Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs Volume II Part 3

It is true that at this time (1901) the operation of the Fifteenth Amendment has been defeated and consequently the governments of States and the Government of the United States have become usurpations, in that they have been in the hands of a minority of men. Nevertheless the influence of the amendment is felt by all, and the time is not distant when it will be accepted by all. Thus our Government will be made to rest upon the wisest and safest foundation yet devised by man: The Equality of Men in the States, and the Equality of States in the Union.

Mr. Sumner opposed the amendment and he declined to vote upon the pa.s.sage of the resolution. Wendell Phillips saved it in the Senate.

General Grant, more than anyone else secured its ratification by the people. I append a copy of my letter to Mr. Phillips:

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, _March_ 13, 1870.

MY DEAR SIR:--

This letter will recall to your mind the circ.u.mstance that when the Fifteenth Amendment was suspended between the two houses you published an editorial in the _Standard_ in favor of the House proposition. Can you send me that article? It may not be known to you that that article saved the amendment. A little of the secret history was thus. Various propositions were offered in the House--among them one of my own--and all were referred to the Judiciary Committee.

In the Judiciary Committee, upon my motion the various resolutions for amending the Const.i.tution in that particular were referred to a sub- committee consisting of myself, Churchill of New York and Eldridge of Wisconsin. Churchill and myself were living at the same house and conferred together several times. Eldridge took no interest in the matter and never joined us--perhaps he was not invited. After an examination of all the plans I wrote that proposed amendment which was pa.s.sed by the House and is in substance and almost in language the amendment as adopted.

With the concurrence of Mr. Churchill I reported it to the committee and without one word of criticism and as far as I could judge without any particular consideration I was directed to report it to the House.

In the House it encountered considerable opposition and Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, made a speech which was a great surprise to me, though directed chiefly to the bill which I had also reported by direction of the Judiciary Committee giving at once the right of suffrage to negroes in all national elections and for members of the Legislature. This I thought necessary to secure the pa.s.sage of the amendment through the State Legislatures. However, the resolution was finally pa.s.sed by the House. In the Senate it met with great opposition because it omitted to secure in terms the right to hold office. This point had been raised in the House where I had successfully met the proposition by the statement and an argument in support of the statement that the right to vote as a matter of fact and in law carries with it the right to hold office. In the Senate, Mr.

Sumner, supported by all the Southern Republicans and a part of the Northern Republicans succeeded in subst.i.tuting a new resolution securing in terms the right to hold office. Upon the return of the Resolution to the House I was obliged to take what appeared a conservative position and resist the proposition to concur with the Senate upon the ground that the change was unnecessary and that its adoption threatened the loss of the measure in doubtful States as Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and others. The House adhered to its position, yet with such weakness of purpose on the part of many who sustained me, as indicated that they would not withstand another a.s.sault. The struggle was then renewed in the Senate and with every indication that the Senate would insist upon its amendment. It was then that your article appeared. Its influence was immediate and potential. Men thought that if you the extremest radical could accept the House proposition they might safely do the same. Had the Senate adhered one of two things would have happened, either the House would have seceded or the amendment would have failed.

Had the House concurred I fear we should have failed to carry several States which have since ratified it.

Upon reflection I think as at the time I thought that your voice saved the Fifteenth Amendment.

I am very truly, GEO. S. BOUTWELL.

WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

Boston.

P. S. This letter is not for the public use in so far as names are mentioned, and of course, not for publication.

G. S. B.

The article of Mr. Phillips became so important in its influence upon the final action of the Senate that I reproduce it in justice to Mr.

Phillips and as a further record of an historical event.

"We see the action of the Senate touching the Const.i.tutional Amendment with great anxiety. The House had pa.s.sed a simple measure, one covering all the ground that people are ready to occupy. It answered completely the lesson of the war. Its simplicity gave it all the chance that exists for any form of amendment being ratified.

"Why was it not left in that shape? Leaving out of sight the manifest risk of attempting too much, the very fact of the little time left before the session closes, was warning enough to clutch at anything satisfactory and to run no risk of possible disagreement between the Houses. We wait further knowledge before indulging any conjectures as to the motive for this strange course of the Senate; before even suspecting that it grew out of any concealed hate toward the whole measure and was indeed a trick to defeat it. Whoever, in either House, gratifies some personal whim to the extent of defeating or even postponing this measure will incur the gravest responsibility. We exhort every man who professes himself a friend of liberty to drop all undue attachment to any form of words and to co-operate, heartily, earnestly, with the great body of the members in carrying through as promptly as possible, any form which included the substance of a const.i.tutional protection to the votes and right to office of the colored race. That is the work of the hour. That is the lesson the war has burned in on the brain and conscience of the Nation.

