“There is one thing, however, that is making against the speedy
return of quietness, not only in this State, but throughout
the entire South, _and that is the Reconstruction policy of
President Johnson_. It is doing more to unsettle this country
than people who are not practical observers of its workings
have any idea of. Before this policy was made known, the people
were prepared to accept anything. They expected to be treated
as rebels,--their leaders being punished, and the property
of others confiscated. But the moment it was made known, all
their assurance returned. Rebels have again become arrogant and
exacting; Treason stalks through the land unabashed.”
This testimony might be multiplied indefinitely. From city and country,
from highway and by-way, there is but one voice. When, therefore, the
President, in opprobrious terms, complains of Congress as interposing
delay, I reply to him: “No, Sir, it is you, who, by unexpected and
most perverse assumption, have put off the glad day of security and
reconciliation, so much longed for. It is you who have inaugurated anew
that malignant sectionalism, which, so long as it exists, will keep the
Union divided in fact, if not in name. Sir, you are the Disunionist.”
* * * * *
Glance, if you please, at that Presidential policy--so constantly
called “my policy”--now so vehemently pressed upon the country, and you
will find that it pivots on at least two alarming blunders, as can be
easily seen: _first_, in setting up the One Man Power as the source of
jurisdiction over this great question; and, _secondly_, in using the
One Man Power for the restoration of Rebels to place and influence,
so that good Unionists, whether white or black, are rejected, and the
Rebellion itself is revived in the new governments. Each of these
assumptions is an enormous blunder. You see that I use a mild term to
characterize such a double-headed usurpation.
* * * * *
Pray, Sir, where in the Constitution do you find any sanction of the
One Man Power as source of this extraordinary jurisdiction? I had
always supposed that the President was the Executive,--bound to see
the laws faithfully executed, but not empowered to make laws. The
Constitution expressly says: “The Executive power shall be vested in
a President of the United States of America.” But the Legislative
power is elsewhere. According to the Constitution, “All Legislative
powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United
States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
And yet the President has assumed legislative power, even to the
extent of making laws and constitutions for States. You all know,
that, at the close of the war, when the Rebel States were without
lawful governments, he assumed to supply them. In this business of
Reconstruction he assumed to determine who should vote, and also to
affix conditions for adoption by the conventions. Look, if you please,
at the character of this assumption. The President, from the Executive
Mansion at Washington, reaches his long executive arm into certain
States and dictates constitutions. Surely here is nothing executive; it
is not even military. It is legislative, pure and simple, and nothing
else. It is an attempt by the One Man Power to do what can be done
only by the legislative branch of Government. And yet the President,
perversely absorbing to himself all power over the reconstruction of
the Rebel States, insists that Congress must accept his work without
addition or subtraction. He can impose conditions: Congress cannot. He
can determine who shall vote: Congress cannot. His jurisdiction is not
only complete, but exclusive. If all this be so, then has our President
a most extraordinary power, never before dreamed of. He may exclaim,
with Louis the Fourteenth, “The State, it is I,” while, like this
magnificent king, he sacrifices the innocent, and repeats that fatal
crime, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His whole “policy” is
“revocation” of all that has been promised and all we have a right to
expect.
Here it is well to note a distinction, not without importance in
the issue between the President and Congress. Nobody doubts that
the President may, during war, govern any conquered territory as
commander-in-chief, and for this purpose detail any military officer as
military governor. But it is one thing to govern a State temporarily by
military power, and quite another thing to create a constitution for
a State which shall continue _when the military power has expired_.
The former is a military act, and belongs to the President; the
latter is a civil act, and belongs to Congress. On this distinction
I stand; and this is not the first time that I have asserted it. Of
course, governments set up in this illegitimate way are necessarily
illegitimate, except so far as they acquire validity from time or
subsequent recognition. It needs no learned Chief Justice of North
Carolina solemnly to declare this. It is manifest from the nature of
the case.
But this illegitimacy becomes still more manifest, when it is known
that the constitutions which the President orders and tries to cram
upon Congress have never been submitted to popular vote. Each is the
naked offspring of an illegitimate convention called into being by the
President, in the exercise of illegitimate power.
