The response by letters showed that Senatorial protest and
newspaper criticism did not prevent the acceptance of the
Resolutions by earnest, thoughtful people, anxious for decisive
measures and a true preparation for the future. Here was a plan
of Reconstruction without Slavery, and this was a wide-spread
longing of hearts.
Hon. John Jay, afterwards Minister at Vienna, wrote from New
York:--
“There is no question about the fact that Slavery in the
Rebel States has ceased to exist, within the meaning and
under the protection of the Constitution.
“I have thought somewhat on the matter, and have just
completed an argument on it, which I proposed to include in
my lecture before the Washington Association. The Southern
States have ceased to be States of the Union; their soil
has become national territory; and the slaves, in the eyes
of the Constitution, are freemen. I wish your resolutions
had been referred to some committee from whom we could have
had a careful report in their favor, even though it were a
minority report, to get the argument before the country.”
Charles T. Rodgers, President of the Young Men’s Republican
Union, wrote from New York:--
“I have just read the preamble and resolutions offered
by you in the Senate, in which you define the position
and status of the revolted States, and of persons held to
service under the laws thereof.
“I cannot refrain from expressing to you, personally, my
pleasure at the fact that the true doctrine on this subject
has been so clearly laid down. I am sure that your theory
is the true one, and, in fact, the only one this Government
can consistently follow, and the only one which seems to
offer a plain path out of the maze of conflicting legal and
constitutional points in which so many of our public men
seem to have become entangled. The States, by seceding,
have committed suicide. The slaves therein are _de facto_
free. Stick to that, and you will come out all right.”
Hon. Charles A. Dana, the accomplished journalist, afterwards
Assistant Secretary of War, wrote:--
“I fully appreciate the difficulty of settling the South
after it is conquered. I don’t see how your plan can be
avoided; _bon gré, mal gré_, it is what we all must come
to.”
Park Benjamin, writer and poet, who had not formerly
sympathized with Mr. Sumner politically, wrote from New York:--
“Your Territorial plan is the only right and just one, let
the short-sighted geese hiss at it as they may.”