fLlBrtARY OF CONGRESS.* 
 
 A ^ 
 
 I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \ 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. CHAELES E. PHELPS, 
 
 OF MARYLAND, 
 
 UNCONDITIONAL UNION; 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 5, 1866. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
 
 18GG. 
 
E4G6 
 
 r^s3 
 
^ 
 
 UNCONDITIONAL UNION. 
 
 The House, as in Committee of the Whole on the 
 state of the Union, having under coasideration the 
 President's annual message — 
 
 Mr. PHELPS said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: On the 1st of May, 1SG5, the 
 Union Army numbered one million five hundred 
 and sixteen men. The purpose for which that 
 vast power had been called forth was accom- 
 plished, and the process of its disbandment 
 commenced. Four years of civil war between 
 people of the same race, of the highest type of 
 modern civilization, and of equal intelligence, 
 courage, and determination, had been waged 
 upon a theater of continental proportions, had 
 emjjloyed in its prosecution the most finished 
 and destructive enginery, had in its terrific bat- 
 tles and daily skirmishes cost this generation 
 over half a million lives, and had entailed upon 
 the nation a debt of three thousand and upon 
 the insurgent section a loss of seven thousand 
 million dollars. But remarkable as was this 
 contest in all the elements of material grand- 
 eur, it was still more memorable for the 
 importance of the issue involved, and the 
 extraordinary precision with which it was de- 
 fined. Slavery, struggling for perpetuity, ex- 
 pansion, and power, struck at the existence of 
 the Government, which, in the growth and 
 progress of ideas necessarily came to stand in 
 its path, arrest its advance, and menace its 
 security. Slavery was the cause, and the only 
 cause, of the rebellion. The idea of secession 
 would never have been practically adopted, 
 certainly never enforced by arms, but in de- 
 fense of that institution. Hence the war policy 
 
 of the Government necessarily became anti- 
 slavery. Hence, in the fullness of time, came 
 the proclamation of emancipation, the organi- 
 zation and arming of liberated slaves, the im- 
 mediate and uncompensated abolition of slav- 
 ery within her limits by the State of Maryland 
 — an offering voluntarily made by that loyal 
 State, as her contribution to the common cause 
 in furtherance of the general policy settled upon 
 as the only one to suppress the rebellion — and 
 following that, the passage by Congress by a 
 two thirds majority of the proposition to be sub- 
 mitted to the several States to abolish slavery 
 throughout the country forever by constitu- 
 tional amendment. 
 
 The polic}'^ thus adopted and persevered in 
 by the Government ultimately forced a sim- 
 ilar policy of emancipation and enlistment 
 of slaves upon the consideration of the rebel 
 authorities. The instant the confederate gov- 
 ernment found itself reduced to that dilemma 
 the scales fell from all eyes. No sooner was 
 it discovered that the thinned ranks of the 
 rebel army, exhausted by four bloody years of 
 incessant combat, and required to face the 
 fresh columns that poured down with endless 
 tramp from the North, could only be recruited 
 from among those very slaves, to rivet whose 
 fetters that army was in fact fighting, than 
 the whole fabric tumbled into ruin. To arm 
 the slaves was of course to free them, and to 
 free the slaves to fight the battles of slavery 
 was simply a reducfio ad absurdimi and a 
 ghastly farce. 
 
 In the providence of God, it seems neces- 
 
sary that this most cruel of wars should have 
 been fought to the bitter end upon the " line" 
 which has been indicated : first, to secure from 
 the South the complete, irrevocable, and final 
 surrender of slavery; second, to remove all 
 occasion for hindering the immediate pacifica- 
 tion of the country by a desultory guerrilla 
 warfare, so much feared and predicted ; and 
 third, to obviate all danger, and thus to ex- 
 tinguish in every candid mind all reasonable 
 fear of a possible future rebellion in the inter- 
 est of the defeated insurgents. 
 
 This generation cannot fully appreciate, but 
 history will recognize the great fact of the abo- 
 lition of the institution of human slavery. It 
 is too sudden, too violent, and too vast to be 
 fully comprehended to-day. Not the least 
 among the many great evils of this system was 
 the specific influence it produced over the moral 
 sense, dwarfing and contracting the consciences 
 of men to its narrow standard, just as darkness 
 contracts the physical eye. Bursting suddenly' 
 and with great noise and fury into the bright 
 air of freedom, what wonder that we should 
 still see with dazzled and bewildered vision, that 
 we should grope and clutch vaguely at the ob- 
 jects around us, that we should be tormented 
 with panic fears and haunted with hideous 
 dreams of the dark prison-house. It is, there- 
 fore, by no means strange to me. but quite 
 natural, that many well-meaning but purblind 
 patriots should still afflict themselves and society 
 with their panic dread of rebellion ; should pre- 
 dict the revival or even affirm the actual pres- 
 ent existence of slavery ; should start at every 
 sound, and stampede at every shadow ; should 
 see walking by moonlight the ghost of slavery, 
 and behind every busha " red-handed rebel;" 
 should rend the air with clamors for protection 
 against this imaginary monster, and make both 
 day and night hideous with their jargon of guar- 
 antees, conditions, and constitutional amend- 
 ments. Nor is it at all surprising that these same 
 purblind patriots, in their blundering frenzy, 
 should strike by mistake their best friends, 
 should attack the Secretary of State, should 
 denounce and threaten the President, and in- 
 volve in the same censure the sacred memory 
 of his lamented predecessor. 
 
 Sirj who is Secretary Seward, that he should 
 be hawked at and torn, not now by the knife of 
 
 the traitor assassin striking slavery's last blow 
 at its greatest human antagonist, but this time 
 by the loud and blatant champions of loyalty? 
 I remember him well, with his ' ' higher law' ' and 
 his "irrepressible conflict," the scarred and 
 reenlisted veteran in this great war of liberty ; 
 and I recollect him as he stood in the Senate 
 many years ago, when men who now revile him 
 as recreant and denounce him as a rebel sym- 
 pathizer, then scoffed at him as an abolition 
 fanatic, as he stood at the head of a corporal's 
 guard gallantly attacking slavery in its strong- 
 hold. Sir, it may be said of him that while 
 Phillips and Garrison and the other humbugs 
 of both sexes were fighting valiantlyin the rear, 
 William H. Seward was at the front, leading 
 not the advanced guard, but the skirmish 
 line of freedom right up to the breastworks. 
 With Henry Ward Beecher, he has devoted all 
 the best years of his life to the destruction of 
 human slavery. He struck at it whenever it 
 lifted one of its hydra heads ; he has put the 
 searing iron, hissing hot, to the last of them ; 
 he felt anxiously and skillfully for the last 
 pulsation of the dying monster's heart ; he has 
 pronounced it dead, and he who feared it not 
 when living and terrible is not scared at its 
 carrion. He belongs to a more vigorous and 
 a more practical school of statesmen. He 
 takes this view of the case, and all sensible 
 men of firm nerves, clear eye-sight, and good 
 digestion, agree with him, or soon will. The 
 South was formerly possessed of the devil, in the 
 scrijjture sense, and 'dwelt among the tombs. 
 While this unclean spirit was present, there was 
 much foaming and gnashing. It was finally 
 exorcised, and as it came rending its way from 
 out its tormented and bleeding victim, it howledi 
 out its name, not as legion, but slavery. It 
 rushed into a herd of animals; it astonished 
 and appalled mankind by the supreme horror 
 and last convulsion of demoniac madness, and 
 was gibbeted. 
 