There is another provision of the Constitution, by which, according to
a judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, this question
is referred to Congress, and not to the President. I refer to the
provision that “_the United States_ shall guaranty to every State in
this Union a republican form of government.” On these words Chief
Justice Taney, speaking for the Supreme Court, has adjudged, that
“it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established
one in a State; for, as _the United States_ guaranty to each State
a republican government, _Congress must necessarily decide what
government is established in the State_, before it can determine
whether it is republican or not”; and that “unquestionably a military
government established as the permanent government of the State would
not be a republican government, and it would be the duty of Congress
to overthrow it.”[61] But the President sets at nought this commanding
text, reinforced by the positive judgment of the Supreme Court, and
claims this extraordinary power for himself, to the exclusion of
Congress. He is “the United States.” In him the Republic is manifest.
He can do all; Congress nothing.
And now the whole country is summoned by the President to recognize
State governments created by constitutions thus illegitimate in origin
and character. Without considering if they contain the proper elements
of security for the future, or if they are republican in form, and
without any inquiry into the validity of their adoption,--nay, in
the very face of testimony showing that they contain no elements of
security for the future, that they are not republican in form, and that
they have never been adopted by the loyal people,--we are commanded
to accept them; and when we hesitate, the President, himself leading
the outcry, assails us with angry vituperation, blunted, it must be
confessed, by coarseness without precedent and without bound. It is
well that such a cause has such an advocate.
Thus setting up the One Man Power as a source of jurisdiction, the
President has committed a blunder of Constitutional Law, proceeding
from an immense egotism, in which the little pronoun “I” plays a
gigantic part. It is “_I_” vs. _The People of the United States in
Congress assembled_. On this unnatural blunder I might say more; but I
have said enough. My present purpose is accomplished, if I make you see
it clearly.
* * * * *
The other blunder is of a different character. It is giving present
power to ex-Rebels, at the expense of constant Unionists, white or
black, and employing them in the work of Reconstruction, so that the
new governments continue to represent the Rebellion. This same blunder,
when committed by one of the heroes of the war, was promptly overruled
by the President himself; but Andrew Johnson now does what Sherman was
not allowed to do. The blunder is strange and unaccountable.
Here the evidence is constant and cumulative. It begins with his
proclamation for the reconstruction of North Carolina. Holden was
appointed Provisional Governor,--an officer unknown to law, and for
whom there was no provision,--although it was notorious that he had
been a member of the Convention which adopted the Act of Secession,
and that he signed it. Then came Perry, Provisional Governor of South
Carolina, who, besides holding a judicial station under the Rebel
Government, was one of its Commissioners of Impressments. I have a
Rebel newspaper containing one of his advertisements in the latter
character. There also was Parsons, Provisional Governor of Alabama,
who in 1863 introduced into the Legislature of that State formal
resolutions tendering to Jefferson Davis “hearty thanks for his good
labors in the cause of our common country, together with the assurance
of continued support,”--and afterwards, in 1864, denounced our national
debt, exclaiming in the Legislature: “Does any sane man suppose we
will consent to pay their [the United States] war debt, contracted in
sending armies and navies to burn our towns and cities, to lay waste
our country,--whose soldiers have robbed and murdered our peaceful
inhabitants?” Such were the agents appointed by the President to
institute loyal governments. But this selection becomes more strange
and unaccountable, when it is considered that all this was done in
defiance of law.
There is a recent enactment of Congress requiring that no person shall
be appointed to any office of the United States, unless such office has
been created by law.[62] And there is another enactment of Congress,
providing that all officers, civil or military, before entering
upon their official duties or receiving any salary or compensation,
shall take an oath declaring that they have held no office under the
Rebellion or given any aid thereto.[63] In face of these enactments,
which are sufficiently explicit, the President began his work of
Reconstruction by appointing civilians to an office absolutely unknown
to law, when besides they could not take the required oath of office;
and to complete the disregard of Congress, he fixed their salary, and
paid it out of the funds of the War Department.
