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 8625 
 
I LIBRARY OFCONrTKESS.i 
 
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 ! UNITED STATUS OF AMItlllCAJ' 
 
The state of the Uiiioii viewed from a Christian stand-point 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 1871 
 
 V 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. CHiRLES SITGEEiVES, 
 
 OE NEW JERSEY, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 25, 18G8. 
 
 The Ilousebeing in the Committee of the Whole on 
 the state of the Union — 
 
 Mr. SITGREAVES said : 
 
 Mr. Chaikmax: AVhile manifold schemes have 
 heen and are being proposed in and out of Con- 
 gress for the reconstruction of the States — 
 schemes viewed from a civil or military, a parti- 
 san or fanatical stand-point — I propose to view 
 the state of the Union from a Christian stand- 
 point, by the light of Christianity, and by so 
 doing I only anticipate history. From that 
 stand-point and by that light the acts of indi- 
 viduals and nations of the past are now viewed 
 and are now commended or execrated, it mat- 
 ters not whether the individual wore the im- 
 perial diadem of ancient Rome on his brow 
 or the crown of a modern queen "on whose 
 dominions the sun never sets," or wielded the 
 power of a great republic, proclaiming the 
 "liberty, fraternity, and equality" of man by 
 the bastile and the guillotine, or whether men 
 or nations in the pride of power and lust of 
 plunder dismembered a people and hushed every 
 murmur by thedungeon, the mine, and the bay- 
 onet, or marched to conquest through rivers 
 of human blood; the pen of impartial historj' 
 from that stand-point has assigned to the actors 
 their true places on the scrolls of fame or of 
 infamy, and there they will remain by univer- 
 sal consent forever. From that stand-point the 
 acts and actors in "the great rebellion" both 
 of the conquered and the conquerors will be 
 viewed and a record made as enduring as time, 
 and from which posterity will not appeal. We 
 cannot escape a record from this stand-point 
 ifwewould. It is in vain to allege, asmanydo 
 allege, "the atheism of the Constitution." It 
 is in vain to ignore the divinity of Jesus of 
 Nazareth (as it was ignored by a member of the 
 Thirty-Ninth Congress when he characterized 
 "the doctrines of the sermon on the Mount" 
 
 as "a duplicate of the writings of Socrates") 
 and deduce from this that the men and acts of 
 this generation will not be weighed by posterity 
 in the scales of Christianity. 
 
 Sir, there is no atheism in the Constitution; 
 the assertion is a foul libel on the men who 
 framed it. They were nominally Christians. 
 They were men or compatriots of the men 
 who, on the 4th of July, 177G, solemnly ap- 
 pealing to " the Supreme Judge of the world," 
 in the name and by "authority of the people," 
 declared that the Colonies were, and of right 
 ought to be, free and independent States; and 
 for the support of that declaration, "with a 
 firm reliance on the protection of Divine 
 Providence," mutually pledged their lives, 
 their fortunes, and their sacred honors. The 
 framers of the Constitution met, not to declare 
 the religious belief of the people, but to frame 
 a civil compact between the States, to be or- 
 dained, established, and ratified by the people 
 of the United States through State conven- 
 tions. But while the framers of the Constitu- 
 tion ignored a declaration of religious belief, 
 they required an official oath or affirmation — • 
 a sanction which would not be required by a 
 convention of atheists in the provisions of an 
 atheistic Constitution, for no oath or affirma- 
 tion could be binding on the conscience of an 
 atheist, as he could swear by no one greater 
 than himself. Sir, the idea that the men of 
 the Revolution framed or intended to frame 
 an atheistic Constitution for themselves and 
 their posterity is at war with the sentiments 
 of the people they represented, ex|iressed 
 through their Colonial laws — at war with the 
 frequent and fervent national appeals to Al- 
 mighty God that He would give success to their 
 arms in the mighty conflict for independence — 
 at war with reason. I do not believe it pos- 
 sible that a sane man can be an atheist. I 
 believe, with the great Apostle of the GentileSi 
 

 uttered eighteen centuries ago, that the works 
 of creation and the laws of nature manifest the 
 invisible power and Godhead of an Almiglity 
 Creator — a fact thus beautifully expressed iu 
 song by the gifted Addison: 
 
 "Tiie spacious firmcament on high, 
 With all the blue ethereal sky. 
 And spangled heaveus — a shining frame — 
 Their great Original proclaim. 
 