 Now, there are those who would scourge 
 and manacle and cufiT and curse the rescued, 
 regenerated, and emancipated South, even 
 before her wounds are stanched from this 
 frightful, this worse than Cesarean operation. 
 Beecher and Seward are of a different school 
 of philanthropists. They seethe one but lately 
 possessed of the unclean spirit and gnashing 
 
among the tombs, now sitting, clothed, and in 
 his right mind. They do not look for uniform 
 amiability, nor do they require the patient 
 immediately, and while smarting with pain, to 
 express profound satisfaction and intense 
 delight with the process, nor unfeigned per- 
 sonal love and gratitude toward those who per- 
 formed it. On the contrary, it is fair to pre- 
 sume that those men of honor would al^andon 
 the unha2:)py victim to the tormentors should 
 it exhibit so craven a spirit and so contempti- 
 ble a hypocrisy. Nor is it deemed indispen- 
 sably necessary that men, otherwise loyal, 
 should profess now to hold the doctrines which 
 they have endeavored to maintain by the sword 
 as false and heretical ab initio. For forty 
 years and more they have been educated to 
 believe the false and dangerous heresy which 
 bore them the bitter fruits they reaped from 
 the attempt at rebellion. It would be unrea- 
 sonable to require, as it would be impossible 
 to e.xpect, that these people should all of a 
 sudden sincerely and honestly believe that the 
 principle for which they contended was false, 
 because those who professed it have been routed 
 upon the field. What we requii-e and have a 
 right to require of them is that they abandon 
 that doctrine as a principle of action for the 
 future. We have lost too many of our people 
 in this war, we have shed too much blood and 
 lost too much property and spent too much 
 money to be altogether indifferent about the 
 legitimate fruits of our dearly bought victory. 
 We fought for Union, for the integrity, the 
 immortality of our Government, and by the 
 help of God we have conquered. We owe it 
 to ourselves and to posterity to assure the 
 one and the other against danger in the fu- 
 ture. Wc therefore demand a searching, ade- 
 quate, and irrevei'sible guarantee of future 
 practical loyalty. That demand is the sum 
 and substance of the Administration policy, 
 which it has lately become the fashion to 
 scoff at. 
 
 Here is the "policy" in the exact language 
 of President Johnson. I quote from his annual 
 message to Congress, of the 4th December, 
 18G5, a state paper that for clearness, terseness, 
 cogency, and elegance has never been sur- 
 passed, and that for broad and catholic states- 
 
 manship and heroic intrepidity has taken the 
 world by surprise : 
 
 "It is not too much to ask, in the name of the 
 whole people, that on the one side the plan of resto- 
 ration shall proceed in conformity with a willingness 
 to cast the disorders of the past into oblivion ; and 
 that on the other the evidence of sincerity in the 
 future maintenance of the Union shall be put beyond 
 any doubt by the ratification of the proposed amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, which provides for the 
 abolition of slavery forever within the limits of our 
 country. 
 
 "The adoption of the amendment reunites us be- 
 yond all power of disruption. It heals the wound 
 that is still imperfectly closed; it removes slavery, 
 the element which has so long perplexed and div ided 
 the country; it makes of us once more a united peo- 
 ple, renewed and strengthened, bound more than 
 ever to mutual affection and support." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "As noState can throwa defense over thecrime of 
 treason, the power of pardon is exclusively vested in 
 the executive government of the United States. In 
 exercising thatpower I have taken every precaution 
 to connect it with the clearest recognition of the 
 binding force of the laws of the United States, and 
 an unqualified acknowledgment of the great social 
 change of condition in regard to slavery which has 
 grown out of the war." 
 
 Tlie same plan of restoration was embodied 
 by President Lincoln ia his famous proclama- 
 tion of July 18, 1864: 
 
 To xcliom it may concern : 
 
 Any proposition which embraces the restoration 
 of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the 
 abandonment of slavery, * * * * ^;]j 
 be received and considered by the executive govern- 
 ment of tlie United States, and will be met by liberal 
 terms on other substantial and collateral points. 
 
 To secure the definite, unequivocal, and ir- 
 revocable surrender of slavery, the one only 
 cause of rebellion, the one solitary root of 
 disloyally, to secure it by the voluntary sur- 
 render of the insurgents themselves, and to 
 secure it by their legislative ratification of the 
 constitutional amendment, acting upon it as 
 States ; as States of and States in the Union ; 
 as States of and in the Union under the Con- 
 stitution ; not only so, but as States of the Union 
 above the Constitution by actually exercising 
 the supreme State prerogative of amendment, 
 by, in fact, sharing the State omnipotence of 
 organic creation ; this, then, was the aim and 
 end of the Administration policy, this was the 
 practical restoration of the Union. 
 
 Contrasts are . sometimes more useful for 
 purposes of illustration than analogies. With 
 this view let us hear the bold and outspoken 
 
6 
 
 leader of the House, speaking, as he fraakly 
 admits, upon his own responsibility; but 
 speaking, as he claims, with equal candor, "so 
 as to secure perpetual ascendency to the party 
 of the Union," or, as he otherwise phrases it, 
 to "continue the Republican ascendency." 
 "Two things are of vital importance" — 
 
 I am quoting the distinguished gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens] — 
 
 "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 con- 
 queror. For more than six months the amendment 
 of the Constitution abolishing slavery has been rati- 
 fied 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 white- 
 washed rebels who without any legal authority have 
 assembled in the capitals of the late rebel States and 
 simulated legislative bodies." 
 
 The reference is to the Legislatures elected 
 in the several States by virtue originally of 
 proclamations emanating from provisional gov- 
 ernors appointed by the President ; all the 
 electors and members being required to take 
 the prescribed amnesty oath of allegiance to 
 the Government, and acquiescence in martial 
 emancipation. 
 
 To proceed: 
 
 " Nor do I regard with any respect the cunning by- 
 play with which they deluded the Secretary of State 
 by frequent telegraphic announcements that ' South 
 Carolinahad adopted theamendment;' 'Alabamahas 
 adopted the amendment, being the twenty-seventh 
 State,' &c. This was intended to delude the people, 
 and accustom Congress to hear repeated the names 
 of thcao extinct States as if they were alive, when, 
 in truth, they have now no more existence than the 
 revolted cities of Latium, two thirds of whoso peo- 
 ple were colonized and their property confiscated and 
 their right of citizenship withdrawn by conquering 
 and avenging Rome." 
 