"To include with this, 'Nationality, education, creed,' etc., is utter lack of common sense. Such a total forgetfulness of the commonest political prudence as makes it hard to credit the good intentions of the proposers.

"Our disappointment is the greater because we had reason to believe that the Senators who have this matter in charge, would be the last men to forget themselves at such a crisis. They have been timidly 'practical,' ludicrously tied up to precedents, when, in times past we have urged them to some act which seemed likely to jeopard party. Then Sir Oracle was never more sententious, more full of 'wise saws and modern instances,' than they. The inch they were willing to move ahead was hardly visible to the naked eye. How they lectured us on the 'too fast' and 'too far' policy! Now in an emergency which calls for the most delicate handling, they tear up not one admitted abuse, but include in the grasp half a dozen obstinate prejudices, which no logic of events has loosened. For the first time in our lives we beseech them to be a little more _politicians_--and a little less _reformers_-- as those functions are usually understood."

Under the date of March 18, 1869, I received from Mr. Phillips a letter in acknowledgment of my letter of thanks and commendation, in these words:

"DEAR SIR:--

"Thank you for the intimation in your letter. I am glad if any words of mine helped get rid of the too prompt action at that time. I think it was of the greatest importance to act at once."

The public mind seems to be misled in regard to the scope and legal value of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The amendments were in the nature of grants of power to the National Government, and in a corresponding degree they were limitations of the powers of the States, but the grants of power to the nation were also subject to limitations.

Until the ratification of the amendments the States had full power to extend the right of suffrage, or to restrict its enjoyment with the freedom that they possessed when the Treaty of Peace of 1783 had been signed, and when the Const.i.tution had not been framed and ratified.

All limitations of the right of suffrage by male inhabitants of twenty-one years of age, must fall under the control of the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.

If in any State the right to vote shall be "denied or abridged on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude," the statutes may be annulled by a decision of the Supreme Court. Neither the people of the United States in their political sovereignty, nor the political branch of the Government in its representative capacity can exert any direct influence upon the decision of the questions that may arise. The questions that may arise will be judicial questions, and they will fall under the decision of the judicial tribunals. Hence there has never been a time when it was the duty or when it was in the power or within the scope of the duty of the executive branch of the National Government to take official notice of the legislation in some of the former slave States, which is designed manifestly to limit the voting power of the negro population in those States.

If such legislation does not fall under the Fifteenth Amendment it will be subject to the penalty imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment,--a proportionate loss of representative power in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral Colleges.

As one of the three remaining members of the Committee on the Judiciary, and as one of the three remaining members of the Committee on Reconstruction, I wish to say, without any reservation whatever, that the amendments are accomplis.h.i.+ng and are destined to accomplish all that was expected by the committees that were charged with the duty of providing for the protection of the rights of the freedmen.

They were relived from the disparaging distinctions that came into existence with the system of slavery. They were placed upon an equality with other citizens and in the forms of law all discriminations affecting unfavorably the right of suffrage must apply equally to all citizens. The injustice and unwisdom of the restrictive legislation in which the Southern States are indulging, are subject of concern for the whole country, but the negro populations have no ground for the complaint that their rights have been neglected by the General Government.

This, however, is true: The negro population, in common with all others, has ground for just and continuing complaint against the legislation of Congress by which a portion of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands have been denationalized on account of race or color, or on account of a condition of mental or physical inferiority.

The process of reasoning by which the legislation of the States of the South is condemned, by those who uphold the legislation in regard to Hawaii involves a question in political ethics which for the moment I am not able to answer in a manner satisfactory to myself.

x.x.xI INVESTIGATIONS FOLLOWING THE CIVIL WAR

In the years 1865, '66 and '67 three important subjects of inquiry were placed in the hands of committees of which I was a member.

The Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives by resolutions adopted respectively the 9th and 30th days of April, 1866, was directed "to inquire into the nature of the evidence implicating Jefferson Davis and others in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Lincoln."

James M. Ashley of Ohio introduced a resolution for the impeachment of President Johnson, and on the 7th day of January, 1867, the House authorized the Committee on the Judiciary "to inquire into the official conduct of Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United States, discharging the powers and duties of President of the United States,"

etc.

By a resolution of the two Houses of Congress pa.s.sed the 12th and 13th of December, 1865, a joint committee was created under instructions to "inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America and report whether they or any of them are ent.i.tled to be represented in either House of Congress."