Of course such proceeding was an instant encouragement and license to
all ex-Rebels, no matter how much blood was on their hands. Rebellion
was at a premium. It was easy to see, that, if these men were good
enough to be governors of States, in defiance of Congress, all others
in the same political predicament would be good enough for inferior
offices. And it was so. From top to bottom these States were organized
by men who had been warring on their country. Ex-Rebels were appointed
by the governors or chosen by the people everywhere. Ex-Rebels sat in
Conventions and in Legislatures. Ex-Rebels became judges, justices
of the peace, sheriffs, and everything else,--while the faithful
Unionist, white or black, was rejected. As with Cordelia, his love
was “according to his bond, nor more nor less”; but all this was of
no avail. How often during the war have I pleaded for such patriots,
and urged to every effort for their redemption!--and now, when our
arms have prevailed, it is they who are cast down, while the enemies
of the Republic are exalted. The pirate Semmes returns from his ocean
cruise to be chosen Probate Judge,--leaping from the deck of the Ship
Alabama to the judicial bench of the State Alabama. In New Orleans the
Rebel mayor at the surrender to the national flag is once more mayor,
and employs his regained power in the terrible massacre which rises
in judgment against the Presidential policy. Persons are returned to
Congress whose service in the Rebellion makes it impossible for them
to take the oath of office,--as in the case of Georgia, which selects
as Senators Herschel V. Johnson, a Senator of the Rebel Congress, and
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Rebellion. These are
instances; but from these learn all.
There is nothing within reach of the President which he has not
lavished on ex-Rebels. The power of pardon and amnesty, like the power
of appointment, has been used for them, wholesale and retail. It would
have been easy to affix a condition to every pardon, requiring, that,
before it took effect, the recipient should carve out of his estate
a homestead for every one of his freedmen, and thus secure to each
what they all covet so much, a piece of land. But the President did no
such thing, although, in the words of the old writ, “often requested
so to do.” Such a condition would have helped the loyal freedmen,
rather than the rebel master. In the same spirit, while undertaking to
determine who shall be voters, all colored persons, howsoever loyal,
were disfranchised, while all white persons, except certain specified
classes, although black with rebellion, were constituted voters on
taking a simple oath of allegiance, thus investing ex-Rebels with a
prevailing power.
Partisans of the Presidential “policy” are in the habit of declaring
it a continuation of the policy of the martyred Lincoln. This is a
mistake. Would that he could rise from his bloody shroud to repel the
calumny! Happily, he has left his testimony behind, in words which
all who have ears to hear can hear. The martyr presented the truth
bodily, when he said, in suggestive metaphor, that we must “build up
from the sound materials”; but his successor insists upon building from
materials rotten with treason and gaping with rebellion. On another
occasion, the martyr said that “an attempt to guaranty and protect a
_revived_ State government, constructed in whole or _in preponderating
part_ from _the very element_ against whose hostility and violence it
is to be protected, is _simply absurd_.”[64] But this is the very thing
the President is now attempting. He is constructing State governments,
not merely in preponderating part, but _in whole_, from the hostile
element. Therefore he departs openly from the policy of the martyred
Lincoln.
The martyr says to his successor that the policy adopted is “simply
absurd.” He is right, although he might say more. Its absurdity
is too apparent. It is as if, in abolishing the Inquisition, the
inquisitors had been continued under another name, and Torquemada had
received a fresh license for cruelty. It is as if King William, after
the overthrow of James the Second, had made the infamous Jeffreys
Lord Chancellor. Common sense and common justice cry out against the
outrage; and yet this is the Presidential “policy” now so passionately
commended to the American people.
A state, according to Aristotle, is a “copartnership,” and I
accept the term as especially applicable to our government. And now
the President, in the exercise of the One Man Power, decrees that
communities lately in rebellion shall be taken at once into our
“copartnership.” I object to the decree as dangerous to the Republic. I
am not against pardon, clemency, or magnanimity, except where they are
at the expense of good men. I trust that they will always be practised;
but I insist that recent rebels shall not be admitted, without proper
precautions, to the business of the firm. And I insist also that the
One Man Power shall not be employed to force them into the firm.
* * * * *
Such are two pivotal blunders. It is not easy to see how he has
fallen into these, so strong were his early professions the other way.
