American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) by Various

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But suppose these powerful but now subdued belligerents, instead of
being out of the Union, are merely destroyed, and are now lying about,
a dead corpse, or with animation so suspended as to be incapable of
action, and wholly unable to heal themselves by any unaided movements of
their own. Then they may fall under the provision of the Constitution,
which says "The United States shall guarantee to every State in the
Union a republican form of government." Under that power, can the
judiciary, or the President, or the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, or
the Senate or House of Representatives, acting separately, restore them
to life and readmit them into the Union? I insist that if each acted
separately, though the action of each was identical with all the others,
it would amount to nothing. Nothing but the joint action of the two
Houses of Congress and the concurrence of the President could do it.
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.

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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 constitutes Congress. Hence a law of Congress must be
passed 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 constitutional 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 entitled 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 citizenship; 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 pass
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 participate in constitutional 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
Constitution 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. Assumption 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 constitutions, and the
reestablishment of slavery would be the inevitable result. That they
would scorn and disregard their present constitutions, 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
assumption 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 participate 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 Constitution 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 Constitution
abolishing slavery has been ratified by the Legislatures of three
fourths of the States that acted on its passage 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 assembled 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 citizenship 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
assert its sovereignty, and assume something of the dignity of a Roman
senate. It is fortunate that the President invites Congress to take this
manly attitude. 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 fashionable, 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 God'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 shores with dead
carcasses.

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 constituents.

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 circumstances, 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
constitutional 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 damned 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 wishing,
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 assume 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 institutions, 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 assumes.

In his remarks on that occasion he assumed that the States lately in
rebellion were and are out of the Union. Throughout his speech--I will
not trouble you with reading passages 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
Constitution 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 assumes, 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 Constitution
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 passed by any State of this Union is simply a nullity, because
it encounters in its practical operation the Constitution 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 Constitution 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 Constitution forbids secession. He says that the law
forbids murder, but that murders are nevertheless committed. But there
is no analogy 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 Constitution 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 Constitution 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 Constitution and laws of the United States.

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