 Here we have outlined with the freedom and 
 boldness of a master hand the framework of 
 a plan which was at a very early day of the 
 session (December 18) proposed for the con- 
 sideration and adoption of Congress. This 
 plan had for its basis the theory of "defunct," 
 "dead," or "extinct States," or if that were 
 adjudged impossible or absurd, then they were 
 to be called "States out of the Union and now 
 conquered Territories." In either case, that 
 is, whether on the one hand they arc " not out 
 
 of the Union but only dead carcasses lying 
 within tlie Union," or whether on the other 
 hand "they are and for four years have been 
 out of the Union for all legal purposes" — in 
 either of these hypotheses the logical sequence 
 resulted that "being now conquered they are 
 subject to the absolute disposal of Congress." 
 
 This programme then goes on to dispose of 
 them as subjugated foreign provinces, to man- 
 acle their outlawed people, and hold them in- 
 definitely as the mere slaves of Congress ; to 
 force them ' ' to mingle with those to whom Con- 
 gress shall extend the right of suffrage," and 
 in that condition, excluded trom representa- 
 tion, though subject to taxation, governed and 
 disciplined by imported agents and commis- 
 sioners, dragooned, court-martialed, and plun- 
 dered, they are to be kept " for some years" 
 "to eat the fruit of foul rebellion." Should 
 this training fail to develop a spirit of earnest 
 and sincere loyalty ; should the advantages of 
 this school, in which with exquisite and inim- 
 itable humor it is declared that theyare to learn 
 the principles of freedom, "practice justice to 
 all men," and "accustom themselves to make 
 and to obey equal laws' ' appear to have been 
 thrown away upon ingrates unable to appre- 
 ciate and unwilling to profit by them, does the 
 programme on that account fail? Not at all. 
 It has but just begun to succeed. The remedy 
 for obstinate disloyalty is at hand. Perma- 
 nent, incurable disaiFection may read its fate 
 very plainly in that of "the revolted cities of 
 Latium, two thirds of whose people were colo- 
 nized and their property confiscated and their 
 right of citizenship withdrawn by conquering 
 and avenging Rome." 
 
 As a speculation upon disloyalty, this policy 
 could not possibly be improved. If general 
 confiscation of property, under pretext, is what 
 is wanted, no surer road to it can be found. It 
 is a process which, if put in operation upon a 
 community whose loyalty was immaculate, 
 would speedily convert it into a community 
 of rebels. Why, sir, I believe that the spir- 
 ited people of my own native State of Vermont, 
 teased by so tormenting a tyranny, would in- 
 dignantly revolt and turn upon their oppress- 
 ors at every hazard and against all odds. If 
 they did not, they would not prove their legit- 
 
imate descent from those gallant men of 1781, 
 upon whom Ethan Allen relied in his demand 
 on behalf of the self-constituted State of Ver- 
 mont for her immediate admission into the 
 Union and representation in the Continental 
 Congress. 
 
 " lie declared to that body that no person could 
 dispute his attachment to and sufferings in the cause 
 of his country; but he did not hesitate to assert that 
 Vermont had an indubitable right to agree on terms 
 of cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, pro- 
 vided the United States persist in rejecting her appli- 
 cation for a union with the States. Vermont, of all 
 people, would be the most miserable were sheobliged 
 to defend the independence of the United States, and 
 they at the same time at full liberty to overthrow and 
 ruin the independence of Vermont. I am persuaded, 
 when Congress consider the circumstances of this 
 State, they will not bo more surprised that I have 
 transmitted these letters [lettersfrom British emissa- 
 ries containing treasonable overtures] than that I 
 have kept them in custody; for I am as resolutely 
 determined to defend the independence of Vermont 
 a.s Congress are that of the United States, and rather 
 than submit will retire with the hardy Green mount- 
 ain boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains 
 and wage war with human nature at large." — Hos- 
 Jcins's History of Vermont, page 102. 
 
 Such was the resolute and defiant attitude 
 maintained by the infant State of Vermont, de- 
 manding of Congress admission into the Union 
 as a right, although her independence had 
 never been recognized nor her sovereignty 
 established ; and even her l)Oundaries were dis- 
 puted and her tei'ritory claimed by the neigh- 
 boring States. And yet the memory of the 
 bold Ethan Allen is to-day as much revered 
 for that spirited and emphatic declaration to 
 Congress as for his famous reply to the British 
 commander of Ticonderoga, asking by what 
 authority he demanded its surrender: " I de- 
 mand it in the name of the Great Jehovah and 
 the Continental Congress! " 
 
 The congressional treatment of the eleven 
 States lately in insurrection, according to the 
 plan of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, is 
 so well adapted to provoke continued hostility 
 to the Government and goad a maddened pop- 
 ulation into imbecile and desperate resistance 
 that the extreme resort of confiscation which 
 would then be justified has already been antici- 
 pated by an elaborate calculation. Four thou- 
 sand million dollars are to be raised by sale 
 of lands and such other property as can be 
 found. 
 
 Four billions of money, mark you, to be 
 raised out of a country blasted by a devastating 
 
 war, out of a people stripped and picked by 
 rebel sequestration, their whole slave property 
 and their entire circulating medium annihi- 
 lated ; a people at this moment, many of them, 
 begging their victuals and clothes of the North ! 
 This programme of dissolution and recon- 
 struction is of course incomplete without "h, 
 series of amendments to the Constitution, all 
 of which are to be consummated " before the 
 defunct States are admitted to be capable of 
 State action." 
 
 " 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," &c. 
 
 The first of these amendments is to change 
 the basis of representation from Federal num- 
 bers to actual voters. The others are to allow 
 Congress to lay a duty on exports, to make all 
 laws uniform, to prohibit the assumption of 
 the rebel debt, and lastly, to extend the right 
 of suffrage to the emancipated blacks, although 
 upon this point there seems to be some doubt 
 as to whether the result may not be reached 
 by direct congressional action. In either case, 
 whether by constitutional amendment or by 
 legislation, universal negro sulTrage must be 
 enforced as well "to continue the Republican 
 ascendency" as because "without the right 
 of suffrage in the late slave States the slaves 
 had far better been left in bondage. ' ' 
 
 As an earnest of the enforcement of this 
 policy, and as a pledge of the principle on 
 which this Congress would legislate for Terri- 
 tories over which it claimed jurisdiction, the 
 action of this House, at a very early period of 
 the session, may be cited. 
 