The powers of Congress he had distinctly admitted. Thus, as early as
24th July, 1865, he had sent to Sharkey, acting by his appointment
as Provisional Governor of Mississippi, this despatch: “It must,
however, be distinctly understood that the restoration to which your
proclamation refers _will be subject to the will of Congress_.” Nothing
could be more positive. And he was equally positive against the
restoration of Rebels to power. You do not forget, that, in accepting
his nomination as Vice-President, he rushed forward to declare that the
Rebel States must be remodelled, that confiscation must be enforced,
and that Rebels must be excluded from the work of Reconstruction.
His language was plain and unmistakable. Announcing that “government
must be fixed on the principles of _eternal justice_,” he declared,
that, “if the man who gave his influence and his means to destroy the
Government should be permitted to participate in the great work of
reorganization, then all the precious blood so freely poured out will
have been wantonly spilled, and all our victories go for nought.” True,
very true. Then, in words of surpassing energy, he cried out, that “the
great plantations must be seized and divided into small farms,” and
that “traitors should take a back seat in the work of restoration.”
Perhaps the true rule was never expressed with more homely and vital
force than in this last saying, often repeated in different forms, “For
Rebels, back seats.” Add that other saying, as often repeated, “Treason
must be made odious,” and you have two great principles of just
reconstruction, once proclaimed by the President, but now practically
disowned by him.
* * * * *
You will ask how the President fell. This is hard to say, certainly,
without much plainness of speech. Mr. Seward openly confesses that
he counselled the present fatal “policy.” Unquestionably the Blairs,
father and son, did the same. So also, I doubt not, did Mr. Preston
King. It is easy to see that Mr. Seward was not a wise counsellor.
This is not his first costly blunder. In formal despatches he early
announced that “the rights of the States, and the condition of every
human being in them, will remain subject to exactly the same laws
and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or
whether it shall fail.”[65] And now he labors for the fulfilment of
his own prophecy. Obviously, from the beginning, he has failed to
comprehend the Rebellion, while in nature he is abnormal and eccentric,
jumping like the knight on the chess-board, rather than moving on
straight lines. Undoubtedly the influence of such a man over the
President has not been good. But the President himself is his own worst
counsellor, as he is his own worst defender. He does not open his mouth
without furnishing evidence against himself.
The brave words with which he accepted his nomination as Vice-President
resounded through the country. He was elected. Then followed two
scenes, each of which filled the people with despair. The first was
of the new Vice-President taking the oath of office--in the presence
of the foreign ministers, the judges of the Supreme Court, and the
Senate--while in such a condition that his attempted speech became
trivial and incoherent, and he did not know the name of the Secretary
of the Navy, who is now the devoted supporter of his policy, as he has
been his recent travelling companion. One month and one week thereafter
President Lincoln was assassinated. The people, wrapt in affliction
at the great tragedy, trembled as they beheld a drunken man ascend
the heights of power. But they were generous and forgiving,--almost
forgetful. He was our President, and hands were outstretched to
welcome and sustain him. His early utterances as President, although
commonplace, loose, and wordy, gave assurance that the Rebellion and
its authors would find little favor. Treason was to be made odious.
* * * * *
At this time my own personal relations with him commenced. I had known
him slightly while he was in the Senate; but I lost no time in seeing
him after he became President. He received me kindly. I hope that I
shall not err, if I allude briefly to what passed between us. You are
my constituents, and I wish you to know the Presidential mood at that
time, and also what your representative attempted.
Being in Washington during the first month of the new Administration,
destined to fill such an unhappy place in history, I saw the President
frequently, at the private house he then occupied, or at his office
in the Treasury. He had not yet taken possession of the Executive
Mansion. The constant topic was “Reconstruction,” which was considered
in every variety of aspect. More than once I ventured to press the
duty and renown of carrying out the principles of the Declaration of
Independence, and of founding the new governments on the consent of
the governed, without distinction of color. To this earnest appeal he
replied, as I sat with him alone, in words which I can never forget:
“On this question, Mr. Sumner, there is no difference between us; you
and I are alike.” Need I say that I was touched to the heart by this
annunciation, which seemed to promise a victory without a battle?
