal citizens. He desires that the States created by him shall be
acknowledged as valid States, while at the same time he inconsistently
declares that the old rebel States are in full existence, and always
have been, and have equal rights with the loyal States. He opposes the
amendment to the Constitution which changes the basis of representation,
and desires the old slave States to have the benefit of their increase
of freemen without increasing the number of votes; in short, he desires
to make the vote of one rebel in South Carolina equal to the votes of
three freemen in Pennsylvania or New York. He is determined to force
a solid rebel delegation into Congress from the South, which, together
with Northern Copperheads, could at once control Congress and elect all
future Presidents.
Congress refuses to treat the States created by him as of any validity,
and denies that the old rebel States have any existence which gives
them any rights under the Constitution. Congress insists on changing the
basis of representation so as to put white voters on an equality in both
sections, and that such change shall precede the admission of any
State. * * * Congress denies that any State lately in rebellion has
any government or constitution known to the Constitution of the United
States, or which can be recognized as a part of the Union. How, then,
can such a State adopt the (XIIIth) amendment? To allow it would be
yielding the whole question, and admitting the unimpaired rights of the
seceded States. I know of no Republican who does not ridicule what
Mr. Seward thought a cunning movement, in counting Virginia and other
outlawed States among those which had adopted the constitutional
amendment abolishing slavery.
It is to be regretted that inconsiderate and incautious Republicans
should ever have supposed that the slight amendments already proposed
to the Constitution, even when incorporated into that instrument, would
satisfy the reforms necessary for the security of the government. Unless
the rebel States, before admission, should be made republican in spirit,
and placed under the guardianship of loyal men, all our blood and
treasure will have been spent in vain. * * *
The law of last session with regard to Territories settled the
principles of such acts. Impartial suffrage, both in electing the
delegates and in ratifying their proceedings, is now the fixed rule.
There is more reason why colored voters should be admitted in the rebel
States than in the Territories. In the States they form the great mass
of the loyal men. Possibly, with their aid, loyal governments may be
established in most of those States. Without it all are sure to be ruled
by traitors; and loyal men, black or white, will be oppressed, exiled,
or murdered.
There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill. In the
first place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to negro
suffrage in the rebel States. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a
right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites? In the second
place, it is a necessity in order to protect the loyal white men in
the seceded States. With them the blacks would act in a body; and it is
believed then, in each of said States, except one, the two united would
form a majority, control the States, and protect themselves. Now they
are the victims of daily murder. They must suffer constant persecution
or be exiled.
Another good reason is that it would insure the ascendency of the Union
party. "Do you avow the party purpose?" exclaims some horror-stricken
demagogue. I do. For I believe, on my conscience, that on the continued
ascendency of that party depends the safety of this great nation. If
impartial suffrage is excluded in the rebel States, then every one of
them is sure to send a solid rebel representation to Congress, and cast
a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred Copperheads of
the North, would always elect the President and control Congress. While
slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimidated the
trembling North, the South frequently divided on questions of policy
between Whigs and Democrats, and gave victory alternately to the
sections. Now, you must divide them between loyalists, without regard
to color, and disloyalists, or you will be the perpetual vassals of the
free-trade, irritated, revengeful South. For these, among other reasons,
I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. If it be just, it should
not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted; if it be a
punishment to traitors, they deserve it.
VIII.--FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.
THE periods into which this series has been divided will furnish,
perhaps, some key to the brief summary of tariff discussion in the
United States which follows. For it is not at all true that tariff
discussion or decision has been isolated; on the contrary, it has
influenced, and been influenced by, every other phase of the national
development of the country.
Bancroft has laid none too great stress on the influence of the English
mercantile system in forcing the American Revolution, and on the
attitude of the Revolution as an organized revolt against the English
system. One of the first steps by which the Continental Congress
asserted its claim to independent national action was the throwing
open of American ports to the commerce of all nations--that is, to free
trade. It should, however, be added that the extreme breadth of this
liberality was due to the inability of Congress to impose any duties on
imports; it had a choice only between absolute prohibition and absolute
free trade, and it chose the latter. The States were not so limited.
Both under the revolutionary Congress and under the Confederation they
retained the entire duty power, and they showed no fondness for free
trade. Commerce in general was light, and tariff receipts, even in the
commercial States, were of no great importance; but, wherever it
was possible, commercial regulations were framed in disregard of the
free-trade principle. In order to retain the trade in firewood and
vegetables within her own borders, New York, in 1787, even laid
prohibitory duties on Connecticut and New Jersey boats; and retaliatory
measures were begun by the two States attacked.