 A bill passed the House in January estab- 
 lishing universal negro suffrage in the District 
 of Columbia. This was done by a valid exer- 
 cise of power, Congress having by the Consti- 
 tution exclusive legislation over this District in 
 all cases. It was done, ho-.vcver, in direct vio- 
 lation of the wishes of the people of the Dis- 
 trict, and against the almost unanimous protest 
 of the legal and qualified voters. It was not 
 called for by the public sentiment of the coun- 
 try. Since the breaking out of the rebellion, 
 New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and 
 Connecticut had been asked to enfranchise the 
 
8- 
 
 few colored men within their limits. They all 
 refused. In the State of New York it assumed 
 the form of a proposition to permit negro suf- 
 frage without a property qualification. In 1860 
 such a proposition had been defeated by — yeas 
 197,503, nays 337,984. In 1864, after the pre- 
 sumed advance of public sentiment upon this 
 question, a like proposition was defeated by — 
 yeas 85,406, nays 224,336. In August, 1862, 
 a vote was had in the State of Illinois on sev- 
 eral propositions relating to negroes and mulat- 
 toes, with this result: 
 
 For excluding them from the State 171,893 
 
 Against 71,306 
 
 100,587 
 
 Against granting thorn [suffrage or the right to hold 
 
 office 211,920 
 
 For 35,649 
 
 176,271 
 
 For the enactment of laws to prohibit them from 
 
 going to or voting in the State 198,938 
 
 Against 44,414 
 
 154,524 
 
 As late as the autumn of 1865 the people 
 of Connecticut refused by over six thousand 
 majority to enfranchise the handful of colored 
 men residing among them. An effort was 
 made in the Thirty- Eighth Congress to incor- 
 porate the feature of negro suffrage in the bill 
 to provide a temporary government for the 
 Territory of Montana. It failed ; and among 
 those who voted persistently against negro suf- 
 frage in this new Territory, where there were 
 perhaps no negroes at all, are the names of the 
 entire Maryland delegation, consisting at that 
 time (1864) of Messrs. Creswell, Henry Winter 
 Davis, Harris, Thomas, and Webster. 
 
 After so many and such decided manifesta- 
 tions of public opinion, showing unmistakably 
 that the people of this country are inflexibly 
 opposed to a general and promiscuous inter- 
 mingling with negroes at the polls and in 
 public office, it was scarcely to be OKpected 
 that the repudiated doctrine should be forced 
 upon the protesting population of this District. 
 Whatever reasons may be urged in support of 
 universal suffrage in general, they all fail in 
 the case of a municipal corporation. There 
 are no people or interests within the limits of 
 
 the District of Columbia of any importance 
 that are not included within the corporate 
 franchises of the cities of Washington and 
 Georgetown. There is no voting done in the 
 District except for the municipal officers of 
 the two corporations. 
 
 It was therefore unfortunate that the political 
 experiment of universal negro suffrage should 
 first be applied to a city corporation, in which 
 the horde of voters thus manufactured were, 
 with scarcely an exception, without a particle 
 of interest in the body whose franchises they 
 were made to share, and whose funds they 
 were assigned to control. Up to this time 
 the rash feat of legislation remains a failure 
 under the silent veto of the Senate and the 
 dead weight of public opinion. It is signifi- 
 cant, however, of the fate in store for eleven 
 States, under the false doctrine that by at- 
 tempted secession they have consummated the 
 dissolution of the Union, and by the failure of 
 their insurrection, the surrender of their insur- 
 gent armies, and full and complete submission 
 to the authority of the Government and obedi- 
 ence to its laws, have done no more nor less 
 than lapse into the condition of conquered 
 territories, subject to the absolute disposal of 
 Congress. 
 
 I do not propose to review in detail the ar- 
 guments or to discuss the authorities by which 
 this doctrine has been maintained. I have 
 been surprised, upon a question of such mo- 
 ment, at a crisis in our country's history of 
 such transcendent gravity, to encounter a line 
 of reasoning so utterly fallacious. The pivot 
 of the whole argument is the concession of bel- 
 ligerent rights. Humanity required an observ- ■ 
 ance of those restraints and courtesies which 
 are due to an enemy by the law of nations. 
 Cartels for the exchange of prisoners, and flags 
 of truce to bury the dead, are therefore pointed 
 to as the evidences of a state of war between 
 independent foreign nations. That is what this 
 argument amounts to, and nothing more. I 
 was still more astonished to find the narrow 
 technical doctrine of estoppel drawn from its 
 proper sphere in the county court to reenforce 
 this feeble logic. South Carolina must be held 
 to be out of the Union because her convention 
 and Legislature roundly afiirmed that she was 
 in so many words. Notwithstanding the Gov- 
 
9 
 
 ernment took issue vi'ith South Carolina upon 
 that identical proposition, denying that she 
 was out of the Union in law, and in fact mak- 
 ing good that traverse by wager of battle, still 
 South Carolina, under this doctrine of estoppel, 
 must; be held to have succeeded from the very 
 fact of failure, and the Government to have 
 failed from the very fact of success. 
 
 Sir, we have had a war for union, not for 
 disunion. We have fought, not to consum- 
 mate secession, but to prevent it. We were 
 called forth, and we went forth, to put down 
 treason, to enforce the laws, to crush out rebel- 
 lion, to maintain the Government, and to save 
 the Union. With our martyred leader we first 
 tried to save the Union with slavery and we 
 failed. We then tried to save it without sla- 
 very and we succeeded. We did not fight to 
 secure the ascendency of a party, or to kqpp 
 any man or set of men in office, but we fought 
 for our country, for its Constitution, and its 
 flag. 
 
 It was on this principle that the great con- 
 test began, and it was on this principle, held 
 steadily in view by every department of the 
 Government that it was prosecuted to a success- 
 ful issue. These principles were clearly set forth 
 by President Lincoln in his various proclama- 
 tions and messages, letters and speeches. In 
 his first inaugural, March 4, 18G1, he laid down 
 the correct doctrine, from which, to the day of 
 his death, he never departed : 
 
 "It follows that na State upon its own mere mo- 
 tion can lawfully get out of the Union ; that resolves 
 and ordinances to that eflfect are legally void; and 
 that acts of violence within any State or States 
 against the authority of the United States are insur- 
 rectionary or revolutionary, according to circum- 
 stances. I consider, therefore, that in view of the 
 Constitution and laws, the Union is unbroken, and 
 to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the 
 Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that 
 the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all 
 the States." 
 
 The executive department, speaking through 
 
 the Secretary of State, explicitly declared to all 
 
 the world that — 
 
 "The Congress of the United States furnishes a 
 constitutional forum fordebate between the alienated 
 parties. Senators and Representatives from the loyal 
 portion of the people are thus already fully empow- 
 ered to confer; and seats also are vacant and invit- 
 ing Senators and Representatives from the discon- 
 tented party who may be constitutionally sent there 
 from the States involved in the insurrection." 
 