Accustomed to controversy, I saw clearly, that, if the President
declared himself for the Equal Rights of All, the good cause must
prevail without controversy. Expressing to him my joy and gratitude,
I remarked that there should be no division in the great Union
party,--that no line should be run through it, on one side of which
would be gentlemen calling themselves “the President’s friends,” but
we should be kept all together as one seamless garment. To this he
promptly replied, “I mean to keep you all together.” Nothing could
be better. We were to be kept all together on the principle of Equal
Rights. As I walked away, that evening, the battle of my life seemed
ended, while the Republic rose before me, refulgent in the blaze of
assured freedom, an example to the nations.
On another occasion, during the same period, the case of Tennessee was
discussed. I expressed the earnest hope that the President would use
his influence directly for the establishment of impartial suffrage in
that State, saying that in this way Tennessee would be put at the head
of the returning column and be made an example,--in one word, that all
the other States would be obliged to dress on Tennessee. The President
replied, that, if he were at Nashville, he would see this accomplished.
I could not help rejoining, that he need not be at Nashville, for
at Washington his hand was on the long end of the lever with which
he could easily move all Tennessee,--referring, of course, to the
powerful, but legitimate, influence the President might exercise in his
own State by the expression of his desires. Let me confess that his
hesitation disturbed me; but I attributed it to unnecessary caution,
rather than to infidelity. He had been so positive with me, how could I
suspect him?
At other times the conversation was renewed. Such was my interest in
the question, that I could not see the President without introducing
it. As I was about to return home, I said that I desired, even at the
risk of repetition, to make some parting suggestions on the constant
topic, and that, with his permission, I would proceed point by
point, as was the habit of the pulpit in former days. He smiled, and
observed pleasantly, “Have I not always listened to you?” I replied,
“You have; and I am grateful.” After remarking that the Rebel region
was still in military occupation, and that it was the plain duty of
the President to use his temporary power for the establishment of
correct principles, I proceeded to say: “First, see to it that no
newspaper is allowed which is not thoroughly loyal, and does not
speak well of the National Government and of Equal Rights”; and here
I reminded him of the saying of the Duke of Wellington, that in a
place under martial law an unlicensed press is as impossible as on
the deck of a ship of war. “Secondly, let the officers that you send,
as military governors or otherwise, be known for devotion to Equal
Rights, so that their names alone will be a proclamation, while their
simple presence will help educate the people”; and here I mentioned
Major-General Carl Schurz, who still held his commission in the army,
as such a person. “Thirdly, encourage the population to resume the
profitable labors of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures without
delay,--but for the present to avoid politics. Fourthly, keep the whole
region under these good influences, and at the proper moment hand
over the subject of Reconstruction, with the great question of Equal
Rights, to the judgment of Congress, where it belongs.” All this the
President received with perfect kindness, and I mention this with the
more readiness because I remember to have seen in the papers a very
different statement.
Only a short time afterwards there was a change, which seemed
like a somersault or an apostasy; and then ensued a strange sight.
Instead of faithful Unionists, recent Rebels thronged the Presidential
antechambers, rejoicing in new-found favor. They made speeches at
the President, and he made speeches at them. A mutual sympathy was
manifest. On one occasion the President announced himself a “Southern
man” with “Southern sympathies,” thus quickening that sectional flame
which good men hoped to see quenched forever. Alas! if, after all our
terrible sacrifices, we are still to have a President who does not know
how to spurn every sectional appeal and make himself representative
of all! Unhappily, whatever the President said or did was sectional.
