THE assembling of the
Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress may very properly be made the
occasion of a few earnest words on the already much-worn topic of
reconstruction.
Seldom has any
legislative body been the subject of a solicitude more intense, or of
aspirations more sincere and ardent. There are the best of reasons for this
profound interest. Questions of vast moment, left undecided by the last session
of Congress, must be manfully grappled with by this. No political skirmishing
will avail. The occasion demands statesmanship.
Whether the tremendous
war so heroically fought and so victoriously ended shall pass into history a
miserable failure, barren of permanent results, -- a scandalous and shocking
waste of blood and treasure, -- a strife for empire, as Earl Russell
characterized it, of no value to liberty or civilization, -- an attempt to
re-establish a Union by force, which must be the merest mockery of a Union, --
an effort to bring under Federal authority States into which no loyal man from
the North may safely enter, and to bring men into the national councils who
deliberate with daggers and vote with revolvers, and who do not even conceal
their deadly hate of the country that conquered them; or whether, on the other
hand, we shall, as the rightful reward of victory over treason, have a solid
nation, entirely delivered from all contradictions and social antagonisms,
based upon loyalty, liberty, and equality, must be determined one way or the
other by the present session of Congress. The last session really did nothing
which can be considered final as to these questions. The Civil Rights Bill and
the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the
amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach
the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is
changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central
government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and
to make them conform to its own despotic will. While there remains such an idea
as the right of each State to control its own local affairs, -- an idea, by the
way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections of the country than
perhaps any one other political idea, -- no general assertion of human rights
can be of any practical value. To change the character of the government at
this point is neither possible nor desirable. All that is necessary to be done
is to make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights of the
States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.
The arm of the Federal
government is long, but it is far too short to protect the rights of
individuals in the interior of distant States. They must have the power to protect
themselves, or they will go unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal
government can put upon the national statute-book.
Slavery, like all other
great systems of wrong, founded in the depths of human selfishness, and
existing for ages, has not neglected its own conservation. It has steadily
exerted an influence upon all around it favorable to its own continuance. And
to-day it is so strong that it could exist, not only without law, but even
against law. Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere
in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to
the intelligence and accustomed authority of the master, you have the
conditions, not out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it is
impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal
government be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority, and to
station a Federal officer at every cross-road. This, of course, cannot be done,
and ought not even if it could. The true way and the easiest way is to make our
government entirely consistent with itself, and give to every loyal citizen the
elective franchise, -- a right and power which will be ever present, and will
form a wall of fire for his protection.
One of the invaluable
compensations of the late Rebellion is the highly instructive disclosure it
made of the true source of danger to republican government. Whatever may be
tolerated in monarchical and despotic governments, no republic is safe that
tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of its citizens equal rights and
equal means to maintain them. What was theory before the war has been made fact
by the war.
There is cause to be
thankful even for rebellion. It is an impressive teacher, though a stern and
terrible one. In both characters it has come to us, and it was perhaps needed
in both. It is an instructor never a day before its time, for it comes only
when all other means of progress and enlightenment have failed. Whether the
oppressed and despairing bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings
for manhood, or the tyrant, in his pride and impatience, takes the initiative,
and strikes the blow for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression, the
result is the same, -- society is instructed, or may be.
Such are the
limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly engrossing are the cares of
common life, that only the few among men can discern through the glitter and
dazzle of present prosperity the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even
though they may have come up to our very gates, and are already within striking
distance. The yawning seam and corroded bolt conceal their defects from the
mariner until the storm calls all hands to the pumps. Prophets, indeed, were
abundant before the war; but who cares for prophets while their predictions
remain unfulfilled, and the calamities of which they tell are masked behind a
blinding blaze of national prosperity?
It is asked, said Henry
Clay, on a memorable occasion, Will slavery never come to an end? That
question, said he, was asked fifty years ago, and it has been answered by fifty
years of unprecedented prosperity. Spite of the eloquence of the earnest
Abolitionists, -- poured out against slavery during thirty years, -- even they
must confess, that, in all the probabilities of the case, that system of
barbarism would have continued its horrors far beyond the limits of the
nineteenth century but for the Rebellion, and perhaps only have disappeared at
last in a fiery conflict, even more fierce and bloody than that which has now
been suppressed.
It is no disparagement
to truth, that it can only prevail where reason prevails. War begins where
reason ends. The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.
What that thing is, we have been taught to our cost. It remains now to be seen
whether we have the needed courage to have that cause entirely removed from the
Republic. At any rate, to this grand work of national regeneration and entire
purification Congress must now address Itself, with full purpose that the work
shall this time be thoroughly done. The deadly upas, root and branch, leaf and
fibre, body and sap, must be utterly destroyed. The country is evidently not in
a condition to listen patiently to pleas for postponement, however plausible,
nor will it permit the responsibility to be shifted to other shoulders.
Authority and power are here commensurate with the duty imposed. There are no
cloud-flung shadows to obscure the way. Truth shines with brighter light and
intenser heat at every moment, and a country torn and rent and bleeding
implores relief from its distress and agony.
