American Eloquence Volume IV Part 6

If the Senate admitted their Senators, and the House their members, it would have no effect on the future action of Congress. The Fortieth Congress might reject both. Such is the ragged record of Congress for the last four years.

Congress alone can do it. But Congress does not mean the Senate, or the House of Representatives, and President, all acting severally. Their joint action const.i.tutes Congress. Hence a law of Congress must be pa.s.sed before any new State can be admitted, or any dead ones revived.

Until then no member can be lawfully admitted into either House. Hence it appears with how little knowledge of const.i.tutional law each branch is urged to admit members separately from these destroyed States. The provision that "each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members," has not the most distant bearing on this question. Congress must create States and declare when they are ent.i.tled to be represented. Then each House must judge whether the members presenting themselves from a recognized State possess the requisite qualifications of age, residence, and citizens.h.i.+p; and whether the elections and returns are according to law. The Houses, separately, can judge of nothing else. It seems amazing that any man of legal education could give it any larger meaning.

It is obvious from all this that the first duty of Congress is to pa.s.s a law declaring the condition of these outside or defunct States, and providing proper civil governments for them. Since the conquest they have been governed by martial law. Military rule is necessarily despotic, and ought not to exist longer than is absolutely necessary.

As there are no symptoms that the people of these provinces will be prepared to partic.i.p.ate in const.i.tutional government for some years, I know of no arrangement so proper for them as territorial governments.

There they can learn the principles of freedom and eat the fruit of foul rebellion. Under such governments, while electing members to the territorial Legislatures, they will necessarily mingle with those to whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In Territories, Congress fixes the qualifications of electors; and I know of no better place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror to practise justice to all men, and accustom themselves to make and to obey equal laws.

And these fallen rebels cannot at their option reenter the heaven which they have disturbed, the garden of Eden which they have deserted; as flaming swords are set at the gates to secure their exclusion, it becomes important to the welfare of the nation to inquire when the doors shall be reopened for their admission.

According to my judgment they ought never to be recognized as capable of acting in the Union, or of being counted as valid States, until the Const.i.tution shall have been so amended as to make it what its framers intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendency to the party of the Union; and so as to render our republican Government firm and stable forever. The first of those amendments is to change the basis of representation among the States from Federal members to actual voters.

Now all the colored freemen in the slave States, and three fifths of the slaves, are represented, though none of them have votes. The States have nineteen representatives of colored slaves. If the slaves are now free then they can add, for the other two fifths, thirteen more, making the slaves represented thirty-two. I suppose the free blacks in those States will give at least five more, making the representation of non-voting people of color about thirty-seven. The whole number of representatives now from the slave States is seventy. Add the other two fifths and it will be eighty-three.

If the amendment prevails, and those States withhold the right of suffrage from persons of color, it will deduct about thirty-seven, leaving them but forty-six. With the basis unchanged, the eighty-three Southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best times be elected from the North, will always give them a majority in Congress and in the Electoral College. They will at the very first election take possession of the White House and the halls of Congress. I need not depict the ruin that would follow. a.s.sumption of the rebel debt or repudiation of the Federal debt would be sure to follow. The oppression of the freedmen, there--amendment of their State const.i.tutions, and the reestablishment of slavery would be the inevitable result. That they would scorn and disregard their present const.i.tutions, forced upon them in the midst of martial law, would be both natural and just. No one who has any regard for freedom of elections can look upon those governments, forced upon them in duress, with any favor. If they should grant the right of suffrage to persons of color, I think there would always be Union white men enough in the South, aided by the blacks, to divide the representation, and thus continue the Republican ascendency. If they should refuse to thus alter their election laws it would reduce the representatives of the late slave States to about forty-five and render them powerless for evil.

It is plain that this amendment must be consummated before the defunct States are admitted to be capable of State action, or it never can be.

The proposed amendment to allow Congress to lay a duty on exports is precisely in the same situation. Its importance cannot well be overstated. It is very obvious that for many years the South will not pay much under our internal revenue laws. The only article on which we can raise any considerable amount is cotton. It will be grown largely at once. With ten cents a pound export duty it would be furnished cheaper to foreign markets than they could obtain it from any other part of the world. The late war has shown that. Two million bales exported, at five hundred pounds to the bale, would yield $100,000,000. This seems to me the chief revenue we shall ever derive from the South. Besides, it would be a protection to that amount to our domestic manufactures.