He showed himself constantly a sectionalist. Instead of telling the
ex-Rebels who thronged the Presidential antechambers, as he should
have done, that he was their friend, that he wished them well from
the bottom of his heart, that he longed to see their fields yield an
increase, with peace in all their borders, and that, to this end, he
counselled them to pursue agriculture, commerce, and manufactures,
and for the present to say nothing about politics,--instead of this,
he sent them away talking and thinking of nothing but politics, and
frantic for the reëstablishment of a sectional power. Instead of
designating officers of the army as military governors, which I had
supposed he would do, he appointed ex-Rebels, who could not take
the oath required by Congress of all officers of the United States,
and they in turn appointed ex-Rebels to office under them; so that
participation in the Rebellion found reward, and treason, instead of
being made odious, became the passport to power. Everywhere ex-Rebels
came out of hiding-places. They walked the streets defiantly, and
asserted their old domination. Under auspices of the President, a new
campaign was planned against the Republic, and they who failed in open
war now sought to enter the very citadel of political power. Victory,
purchased by so much loyal blood and treasure, was little better than
a cipher. Slavery itself revived in the spirit of Caste. Faithful men
who had been trampled down by the Rebellion were trampled down still
more by these Presidential governments. For the Unionist there was
no liberty of the press or liberty of speech, and the lawlessness of
Slavery began to rage anew.
Every day brought tidings that the Rebellion was reappearing in its
essential essence. Amidst all professions of submission, there was
immitigable hate to the National Government, and prevailing injustice
to the freedman. This was last autumn. I was then in Boston. Moved by
desire to arrest this fatal tendency, I appealed by letter to members
of the Cabinet, entreating them to stand firm against a “policy” which
promised nothing but disaster. As soon as the elections were over, I
appealed directly to the President himself, by a telegraphic despatch,
as follows:--
“BOSTON, November 12, 1865.
“TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON.
“As a faithful friend and supporter of your administration,
I most respectfully petition you to suspend for the present
your policy towards the Rebel States. I should not present
this prayer, if I were not painfully convinced that thus
far it has failed to obtain any reasonable guaranties for
that security in the future which is essential to peace and
reconciliation. To my mind, 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.
I see small chance of peace, unless these great principles are
practically established. Without this, the house will continue
divided against itself.
“CHARLES SUMNER,
“_Senator of the United States_.”
Reaching Washington Saturday evening, immediately before the
opening of the last session of Congress, I lost no time in seeing
the President. I was with him that evening three hours. I found him
changed in temper and purpose. How unlike that President who, only a
few days after arrival at power, made me feel so happy in the assurance
of agreement on the great question! No longer sympathetic, or even
kindly, he was harsh, petulant, and unreasonable. Plainly, his heart
was with ex-Rebels. For the Unionist, white or black, who had borne
the burden of the day, he had little feeling. He would not see the bad
spirit of the Rebel States, and insisted that the outrages there were
insufficient to justify exclusion from Congress. The following dialogue
ensued.
THE PRESIDENT. Are there no murders in Massachusetts?
MR. SUMNER. Unhappily, yes,--sometimes.
THE PRESIDENT. Are there no assaults in Boston? Do not men
there sometimes knock each other down, so that the police is
obliged to interfere?
MR. SUMNER. Unhappily, yes.
THE PRESIDENT. Would you consent that Massachusetts, on this
account, should be excluded from Congress?
MR. SUMNER. No, Mr. President, I would not.
And here I stopped, without remarking on the entire irrelevancy of the
inquiry. I left the President that night with the painful conviction
that his whole soul was set as flint against the good cause, and that
by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the Rebellion had vaulted into
the Presidential chair. Jefferson Davis was then in the casemates at
Fortress Monroe, but Andrew Johnson was doing his work.
“Ah! what avails it, …
If the gulled conqueror receives the chain,
And flattery subdues, when arms are vain?”
From this time forward I was not in doubt as to his “policy,” which
asserted a condition of things in the Rebel region inconsistent
with the terrible truth. It was, therefore, natural that I should
characterize one of his messages, covering over the enormities there,
as “whitewashing.” This mild term was thought by some too strong.