 To the same principle Congress also is com- 
 mitted by its acts and resolutions. The act of 
 August, 18G1, laying a direct tax of $20,000,000 
 upon the United States, apportions that sum 
 among the several States, includingall the States 
 then in rebellion by name. Thus Virginia is 
 recognized as still a State within the Union : 
 " To the State of Virginia, $937,530,067." And 
 so with North Carolina, South Carolina, and all 
 the eleven. Each is taxed byname, and each 
 is named as a State, as in the case of the loyal 
 States. 
 
 The act of Congress of March 4, 18G2, under 
 which the present House of Representatives 
 was chosen, recognizes the right of these States 
 to representation, in terms. 
 
 Thus we have the great fact that these States 
 were living States, States of this Union, States 
 subject to taxation and entitled to representa- 
 tion, conclusively settled by Congress itself, and 
 settled at the very time when the people of 
 those States were actually in flagrant insurrec- 
 tion. If doubt should still exist as to the true 
 intent and meaning of these acts let Congress 
 be its own Interpreter. The record here is fa- 
 miliar but cannot be too often repeated. It is 
 one of the great landmarks in this controversy 
 and should always be kept in sight. In July, 
 1861, a resolution was adopted by such large 
 majorities in both Houses of Congress a»5 
 amounted virtually to unanimity, declaring: 
 
 " That this war is not prosecuted upon our part in 
 any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of con- 
 quest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing 
 or interfering with the rights or established institu- 
 tions of those States, but to defend and maintain the 
 supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in 
 pursuance thereof, and to preserve the Union with all 
 the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States 
 unimpaired ; that as soon as these objects are accom- 
 plished the war ought to cease." 
 
 The principle thus emphatically pronounced 
 by Congress and the Executive was the com- 
 mon sentiment and universal understanding of 
 the whole country throughout the entire period 
 of the rebellion. It was afliirmed by State Le- 
 gislatures ; it was announced in party platforms ; 
 it was enforced everywhere by loyal speak- 
 ers and the loyal press. It was significantly 
 recognized by the Union national convention 
 which admitted the delegations from Tennessee, 
 Arkansas, and Louisiana, upon an equal foot- 
 
 . \ 
 
10 
 
 iiig with the other States, following in this 
 respect the example of Congress, and presented 
 the name of Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee,' 
 to the suffrages of the American people as the 
 Union candidate for Vice President of the Uni- 
 ted States. It was triumphantly sustained at 
 the ballot-box by the nation at large. And 
 it is the same Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, 
 who is to-day laboring to apply that same prin- 
 ciple, in perfect harmony and consistency with 
 his own record and with the known wishes of 
 the lamented Lincoln, surrounded and sup- 
 ported by a Cabinet of Lincoln's selection. 
 
 The evidence of the recognition of these States 
 as States in the Union, by force of the combined 
 authority of both Congress and the Executive, 
 culminates in their ratification of the great con- 
 stitutional amendment as declared by the offi- 
 cial certificate of the Secretary of State. That 
 certificate was officially published on the 18th 
 of December, 18G5, in pursuance of an-act of 
 Congress, (April 20, 1818,) providing that when 
 the State Department shall have been officially 
 notified that any proposed amendment to the 
 Constitution had been adopted according to 
 the provisions of that instrument — 
 
 "It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, 
 forthwith, to cause the said amendment to be pub- 
 lished" * * * * "specifying the States 
 by which the same may have been adopted, and that 
 the same has become valid." 
 
 After reciting the amendment, the certificate 
 of the Secretary of State proceeds as follows: 
 "And whereas it appears from official documents on 
 file in this Department that the amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States, proposed as afore- 
 said, has been ratified by the Legislatures of the States 
 of Illinois, Rhode Island. Michigan, Maryland. New 
 York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, In- 
 diana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, 
 Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, 
 South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Geor- 
 gia, in all twenty-seven States; and whereas the 
 whole number of States in the United States is thirty- 
 six; and whereas the before specially named States 
 whose Legislatures have ratified the said proposed 
 amendment constitute three fourths of the whole 
 number of States in the United States: 
 
 " Now, therefore, be it known that I. William II. 
 Seward, Secretary of State, by virtue and in pursu- 
 ance of the second section of the act of Congress 
 approved the 20th of April, 1818, entitled 'An act to 
 provide for the publication of the laws of the United 
 States, and for other purposes,' do hereby certify that 
 the amendment aforesaid has become valid to all 
 intents and purposes aa a part of the Constitution of 
 the United States." 
 
 Thus, by the joint authority of both Congress 
 and the Executive, eight States that are claimed 
 to be out of the Union, or dead States within 
 the Union, from their participation in a rebel- 
 lion for slavery, are finally and conclusively 
 recognized as constitutional States of the Union 
 for the highest of all purposes. It is a fortu- 
 nate and auspicious circumstance that the high- 
 est proof that could be offered of their legal 
 and constitutional staUis is connected with 
 the strongest guarantee that could be given of 
 their repentance for the past and their loyalty 
 in the future. 
 
 I use the word "repentance'" designedly. 
 True repentance consists not in loud- mouthed 
 professions. It consists in "bringing forth 
 fruits meet for repentance." How much the 
 South was chastened, humbled, and punished 
 by the stern hand of war, he only can esti- 
 mate who remembers the strange, infatuated 
 fondness with which her people clung to their 
 peculiar institution, and who appreciates the 
 vastamountofwealth represented by it. It must 
 not be forgotten by those whose clamors for the 
 punishment of traitors grow incessantly louder 
 as the danger from treason grows less, that 
 in addition to the loss of the flower of the 
 southern manhood in battle ; in addition to 
 the utter annihilation of the entire circulating 
 medium in the pockets of these people and 
 of the invested wealth in their safes ; in addi- 
 tion to the wide-spread devastation and ruin 
 of a desolating war, the crowning punishment 
 of confiscation has already been their portion. 
 Emancipation was punishment to every man 
 who owned a slave. I have always believed 
 that treason was a crime. Myself, I shrank 
 from it as from pollution, until the time came 
 to close with it in a death-grapple. For the 
 leaders of rebellion, those who fired the south- 
 ern heart and precipitated revolution, I have 
 no sympathy, even now, in their disgrace. I 
 have believed that treason ought to be pun- 
 ished, and I believe that it has been punished. 
 If there be those who still thirst for vengeance, 
 there may be exceptions, but I believe that they 
 belong principally to that classof patriots who, 
 in the words of General Sherman, "shun the 
 fight and the march, and are loudest, bravest, 
 and fiercest when danger is past." 
 