Other proposed amendments--to make all laws uniform; to prohibit the a.s.sumption of the rebel debt--are of vital importance, and the only thing that can prevent the combined forces of copperheads and secessionists from legislating against the interests of the Union whenever they may obtain an accidental majority.

But this is not all that we ought to do before these inveterate rebels are invited to partic.i.p.ate in our legislation. We have turned, or are about to turn, loose four million of slaves without a hut to shelter them, or a cent in their pockets. The infernal laws of slavery have prevented them from acquiring an education, understanding the commonest laws of contract, or of managing the ordinary business of life. This Congress is bound to provide for them until they can take care of themselves. If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and hedge them around with protective laws; if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage. Their condition would be worse than that of our prisoners at Andersonville. If we fail in this great duty now, when we have the power, we shall deserve and receive the execration of history and of all future ages.

Two things are of vital importance.

1. So to establish a principle that none of the rebel States shall be counted in any of the amendments of the Const.i.tution until they are duly admitted into the family of States by the law-making power of their conqueror. For more than six months the amendment of the Const.i.tution abolis.h.i.+ng slavery has been ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States that acted on its pa.s.sage by Congress, and which had Legislatures, or which were States capable of acting, or required to act, on the question.

I take no account of the aggregation of whitewashed rebels, who without any legal authority have a.s.sembled in the capitals of the late rebel States and simulated legislative bodies. Nor do I regard with any respect the cunning by-play into which they deluded the Secretary of State by frequent telegraphic announcements that "South Carolina had adopted the amendment," "Alabama has adopted the amendment, being the twenty-seventh State," etc. This was intended to delude the people, and accustom Congress to hear repeated the names of these extinct States as if they were alive; when, in truth, they have no more existence than the revolted cities of Latium, two thirds of whose people were colonized and their property confiscated, and their right of citizens.h.i.+p withdrawn by conquering and avenging Rome.

2. It is equally important to the stability of this Republic that it should now be solemnly decided what power can revive, recreate, and reinstate these provinces into the family of States, and invest them with the rights of American citizens. It is time that Congress should a.s.sert its sovereignty, and a.s.sume something of the dignity of a Roman senate. It is fortunate that the President invites Congress to take this manly att.i.tude. After stating with great frankness in his able message his theory, which, however, is found to be impracticable, and which I believe very few now consider tenable, he refers the whole matter to the judgment of Congress. If Congress should fail firmly and wisely to discharge that high duty it is not the fault of the President.

This Congress owes it to its own character to set the seal of reprobation upon a doctrine which is becoming too fas.h.i.+onable, and unless rebuked will be the recognized principle of our Government.

Governor Perry and other provisional governors and orators proclaim that "this is the white man's Government." The whole copperhead party, pandering to the lowest prejudices of the ignorant, repeat the cuckoo cry, "This is the white man's Government." Demagogues of all parties, even some high in authority, gravely shout, "This is the white man's Government." What is implied by this? That one race of men are to have the exclusive right forever to rule this nation, and to exercise all acts of sovereignty, while all other races and nations and colors are to be their subjects, and have no voice in making the laws and choosing the rulers by whom they are to be governed. Wherein does this differ from slavery except in degree? Does not this contradict all the distinctive principles of the Declaration of Independence? When the great and good men promulgated that instrument, and pledged their lives and sacred honors to defend it, it was supposed to form an epoch in civil government. Before that time it was held that the right to rule was vested in families, dynasties, or races, not because of superior intelligence of virtue, but because of a divine right to enjoy exclusive privileges.

Our fathers repudiated the whole doctrine of the legal superiority of families or races, and proclaimed the equality of men before the law.

Upon that they created a revolution and built the Republic. They were prevented by slavery from perfecting the superstructure whose foundation they had thus broadly laid. For the sake of the Union they consented to wait, but never relinquished the idea of its final completion. The time to which they looked forward with anxiety has come. It is our duty to complete their work. If this Republic is not now made to stand on their great principles, it has no honest foundation, and the Father of all men will still shake it to its centre. If we have not yet been sufficiently scourged for our national sin to teach us to do justice to all G.o.d's creatures, without distinction of race or color, we must expect the still more heavy vengeance of an offended Father, still increasing his inflictions as he increased the severity of the plagues of Egypt until the tyrant consented to do justice. And when that tyrant repented of his reluctant consent, and attempted to re-enslave the people, as our southern tyrants are attempting to do now, he filled the Red Sea with broken chariots and drowned horses, and strewed the sh.o.r.es with dead carca.s.ses.

