“I have written very plainly to the President, urging
delay. But I fear he will pursue his wrong course. With
illegal courts and usurping ‘reconstruction,’ I know not
where you and I shall be. While we can hardly approve all
the acts of the Government, we must try and keep out of the
ranks of the Opposition. The danger is that so much success
will reconcile the people to almost anything.”
August 26th, Mr. Stevens wrote from his home at Lancaster,
Penn.:--
“I am glad you are laboring to avert the President’s fatal
policy. I wish the prospect of success were better. I
have twice written him, urging him to stay his hand until
Congress meets. Of course he pays no attention to it. Our
editors are generally cowardly sycophants. I would make a
speech, as you suggest, if a fair occasion offered. Our
views (‘Reconstruction and Confiscation’) were embodied
in our resolutions [in the Republican State Convention,
recently held] at Harrisburg, amidst much chaff. Negro
suffrage was passed over, as heavy and premature. Get the
Rebel States into a territorial condition, and it can be
easily dealt with. That, I think, should be our great aim.
Then Congress can manage it.”
In the same spirit, Hon. B. F. Wade, of the Senate of the
United States, July 29th, wrote from his home at Jefferson,
Ohio:--
“I regret to say, that, with regard to the policy resolved
upon by the President, I have no consolation to impart.
To me all appears gloomy.… The salvation of the country
devolves upon Congress and against the Executive. Will
they be able to resist the downward tendency of events? My
experience is not calculated to inspire me with confidence.”
Hon. Henry Winter Davis, the able, eloquent, and courageous
Representative in Congress from Baltimore, June 20th, in a long
letter to Mr. Sumner, on our perils and duties, wrote:--
“One way is to pass a law by two-thirds over the
President’s veto, prescribing the conditions of
reconstruction of any State government, and declaring
_none_ republican in form which excludes negroes from
voting. Such a law the President will be obliged to obey
and execute.… The other mode of solving the problem, over
the head of the President, is to pass an Amendment of the
Constitution prescribing universal suffrage.… We have the
requisite majority to pursue either of these plans; but
is there nerve for the work? I have too often failed to
inspire my political friends with that elevated sense of
their own authority to dictate the course of affairs, to
be sanguine of success in measures which require so much
unity, energy, and singleness of purpose as these. The last
Congress was not equal to it; is the present Congress?…
Now do me the favor to give me your views as fully as I
have given you mine. I trust you are not, as I am, in
despair.”[248]
In the course of the summer a pamphlet was published in
Boston, entitled “Security and Reconciliation for the Future:
Propositions and Arguments on the Reorganization of the Rebel
States,”--being a collection of resolutions by Mr. Sumner,
with the article in the _Atlantic Monthly_,[249] the speech
on the admission of Senators from Arkansas,[250] and the
Louisiana debate.[251] The large edition of this collection
drew attention, and helped prepare for the speech at the State
Convention. A few extracts will show its reception.
* * * * *
Dr. George B. Loring, the agriculturist, afterwards Chairman of
the State Committee of the Republican party in Massachusetts,
and President of the Massachusetts Senate, wrote from Salem:--
“I only wish all our statesmen had taken the ground adopted
by yourself; it would have saved us infinite trouble. It
entitles you to eternal thanks, and receives daily more and
more assent.”
Hon. John C. Underwood, District Judge of the United States,
wrote from Alexandria, Va.:--
“I have read your collected arguments on the subject of
Reconstruction with great pleasure and profit. Let me thank
you for convincing me, very much against my will, that to
allow immediate representation to the Rebel States would
be a cruel breach of faith and honor to the freedmen, and
that we of the South must be just to these poor people,
and submit to a genuine republican government, before
we deserve admission again into the American family. I
trust no petty personal ambition will prevent my full
appreciation of the immensely important work for our
country and humanity which you have so well performed.”
Hon. Charles Eames, the able lawyer and scholar, former
Commissioner to the Sandwich Islands, and Minister at
Venezuela, residing in Washington, wrote from the sea-shore at
Long Branch:--
“It is a noble monumental record, worthy both of the
subject and of the Senator, and which will stand a landmark
in our parliamentary history. Every new day, as it comes,
brings new attestation of your wisdom and foresight, and
of the truthful views which from the first, and almost, if
not altogether, alone in Congress, you took and faithfully
expounded on the whole question of Reconstruction. The
idea of hurrying these lately Rebel communities into
participation in the enactment and administration of our
laws seems to me the most absurd blunder ever perpetrated
in history, with the possible exception of that earlier and
still more monstrous enormity of error which assigned to
them the right to give by silence a negative vote on the
purposed change of our fundamental law.”
Hon. John Y. Smith, an able and independent thinker, wrote from
Madison, Wisconsin:--
“Pray, honored Sir, do not be discouraged by the stupid
prejudices with which you have to contend, but fight it
out, and you may save the nation; for at no time during the
war was it in greater peril than it is at this moment. The
Ship of State has gallantly borne up through the storms
of war, but I fear that President Johnson, with the best
intentions, is running her straight upon the rocks.”
A few extracts from newspapers attest the impression made by
the Speech.
* * * * *
The Boston _Transcript_, which reported the speech on the
afternoon of its delivery, said:--
“Mr. Sumner has made many powerful addresses, on many
important occasions; but we think our readers will admit
that he has never presented a more masterly argument, on a
more important occasion, than that which he has urged on
the Union Republicans in his speech of to-day. Clear and
pointed in statement, felicitous in illustration, admirable
in arrangement, cogent in logic, affluent in learning,
with occasional bursts of eloquence which light up and
animate, but never disturb, the course of the argument,
the speech cannot fail to exert an immense influence on
the formation of that public opinion which is to determine
the mode by which one of the most momentous questions ever
brought before the American people shall be definitely
settled.… Mr. Sumner does not merely attempt to convince
the understanding; he strikes through it to the national
conscience and sense of humanity and honor. His sentences
are full of heat, as well as light,--will lodge in the
minds they inform, and influence the will which votes, as
well as the judgment which assents.”