11 
 
 In the view which I have taken of the great 
 constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, 
 it appears in a fourfold aspect : 
 
 1. As a surrender of the cause of the war. 
 
 2. As a pledge of sincerity in accepting the 
 result of the war. 
 
 3. As a guarantee of future loyalty. 
 
 4. As a punishment for treason, by confisca- 
 tion. 
 
 Is anything else wanted to pacify the coun- 
 try, consolidate the Union, wheel one broken 
 column of States into one bristling line of bat- 
 tle, and march with solid, unbroken front against 
 imperialism in America and despotism through- 
 out the world? Is anything else to be done 
 before confidence can be restored at home, 
 trade revived, finances strengthened, currency 
 settled, and resources developed ? 
 
 The freedmen must be cared for and pro- 
 tected in their rights. I admit the necessity. 
 It is already pi-ovlded for. Under the second 
 section of the amendment Congress has all 
 necessary power over the subject. With the 
 learned gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bingham,] 
 I had constitutional scruples about the civil 
 rights bill which I could not overcome even for 
 the pleasure of reversing a veto. But that bill 
 is now a law ; it will probably be several years 
 before it is judicially negatived ; in the mean 
 time the freedmen under its operation are 
 secure, and the public sentiment around them 
 will gradually make all special legislation un- 
 necessary. 
 
 Is anything else demanded? " Traitors must 
 be kept from ruling the country they strove to 
 ruin.'' " Loyal men must govern a preserved 
 republic." That is my belief. That exigency 
 also has been foreseen and provided for. You 
 have a test oath searching and stringent enough 
 to satisfy the most exacting. Under it no traitor 
 can enter Congress or hold a Federal ofiicc. I 
 ask you now to administer that oath to Maynard 
 and Stokes and Cooper, and to other brave and 
 loyal Representatives from Tennessee. I ask 
 for the immediate and unconditional admis- 
 sion of the Tennessee delegation on the floor 
 of this House upon an equal footing with those 
 of us who come from other loyal States. It is 
 too late to argue the claims of that State. The 
 whole country knows them by heart. During 
 
 a great portion of the war Tennessee was act- 
 ually represented in Congress ; in this House 
 by Maynard, in the Senate by Andrew Johnson, 
 the serajjli Abdiel of the great rebellion : 
 "Faithful found 
 
 Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 
 
 Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
 
 Unshalicn, unseduced, unterrified, 
 
 His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal." 
 
 All the evidence taken by the joint commit- 
 tee on reconstruction concui's in the propriety 
 of the prompt admission of her representa- 
 tives to prevent the warm and glowing loyalty 
 of her people from being chilled, as the loyalty 
 of any people would be, by a persistent and 
 contemptuous ostracism. 
 
 General Fisk, the commissioner of the Freed- 
 men' s Bureau for Tennessee and Kentucky, 
 headquarters at Nashville, Tennessee, testifies 
 as follows: 
 
 "Tennessee abolished slavery by her own action; 
 she elected a Governor by the people; she repudi- 
 ated the rebel debt; she ratified the constitutional 
 amendment abolishing slavery, and did all that with- 
 out executive indication or inauguration. Tennes- 
 see furnished thousands for the defense of the Union. 
 All this is to her advantage, and were I a member of 
 the Senate or House of Representatives of Congress 
 I would vote most cheerfully to admit the delegation 
 from Tennessee, believing that in .so doing I would 
 be taking a step that would increase the loyal senti- 
 ment of the State, and which would promote the tran- 
 quillity and prosperity of the State." 
 
 The testimony of General George H. Thomas 
 is equally emphatic upon this point ; and, in 
 fact, there is but one opinion among all ac- 
 quainted with the actual condition of the peo- 
 ple of that State. Why not, then, admit the 
 Tennessee delegation? Is anything else de- 
 manded? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that the joint 
 committee of fifteen, composed as it Is of gen- 
 tlemen of character, experience, and ability, 
 would have given us, as the result of their 
 protracted labors, some proposition on which 
 all loyal men might unite. I did hope in the 
 beginning that within a week after their organ- 
 ization, at least when Congress reassembled 
 in January, they would report in favor of the 
 immediate admission of the representatives 
 of Tennessee. I believe that a majority of the 
 House were prepared to admit those Repre- 
 sentatives on any day when the question could 
 be fairly got before them. Their admission 
 
12 
 
 lias been delayed, and now, under the opera- 
 tion of the reconstruction programme recently 
 reported from that •committee, it appears that 
 the State of Tennessee is to be indefinitely 
 excluded from the Union. I say indefinitely, 
 because her admission is made to depend upon 
 the ratification by three fourths of the States of 
 a series of constitutional amendments, which 
 three fourths of all the States will never rat- 
 ify. It is not enough that Tennessee herself 
 ratifies the amendment. That does not entitle 
 her, by this scheme, to the recognition of Con- 
 gress. If the real intention had been to en- 
 courage southern loyalty by discriminating in 
 its favor, the plan would have recognized States 
 as they successively wheeled into line upon the 
 platform. 
 
 Not only are these States to be excluded 
 until every one of these amendments shall have 
 become part of the Constitution, but each is 
 required, by the third section of the amend- 
 ment, to disfranchise nearly the whole of its 
 voting population. Disfranchisement is a war 
 measure, and in time of rebellion is almost as 
 necessary a means of defense as an army. It 
 is altogether unsuited to a condition of peace, 
 and, in feet, there can be no real peace in any 
 community where such a proscriptive policy is 
 long persisted in. It is unfortunately true that 
 in most of these States the mass of the popula- 
 tion "adhered to the late insurrection, giv- 
 ing it aid and comfort." Whether "volun- 
 tarily" or not would be, in the majority of cases, 
 a nice question of casuistry. After the tri- 
 umphant suppression of a revolt it is not wise 
 or statesmanlike to go back for a minute in- 
 quisition into past offenses and canvass calmly 
 and leisurely the by-gone effervescences of 
 fierce excitement. "Let the dead past bury 
 its dead." There are doubtless at the South 
 inveterate, malignant, bitter, revengeful rebels. 
 There are men there who, if tried for treason, 
 lawfully convicted, and sentenced to be hung, 
 could not succeed in getting my signature to 
 an application for executive clemency. Such 
 men are a curse to any country. Such men 
 brought on the rebellion, and such men are 
 to-day doing the South more harm by their 
 loud-mouthed ranting and offensive demonstra- 
 tions than all the radicals in the country. I 
 
 believe such cases to be more numerous in 
 Maryland and the other border States than in 
 the confederacy itself. I believe such cases to 
 be less numerous among the survivors of the 
 late rebel army than in the great army of "sym- 
 pathizers," marching like Noah's animals into 
 the ark, male and female. On that side, as on 
 ours, there is a class whom General Sherman's 
 description was made to fit, "A class who 
 shun the march »nd the fight, and are loudest, 
 bravest, and fiercest when danger is past." 
 Such men, though few in number and con- 
 temptible in power, attract attention from the 
 noise they make. One grasshopper makes siore 
 noise in a field than a herd of cattle. As a ques- 
 tion of propriety, I should like to see such 
 men suppressed ; by disfranchisement if that 
 would get rid of them. 
 