Subsequent events have shown that it was too weak. The whole Rebel
region is little better than a “whited sepulchre.” It is that saddest
of all sepulchres, the sepulchre of Human Rights. The dead men’s
bones are the remains of faithful Union soldiers, dead on innumerable
fields, or stifled in the pens of Andersonville and Belle Isle,--also
of constant Unionists, white and black, whom we are sacredly bound
to protect, now murdered on highways and by-ways, or slaughtered at
Memphis and New Orleans. The uncleanness is injustice, wrong, and
outrage, having a loathsome stench; and the President is engaged in
“whiting” over these things, so that they shall not be seen by the
American people. To do this, he garbles a despatch of Sheridan, and
abuses the hospitality of the country by a travelling speech, where
every word, not foolish, vulgar, and vindictive, is a vain attempt at
“whitewashing.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile the Presidential madness is more than ever manifest. It has
shown itself in frantic effort to defeat the Constitutional Amendment
proposed by Congress for adoption by the people. By this Amendment
certain safeguards are established. Citizenship is defined, and
protection is assured at least in what are called civil rights. The
basis of representation is fixed on the number of voters, so that,
if colored citizens are not allowed to vote, they will not by their
numbers contribute to representative power, and one voter in South
Carolina will not be able to neutralize two voters in Massachusetts or
Illinois. Ex-Rebels who had taken an oath to support the Constitution
are excluded from office, National or State. The National debt is
guarantied, while the Rebel debt and all claim for slaves are annulled.
All these essential safeguards are rudely rejected by the President.
The madness that would set aside provisions so essentially just,
whose only error is inadequacy, has broken forth naturally in brutal
utterance, where he has charged persons by name with seeking his life,
and has stimulated a mob against them. It is difficult to surpass the
criminality of this act. The violence of the President has provoked
violence. His words were dragon’s teeth, which have sprung up armed
men. Witness Memphis; witness New Orleans. Who can doubt that the
President is author of these tragedies? Charles the Ninth of France
was not more completely author of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
than Andrew Johnson is author of the recent massacres now crying out
for judgment. History records that the guilty king was pursued in the
silence of night by the imploring voices of murdered men, mingled with
curses and imprecations, while ghosts stalked through his chamber,
until he sweated blood from every pore; and when he came to die, his
soul, wrung with the tortures of remorse, stammered out, “Ah, nurse,
my good nurse! what blood! what murders! Oh, what bad counsels I
followed! Lord God, pardon me! have mercy on me!” Like causes produce
like effects. The blood at Memphis and New Orleans must cry out until
heard, and a guilty President may suffer the retribution which followed
a guilty king.
The evil he has done already is on such a scale that it is impossible
to measure it, unless as you measure an arc of the globe. I doubt
if in all history there is any ruler who in the same brief space of
time has done so much. There have been kings and emperors, proconsuls
and satraps, who have exercised tyrannical power; but facilities of
communication now lend swiftness and extension to all evil influences,
so that the President is able to do in a year what in other days would
have taken a life. Nor is the evil confined to any narrow spot. It is
coextensive with the Republic. Next to Jefferson Davis stands Andrew
Johnson as its worst enemy. The whole country has suffered; but the
Rebel region has suffered most. He should have sent peace; instead, he
sent a sword. Behold the consequences!
In support of a cruel “policy” he has not hesitated to use his
enormous patronage. President Lincoln said, familiarly, that, as
the people had continued him in office, he supposed they meant that
others should be continued also; and he refused to make removals. But
President Johnson announces “rotation in office”; and then, warming in
anger against all failing to sustain his “policy,” he roars that he
will “kick them out.” Men appointed by the martyred Lincoln are to be
“kicked out” by the successor, while he pretends to sustain the policy
of the martyr. The language of the President is most suggestive. He
“kicks” the friends of his well-loved predecessor; and he also “kicks”
the careful counsel of that well-loved predecessor, that we must “build
up from the sound materials.”
That I may give practical direction to these remarks, let me tell
you plainly what must be done. In the first place, Congress must be
sustained in its conflict with the One Man Power; and, in the second
place, ex-Rebels must not be hurried back to power. Bearing in mind
these two things, the way is easy. Of course, the Constitutional
Amendment must be adopted. As far as it goes, it is well; but it does
not go far enough. More is necessary. Impartial suffrage must be
established. A homestead must be secured to every freedman, if in no
other way, through the pardoning power. If to these is added education,
there will be a new order of things, with liberty of the press, liberty
of speech, and liberty of travel, so that Wendell Phillips may speak
freely in Charleston or Mobile. There is an old English play under
the name of “The Four P’s.” Our present desires may be symbolized by
four E’s,--standing for Emancipation, Enfranchisement, Equality, and
Education. Securing these, all else will follow.