If time was at first
needed, Congress has now had time. All the requisite materials from which to
form an intelligent judgment are now before it. Whether its members look at the
origin, the progress, the termination of the war, or at the mockery of a peace
now existing, they will find only one unbroken chain of argument in favor of a
radical policy of reconstruction. For the omissions of the last session, some
excuses may be allowed. A treacherous President stood in the way; and it can be
easily seen how reluctant good men might be to admit an apostasy which involved
so much of baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that they should seek to
save him by bending to him even when he leaned to the side of error. But all is
changed now. Congress knows now that it must go on without his aid, and even
against his machinations. The advantage of the present session over the last is
immense. Where that investigated, this has the facts. Where that walked by
faith, this may walk by sight. Where that halted, this must go forward, and
where that failed, this must succeed, giving the country whole measures where
that gave us half-measures, merely as a means of saving the elections in a few
doubtful districts. That Congress saw what was right, but distrusted the
enlightenment of the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust of the
people must now be done with a full knowledge that the people expect and require
it. The members go to Washington fresh from the inspiring presence of the
people. In every considerable public meeting, and in almost every conceivable
way, whether at court-house, school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out,
the subject has been discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced in
favor of a radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency and
compromise with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into
demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been spoken in
favor of equal rights and impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so far from being
odious, is not the popular passport to power. The men most bitterly charged
with it go to Congress with the largest majorities, while the timid and doubtful
are sent by lean majorities, or else left at home. The strange controversy
between the President and the Congress, at one time so threatening, is disposed
of by the people. The high reconstructive powers which he so confidently,
ostentatiously, and haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and
utterly repudiated; while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.
Of the spirit and
magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said. The appeal was to the people,
and the verdict was worthy of the tribunal. Upon an occasion of his own
selection, with the advice and approval of his astute Secretary, soon after the
members of the Congress had returned to their constituents, the President
quitted the executive mansion, sandwiched himself between two recognized
heroes, -- men whom the whole country delighted to honor, -- and, with all the
advantage which such company could give him, stumped the country from the
Atlantic to the Mississippi, advocating everywhere his policy as against that
of Congress. It was a strange sight, and perhaps the most disgraceful
exhibition ever made by any President; but, as no evil is entirely unmixed,
good has come of this, as from many others. Ambitious, unscrupulous, energetic,
indefatigable, voluble, and plausible, -- a political gladiator, ready for a
"set-to" in any crowd, -- he is beaten in his own chosen field, and
stands to-day before the country as a convicted usurper, a political criminal,
guilty of a bold and persistent attempt to possess himself of the legislative
powers solemnly secured to Congress by the Constitution. No vindication could
be more complete, no condemnation could be more absolute and humiliating.
Unless reopened by the sword, as recklessly threatened in some circles, this
question is now closed for all time.
Without attempting to
settle here the metaphysical and somewhat theological question (about which so
much has already been said and written), whether once in the Union means always
in the Union, -- agreeably to the formula, Once in grace always in grace, -- it
is obvious to common sense that the rebellious States stand to- day, in point
of law, precisely where they stood when, exhausted, beaten, conquered, they
fell powerless at the feet of Federal authority. Their State governments were
overthrown, and the lives and property of the leaders of the Rebellion were
forfeited. In reconstructing the institutions of these shattered and overthrown
States, Congress should begin with a clean slate, and make clean work of it.
Let there be no hesitation. It would be a cowardly deference to a defeated and
treacherous President, if any account were made of the illegitimate, one-sided,
sham governments hurried into existence for a malign purpose in the absence of
Congress. These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the
people, and from participation in which four millions of the loyal people were
excluded by Presidential order, should now be treated according to their true
character, as shams and impositions, and supplanted by true and legitimate
governments, in the formation of which loyal men, black and white, shall
participate.
It is not, however,
within the scope of this paper to point out the precise steps to be taken, and
the means to be employed. The people are less concerned about these than the
grand end to be attained. They demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end
to the present anarchical state of things in the late rebellious States, --
where frightful murders and wholesale massacres are perpetrated in the very
presence of Federal soldiers. This horrible business they require shall cease.
They want a reconstruction such as will protect loyal men, black and white, in
their persons and property; such a one as will cause Northern industry,
Northern capital, and Northern civilization to flow into the South, and make a
man from New England as much at home in Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic.
No Chinese wall can now be tolerated. The South must be opened to the light of
law and liberty, and this session of Congress is relied upon to accomplish this
important work.
The plain, common-sense
way of doing this work, as intimated at the beginning, is simply to establish
in the South one law, one government, one administration of justice, one
condition to the exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races and
colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly by loyal white men as
by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both. Let sound political prescience
but take the place of an unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
Men denounce the negro
for his prominence in this discussion; but it is no fault of his that in peace
as in war, that in conquering Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious
States, the right of the negro is the true solution of our national troubles.
The stern logic of events, which goes directly to the point, disdaining all
concern for the color or features of men, has determined the interests of the
country as identical with and inseparable from those of the negro.
The policy that emancipated
and armed the negro -- now seen to have been wise and proper by the dullest --
was not certainly more sternly demanded than is now the policy of
enfranchisement. If with the negro was success in war, and without him failure,
so in peace it will be found that the nation must fall or flourish with the
negro.
Fortunately, the
Constitution of the United States knows no distinction between citizens on
account of color. Neither does it know any difference between a citizen of a
State and a citizen of the United States. Citizenship evidently includes all
the rights of citizens, whether State or national. If the Constitution knows
none, it is clearly no part of the duty of a Republican Congress now to
institute one. The mistake of the last session was the attempt to do this very
thing, by a renunciation of its power to secure political rights to any class
of citizens, with the obvious purpose to allow the rebellious States to
disfranchise, if they should see fit, their colored citizens. This unfortunate
blunder must now be retrieved, and the emasculated citizenship given to the
negro supplanted by that contemplated in the Constitution of the United States,
which declares that the citizens of each State shall enjoy all the rights and
immunities of citizens of the several States, -- so that a legal voter in any
State shall be a legal voter in all the States.