 But, unfortunately, no practicable test can 
 be found to discriminate such men from others 
 whom it is not politic nor right to proscribe. 
 I refer to men "who did go into rebellion, 
 but who, having taken the amnesty oath, mean 
 in good faith to keep it." Such men are loyal 
 men, and loyal men ought to participate in the 
 government of the country. Sir, I know men 
 who have done, and are now doing, yeoman 
 service in the Union cause who could not liter- 
 ally swear that they had never "voluntarily 
 adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid 
 and comfort. ' ' Are such men to be now kicked 
 out into the limbo of traitors ? God forbid ! 
 Let us rather take them by the hand and en- 
 courage them to persevere. Likely as not, 
 they will one day get far beyond us in the prog- 
 ress of loyalty, aud turn back to reproach us 
 for our want of zeal ! No, sir, you will have 
 to abandon this sweeping indiscriminate pro- 
 scription of a whole population, that is, if you 
 are in earnest when you say "it is expedient 
 that the States lately in insurrection should at 
 the earliest day consistent with the future peace 
 and safety of the Union be restored to full par- 
 ticipation in all political rights." If you are 
 not in earne£*t, but only want an issue to dis- 
 turb the minds of the people of the North by 
 telling them from the stump frightful stories 
 about the people of the South to prevent their 
 participation in the next presidential election, 
 and thus "to secure the Republican ascend- 
 
13 
 
 ency;" why then keep it in, and let an intelli- 
 gent people decide the issue. 
 
 The first section of the proposed amendment 
 is as follows : 
 
 No State shall make or enforce any law which 
 shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens 
 of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any 
 person of life, liberty, or property without due pro- 
 cess of law, nor deny to any person within its juris- 
 diction the equal protection of the laws. 
 
 By the fifth section — 
 
 The Congress shall have power to enforce, by ap- 
 propriate legislation, the provisions of this article. 
 
 And by the bill accompanying the proposed 
 amendment, entitled "A bill to provide for the 
 restoration of the States lately in insurrection 
 to their full political rights," it is required, as 
 a condition -precedent to the admission into 
 Congress of the Senators^ and Representatives 
 from such State, that it shall have modified its 
 constitution and laws in conformity with the 
 amendments. 
 
 By ''citizensof the United States" are meant 
 persons of color, they being declared such by 
 act of Congress. The "privileges or immuni- 
 ties" of citizens are such as Congress may by 
 law ascertain and define. I presume it will not 
 be denied that under this amendment,if adopted, 
 it would be for Congress to define and determine 
 bylaw in what the "privileges and immuni- 
 ties" of citizens of the United States coftsist, 
 in like manner as Congress has already, under 
 the constitutional amendment abolishing sla- 
 very and conferring the power to enforce its 
 abolition by appropriate legislation, detcr'mitied 
 that the emancipated blacks are "citizens of 
 the United States," and defined in what their 
 civil rights as such citizens consist. 
 
 An act of Congress to define the privileges 
 and immunities of citizens could and doubtless 
 would be made to include the privileges of 
 voting, serving upon juries, and of holding 
 office. Those privileges must, then, be incor- 
 porated into the constitution and laws of each 
 of the States excluded before they have com- 
 plied with the terms prescribed. Civil rights 
 are limited to suing and testifying in courts, 
 holding property, and being amenable to the 
 same punishments as other citizens. "Privi- 
 leges and immunities ' ' are a much broader and 
 more comprehensive term, and may, by defini- 
 
 tion, include suffrage, jury duty, and eligibility 
 to office. 
 
 It might, indeed, be argued that even in the 
 absence of a declaratory law, these franchises 
 are necessarily conferred upon all "citizens of 
 the United States" by the simple terms of the 
 amendment itself With such a law, negro 
 suffrage and eligibility is at once enforced over 
 the whole country ; in the excluded States by 
 virtue of the provision requiring them to mod- 
 ify their constitution and laws as a condition- 
 precedent to representation ; in the loyal States 
 by virtue of the provision giving Congress 
 power to enforce the provisions referred to by 
 appropriate legislation. 
 
 It is no recommendation to me that this covert 
 introduction of negro suffrage is so artfully 
 framed as almost to escape observation and 
 avoid odium. I would much rather vote for 
 a direct, honest, manly proposition that all men 
 could understand at once, than for an equivo- 
 cal process accomplishing the same result by 
 machinery. If it is wise, statesmanlike, patri- 
 otic, or proper'to take from the States the qual- 
 ifications of voters, and to enforce at this time 
 over the length and breadth of the land uni- 
 versal negro suffrage and eligibility, then, sir, 
 let us make the issue visible and face it like 
 men. 
 
 The second and fourth sections relate to the 
 basis of representation and the repudiation of 
 the rebel debt and of claims for emancipated 
 slaves. 
 
 That relating to the basis of representation 
 is founded upon a correct principle, and if 
 submitted in connection with a proposition 
 looking to the immediate and unconditional 
 admission of the representation of Tennessee 
 and Arkansas would probably remove all diffi- 
 culty. No special objection would be made to 
 the fourth section, although I regard it as wholly 
 unnecessary. The idea that under any combi- 
 nation of parties in the future this Congress 
 would ever entertain a proposition to pay the 
 rebel debt or compensate the owners of eman- 
 cipated slaves is too trifling to govern the action 
 of statesmen. As for the individual States, 
 they have all, or nearly all, incorporated such a 
 provision in their constitutions, and If they had 
 not they are not able by any process to escape 
 
14 
 
 the payment of their proportion of the national 
 delDt. The collection laws of the Government 
 operate directly upon individuals and upon 
 property in all the States. It will be as much 
 as the people of those States can do for many 
 years to pay their share of the Federal taxes, 
 and the danger of their assuming the debt of 
 the exploded confederacy or the payment of 
 claims for emancipated slaves is, in my judg- 
 ment, wholly imaginary. 
 
 A few words with respect to the present con- 
 dition and future prospects of the southern 
 States generally, and I have done. 
 
 As to the disposition of the people of these 
 States, there are two lights to guide us to a 
 judgment. One is by way of inference or logi- 
 cal deduction from the necessities of their situa- 
 tion; the other is positive testimony. After 
 all is said about rebels that can be said, they 
 are but human beings governed by like motives 
 and actuated by self-interest with other mortals. 
 Obviously this interest prompts them to renew 
 and strengthen their allegiance to the Govern- 
 ment. The surrender of slavery has left them 
 without a motive for rebellion. Loyalty, which 
 means habitual obedience to law, is man's 
 normal condition in so-ciety. These people 
 must necessarily settle into that condition, if 
 not prevented by maladministration. Their 
 strongest desire now is naturally to be com- 
 pletely restored to the full enjoyment of their 
 political privileges as members of the Union. 
 This desire has increased with the difficulties 
 thrown in their way. I was not of those who 
 wished to see the Representatives elected from 
 these States resuming their seats in this Hall 
 on the first day of the session as though nothing 
 had happened. I was perfectly willing to have 
 them subjected to an ordeal of reasonable delay, 
 one result of which would be to increase their 
 appreciation of the privilege they sought. It is 
 their interest now to overthrow the dogma of 
 secession, since a legitimate application of it 
 results in fixing their status as aliens and sub- 
 jugated. The only interest they ever had in 
 upholding it was as a means of protecting, in 
 the last resort, their peculiar institution. They 
 will gradually, but surely, become fixed in sound 
 principles of constitutional construction, from 
 the very necessities of the situation. 
 