Mr. Chairman, I trust the Republican party will not be alarmed at what I am saying. I do not profess to speak their sentiments, nor must they be held responsible for them. I speak for myself, and take the responsibility, and will settle with my intelligent const.i.tuents.

This is not a "white man's Government," in the exclusive sense in which it is used. To say so is political blasphemy, for it violates the fundamental principles of our gospel of liberty. This is man's Government; the Government of all men alike; not that all men will have equal power and sway within it. Accidental circ.u.mstances, natural and acquired endowment and ability, will vary their fortunes. But equal rights to all the privileges of the Government is innate in every immortal being, no matter what the shape or color of the tabernacle which it inhabits.

If equal privileges were granted to all, I should not expect any but white men to be elected to office for long ages to come. The prejudice engendered by slavery would not soon permit merit to be preferred to color. But it would still be beneficial to the weaker races. In a country where political divisions will always exist, their power, joined with just white men, would greatly modify, if it did not entirely prevent, the injustice of majorities. Without the right of suffrage in the late slave States (I do not speak of the free States), I believe the slaves had far better been left in bondage. I see it stated that very distinguished advocates of the right of suffrage lately declared in this city that they do not expect to obtain it by congressional legislation, but only by administrative action, because, as one gallant gentleman said, the States had not been out of the Union. Then they will never get it. The President is far sounder than they. He sees that administrative action has nothing to do with it. If it ever is to come, it must be by const.i.tutional amendments or congressional action in the Territories, and in enabling acts.

How shameful that men of influence should mislead and miseducate the public mind! They proclaim, "This is the white man's Government," and the whole coil of copperheads echo the same sentiment, and upstart, jealous Republicans join the cry. Is it any wonder ignorant foreigners and illiterate natives should learn this doctrine, and be led to despise and maltreat a whole race of their fellow-men?

Sir, this doctrine of a white man's Government is as atrocious as the infamous sentiment that d.a.m.ned the late Chief-Justice to everlasting fame; and, I fear, to everlasting fire.

HENRY J. RAYMOND,

OF NEW YORK. (BORN 1820, DIED 1869.)

ON RECONSTRUCTION; CONSERVATIVE, OR ADMINISTRATION, REPUBLICAN OPINION;

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 21, 1865.

I need not say that I have been gratified to hear many things which have fallen from the lips of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Finck), who has just taken his seat. I have no party feeling, nor any other feeling, which would prevent me from rejoicing in the indications apparent on that side of the House of a purpose to concur with the loyal people of the country, and with the loyal administration of the Government, and with the loyal majorities in both Houses of Congress, in restoring peace and order to our common country. I cannot, perhaps, help wis.h.i.+ng, sir, that these indications of an interest in the preservation of our Government had come somewhat sooner. I cannot help feeling that such expressions cannot now be of as much service to the country as they might once have been. If we could have had from that side of the House such indications of an interest in the preservation of the Union, such heartfelt sympathy with the efforts of the Government for the preservation of that Union, such hearty denunciation of those who were seeking its destruction, while the war was raging, I am sure we might have been spared some years of war, some millions of money, and rivers of blood and tears.

But, sir, I am not disposed to fight over again battles now happily 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 a.s.sume 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.sumes.

In his remarks on that occasion he a.s.sumed that the States lately in rebellion were and are out of the Union. Throughout his speech--I will not trouble you with reading pa.s.sages 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 Const.i.tution 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 a.s.sumes, 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 Const.i.tution 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 pa.s.sed by any State of this Union is simply a nullity, because it encounters in its practical operation the Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution forbids secession. He says that the law forbids murder, but that murders are nevertheless committed. But there is no a.n.a.logy 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, 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, a.s.sumed and a.s.serted 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutions and forms of government. It may not be a const.i.tution 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 a.s.sert that a State is destroyed whenever its const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, and therefore just as really and truly States of the American Union now as they were before the war. Their practical relations to the Const.i.tution 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 a.s.serts, 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 a.s.sumption 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 const.i.tuted 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sents 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