William Pitt Fessenden was chairman on the part of the Senate and Thaddeus Stevens was chairman of the part of the House. Upon the death of Mr. Stevens I succeeded to his place. The testimony taken in these cases fills three huge volumes. No inconsiderable part of the testimony was taken by myself, and I was but seldom absent from the meetings of the committees.

JOHN WILKES BOOTH

In no other situation in life is the character of a man more fully and truthfully brought into view than when he is placed upon the witness- stand and subjected to an examination by counsel or others who aim to support opposite opinions and to reach adverse results. The committees that conducted the investigations were composed of men who entertained opposite views in regard to the reconstruction of the government and in regard to the impeachment of President Johnson. There was also a difference of opinion upon the question of the responsibility of the Confederate authorities for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Lincoln. As a consequence of this diversity of opinion the witnesses were subjected to the equivalent of a cross-examination in a court of justice. Some of the impressions of men that I received in the many hearings, and some of the opinions I formed, are recorded here.

In each branch of these comprehensive inquiries there may be found something in the nature of evidence that may appear to have a bearing upon the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Lincoln. It is my purpose in these paragraphs to bring in to view the testimony which relates directly to John Wilkes Booth, the most conspicuous and without question the chief criminal in the tragedy of the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Lincoln, and the attempt upon the life of Mr. Seward.

The first step in the proceedings which culminated in the murder was the deposit at Surrattsville (a place about five miles from Was.h.i.+ngton, and owned by the Surratt family) of a carbine, two bottles of whiskey, a small coil of rope, a field gla.s.s, a monkey wrench, and some other articles.

The house was kept by a man named Lloyd, and neither the character of the house nor that of the keeper could bear a rigid test in ethics.

The deposit was made about the first of March by John H. Surratt, Atzerodt and David E. Herold, all of whom were afterwards implicated in the crime. The articles were received and secreted by Lloyd, but only after objections by him, as appears from his testimony. Lloyd connected Mrs. Surratt with the crime by these facts as related by him. She called upon Lloyd the Tuesday preceding the fatal Friday and gave him this message: "She told me to have them ready (speaking of the shooting-iron) that they would be called for or wanted soon, I have forgotten which."

Mrs. Surratt made a second call the afternoon preceding the murder, when this conversation took place, as stated by Lloyd: "When I drove up in my buggy to the back yard Mrs. Surratt came out to meet me. She handed me a package, and told me as well as I remember to get the guns or those things--I really forget now which, though my impression is that guns was the expression she made use of--and a couple of bottles of whisky and give them to whoever should call for them that night."

That night, after the murder, Booth and Herold called, and took the carbine and drank of the whisky. In these facts there is a basis for a reasonable theory. The theory is this. Previous to the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army the Confederate authorities set on foot a scheme for the capture and abduction of Mr. Lincoln.

The articles deposited, including the rope and the monkey wrench, might be useful had Mr. Lincoln been abducted, but when the crime became murder the rope and wrench were neglected.

This view derives support from two directions. In Booth's diary is this entry. "April 13-14 Friday. The Ides. Until to-day nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country's wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture. But our cause being almost lost something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others who did not strike for their country with a heart."

Colonel Baker, a detective, testified that when he was in Canada, engaged in negotiations for the purchase of letters that had pa.s.sed between the Confederate authorities at Richmond and Clay, Tucker, Thompson and others, he read a letter from Jefferson Davis to Jacob Thompson dated March 8, 1865, in which was this expression: "The consummation of the act that would have done more to have ended this terrible strife, being delayed, has probably ruined our cause."

The scheme for the abduction of Mr. Lincoln was a wild scheme, born of desperation, and its success would have worked only evil to the Confederacy. The purpose of the North would have been strengthened, the public feeling would have been embittered and the friends.h.i.+p of England and of the Continental states would have been suppressed.

When Lee had surrendered, when Davis was fleeing from Richmond, when Benjamin was preparing to leave the country, the leaders of the Confederacy could not have entertained a project for the capture of Mr. Lincoln, nor of any injury to him whatever. Their opposition to Mr. Lincoln was not tainted with personal hostility. One fact remains; the persons who had knowledge of the project to abduct Mr. Lincoln and who were engaged in it at Was.h.i.+ngton, were implicated in the final crime.

If Booth's diary can be accepted as a faithful representation of his mental condition it will appear that he had on that fatal Friday submitted himself to the influence of three strong pa.s.sions. He had accepted the South as his country, and he had come to look upon Mr.