 It seemed at one time absurd to suppose that 
 the present generation could ever form a sin- 
 cere attachment to the Federal Government or 
 any department of it. And yet the forgiving 
 disposition manifested by our lamented Pres- 
 ident Lincoln caused the death of him whom 
 they had loathed to be sincerely mourned as a 
 calamity to the South. The unexpected clem- 
 ency exhibitedby President Johnson, compelled 
 by the exigencies of his great office and the 
 moderate counsels of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, 
 to leave harsh and vindictive utterances, hot 
 from the boiling caldron of civil war, unreal- 
 ized in time of peace, soon won for the execu- 
 tive department of the Government the confi- 
 dence and even affection of the majority of the 
 southern masses. Their interest in the legis- 
 lative branch of the Government will return at 
 once with their admission to a participation 
 in it. 
 
 After a careful and anxious survey of the sit- 
 uation, made under an awful sense of respon- 
 sibility to my country and to history, with no 
 personal predilection or private interest that I 
 am aware of to warp my judgment toward the 
 conclusion it has reached, but with prejudices 
 and interests all bearing in an opposite direc- 
 tion, I am constrained to believe that all further 
 guarantees, by way of constitutional amendment 
 or otherwise, as conditions-precedent to a cau- 
 tious and discriminating admission of loyal 
 Representatives from States and districts whose 
 inhabitants have been in insurrection, but who 
 now present themselves in an attitude of loy- 
 alty and harmony, are unnecessary, impolitic, 
 unstatesmanlike, and prejudicial to the peace 
 and welfare of the country. The guarantees 
 we have, and which I deem sufficient, are: 
 
 1. The constitutional amendment abolishing 
 slavery and conferring upon Congress ample 
 power to enforce it ; and 
 
 2. A loyal army of one million fighting men, 
 just as determined to stamp outtrfiason should 
 it dare to show itself in the future, as they have 
 proved themselves able to deal with it in the 
 past. 
 
 The direct testimony as to the actual condi- 
 tion of the southern people is of course con- 
 flicting. I have, however, seen nothing which 
 has materially shaken my confidence in the 
 
15 
 
 evidence of Lieutenant General Grant. His 
 opportunities for observation have been ample, 
 his judgment is not biased by partisanship, his 
 sound common sense, his knowledge of human 
 nature, his keen penetration and almost intui- 
 tive discernment of character are the most solid 
 pillars upon which his great reputation rests. 
 
 His testimony is substantially corroborated 
 by that of Major General Sheridan, furnished 
 at a later period. General Grant testifies as 
 follows: 
 
 "I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the 
 South accept the present situation of affairs in good 
 faith. The questions which liave heretofore divided 
 the sentiment of the people of the two sections — 
 slavery and State rights, or tlie right of a State to 
 secede from the Union — they regard as having been 
 settled forever by the highest tribunal— arms— that 
 man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the 
 leading men whom I met that they not only accepted 
 the decision arrived at as final, but, now that the 
 smoke of battle has cleared away and time has been 
 given for reflection, that this decision has been a 
 fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving 
 like benefits from it with those who opposed them 
 in the field and in council. 
 
 " Four years of war, during which law was executed 
 only at the point of the bayonet throughout the States 
 in rebellion, have left the people possibly in a condi- 
 tion not to yield that ready oljedience to civil au- 
 thority the American people have generally been in 
 the habit of yielding. This would render the pres- 
 ence of small garrisons throughout these States ne- 
 cessary until such time as labor returns to its proper 
 channel, and civil authority is fully established. I 
 did not meet any one. cither those holding places 
 under the Government or citizens of the southern 
 States, who think it practicable to withdraw the mil- 
 itary from the South at present. The white and the 
 black mutually require the protection of the General 
 Government. 
 
 " There is such universal acriuiescenee in the author- 
 ity of the General Government throughout the por- 
 tions of the country visited by mo that the mere 
 presence of a military force, without regard to num- 
 bers, is sufBeient to maintain order. The good of the 
 country and economy require that the force kept in 
 the interior, where there are many freedmen, (else- 
 where in the southern States than at forts upon the 
 sea-coast no force is necessary,) should all bo white 
 troops. The reasons for this are obvious without 
 
 mentioning many of them. The presence of black 
 troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor, both by their 
 advice and by furnishing in their camps a resort for 
 thefrecdmen for longdistances around. AVliite troops 
 generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small 
 number of them can maintain order in a given dis- 
 trict. Colored troops must be kept in bodies suf- 
 ficient to defend themselves. It is not the thinking 
 men who would use violence toward any class of 
 troops sent among them by the General Government, 
 but the ignorant in some places might; and the late 
 slave seems to be imbued with the idea that the 
 property of his late master should, by right, belong 
 to him, or at leastshould have no protection from the 
 colored soldier. There is danger of collisions being 
 brought on by such causes. 
 
 " My observations lead me to the conclusion that the 
 citizens of the southern States are anxious to return 
 to self-government within the Union as soon as pos- 
 sible; that while reconstructing they want and re- 
 quire protection from theGovernment; that theyare 
 in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required 
 by the Government, not humiliating to them as cit- 
 izens, and if such a course were pointed out they would 
 pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there 
 cannot be a greater commingling at this time between 
 the citizens of thetwosections, and particularly with 
 those intrusted with the law-making power." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, it is not well that the people 
 should be deceived in this matter, nor can they 
 be. The question is simply one of union or 
 disunion. Let the issue be frankly made and 
 squarely met. Let the great contest be made 
 under no doubtful colors, with trumpets sound- 
 ing no uncertain sound, and may God defend 
 the right! 
 
 For myself, I wish no new war-crj'. I want to 
 see no new motto emblazoned upon the victori- 
 ous flag of my country. I will recognize none 
 that has not been with it under fire. "Liberty 
 and Union! " words embroidered there by the 
 eloquence of Webster, are still proudly borne 
 upon its folds. Let them remain there, with 
 all the added signifiance that the great war for 
 liberty and Union has imparted ; with univer- 
 sal liberty secured for all the inhabitants of 
 the land, and Union, unconditional Union, the 
 determined aim of all who rally around it.