I can never cease to regret that Congress hesitated by proper
legislation to assume temporary jurisdiction over the whole Rebel
region. To my mind the power was ample and unquestionable, whether
in the exercise of belligerent rights or in the exercise of rights
directly from the Constitution itself. In this way everything needful
might have been accomplished. Through this just jurisdiction the Rebel
communities might have been fashioned anew, and shaped to loyalty
and virtue. The President lost a great opportunity at the beginning.
Congress has lost another. But it is not too late. If indisposed to
assume this jurisdiction by an Enabling Act constituting provisional
governments, there are many things Congress may do, acting indirectly
or directly. Acting indirectly, it may insist that Emancipation,
Enfranchisement, Equality, and Education shall be established as
conditions precedent to the recognition of any State whose institutions
have been overthrown by rebellion.[66] Acting directly, it may, by
Constitutional Amendment, or by simple legislation, fix all these
forever.
* * * * *
You are aware that from the beginning I have insisted upon Impartial
Suffrage as the only certain guaranty of security and reconciliation.
I renew this persistence, and mean to hold on to the end. Every
argument, every principle, every sentiment is in its favor. But there
is one reason which at this moment I place above all others: it is _the
necessity of the case_. You require the votes of colored persons in
the Rebel States to sustain the Union itself. Without their votes you
cannot build securely for the future. Their ballots will be needed in
time to come much more than their muskets were needed in time past. For
the sake of the white Unionists, and for their protection,--for the
sake of the Republic itself, whose peace is imperilled, I appeal for
justice to the colored race. Give the ballot to the colored citizen,
and he will be not only assured in his own rights, but the timely
defender of yours. By a singular Providence your security is linked
inseparably with the recognition of his rights. Deny him, if you will:
it is at your peril.
But it is said, Leave this question to the States; and State rights
are pleaded against the power of Congress. This has been the cry: at
the beginning, to prevent effort against the Rebellion; and now, at the
end, to prevent effort against a revival of the Rebellion. Whichsoever
way we turn, we encounter the cry. But yielding now, you will commit
the very error of President Buchanan, when at the beginning he declared
that we could not “coerce” a State. Nobody now doubts that a State in
rebellion may be “coerced”; and to my mind it is equally clear that a
State just emerging from rebellion may be “coerced” to the condition
required by the public peace.
There are powers of Congress, not derived from the Rebellion, which are
adequate to this exigency; and now is the time to exercise them, and
thus complete the work. It was the Nation that decreed Emancipation,
and the Nation must see to it, by every obligation of honor and
justice, that Emancipation is secured. It is not enough that Slavery is
abolished in name. The Baltimore platform, on which President Johnson
was elected, requires the “utter and complete _extirpation_ of Slavery
from the soil of the Republic”; but this can be accomplished only by
the eradication of every inequality and caste, so that all shall be
equal before the law.
Be taught by Russia. The Emperor there did not content himself
with naked Emancipation. He followed this glorious act with minute
provisions for rights of all kinds,--as, to hold property, to sue
and testify in court, _to vote_, and _to enjoy the advantages of
education_. All this by the same power which decreed Emancipation.
Be taught also by England, speaking by her most illustrious statesmen,
who solemnly warn against trusting to any local authorities for justice
to the colored race. I begin with Burke, who saw all questions with the
intuitions of the statesman, and expressed himself with the eloquence
of the orator. Here are his words, uttered in 1792:--
“I have seen what has been done by the West Indian Assemblies
[in reference to the improvement of the condition of the
negro]. It is arrant trifling. They have done little; and
what they have done is good for nothing,--_for it is totally
destitute of an executory principle_.”[67]
Should we leave this question to the States, we, too, should find all
they did “arrant trifling,” and wanting “an executory principle.”
Edmund Burke was followed shortly afterwards by Canning, who, in 1799,
exclaimed:--
“There is something in the nature of the relation between the
despot and his slave which must vitiate and render nugatory and
null whatever laws the former might make for the benefit of the
latter,--which, however speciously these laws might be framed,
however well adapted they might appear to the evils which they
were intended to alleviate, must infallibly be marred and
defeated in the execution.”[68]