 "The unwearied sun from day to day 
 Does his Creator's power display. 
 And publishes to every land 
 The work of an Almighty hand. 
 
 "Soon as the evening shades prevail 
 The moon takes up the wondrous tale. 
 And nighlly to the listening earth 
 Repeats the story of her birth; 
 
 "Whilst all the stars that round her burn. 
 And all the planets iu their turn, 
 Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
 And spread the truth from porie to pole. 
 
 "AVhat, though in solemn silence all 
 Jlove round this dark terrestrial ball I 
 AVliat, thougli no real voice nor sound 
 Amidst their radiant orbs be found, 
 
 "In reason's ear they all rejoice 
 And utter foith a glorious voice. 
 Forever singing as they shine 
 The hand that made us is divine." 
 
 There were infidels among our fathers, as 
 there are infidels among their sons, but no 
 atheists. 
 
 The questions, then, are — was "the Supreme 
 Judge of the world," recognized and appealed 
 to by our fathers in the hour of their peril, the 
 God of the Christian or the God of the infidel? 
 Are we, and have we ever been, a Christian 
 nation V Sir, the acknowledgment of the re- 
 vealed law incorporated in the municipal rules 
 of action of the Colonies and States; the fifty- 
 four thousand houses of public worship through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land dedicated 
 to the living God; the observance of the Chris- 
 tian Sabbath by the Congress, the State Legis- 
 latures, and the people; our modes of thought 
 and our ideas of right and wrong, molded by 
 the precepts of the revealed law ; our varied 
 institutions for the relief of suffering human- 
 ity; our measurement of time, not from the 
 creation of the earth nor the hegira of Ma- 
 homet, but from the birth of Christ ; our posi- 
 tion as a Christian people in the family of na- 
 tions, accorded to us by universal consent — all 
 proclaim that "the Supreme Judge of the 
 world" to whom our fathers appealed, and 
 who led them, as it were, in a pillar of cloud 
 and five through the storm and darkness of the 
 Revolution, was the God-man of whom it was 
 predicted before Ilis incarnation at Bethlehem 
 that His name should be called "Wonderful! 
 Counselor! The Mighty God! The Everlast- 
 ing Father! The Prince of Peace!" This and 
 every enlightened nation on earth now bows 
 before His altars and acknowledges the truth 
 of His revelation and god- head ; every advance 
 
 in science confirms this revelation : the astrono- 
 mer views it in the stars, the geologist sees it 
 recorded in the rocks, the philosopher reads 
 it in the laws of nature, the student finds it in 
 the accomplishment of prophecy, and we can 
 all now see, even without the visions of the seer, 
 that His dominion over the earth will be ' ' an 
 everlasting dominion." 
 
 By the light, then, of Christianity will the 
 acts and motives of men and nations be viewed 
 and recorded in all future history. Would to 
 God that the recording angel could drop a tear 
 on the record of the last decade of years and 
 " blot it out forever." AVould to God that the 
 people North and South had listened to the 
 teachings of Him whose advent was announced 
 by the song of angels as an advent of "peace 
 on earth and good will to men," whose mission 
 was a mission of love, and who taught us to 
 pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
 those who trespass against us ;" then we should 
 not mourn a dismembered Union and the blood 
 of five hundred thousand of our sons shed in 
 fratricidal strife on a hundred battle-fields. 
 
 Ten years since, this Republic, in the re- 
 sources of her varied climate, in the liberty and 
 happiness of her citizens, in the energy of her 
 sons, in the observance of law and order, stood 
 without a peer among the Governments of the 
 earth ; her destinies shaped under God by Dem- 
 ocratic men and measures, marched to a power 
 and freedom that has no parallel under Heaven. 
 
 What is the state of the Republic now ? A 
 desolated South, a broken Union, ten States 
 governed by the iron hand of a military des- 
 potism ; a taxation which sits like an incubus 
 on the industry and energies of the whole peo- 
 ple ; public lands sufficient for the terx'itories 
 of a vast empire (the common inheritance of 
 the people) given to incorporated companies; a 
 national debt created in four years greater than 
 England, with her thousand ships and long and 
 bloody wars waged to maintain the balance of 
 power in Europe, has been accumulating for 
 the last two centuries ; the compacts of the 
 Constitution violated by legislation and public 
 faith laughed at. 
 
 . Why is this ? Why, in the short space of ten 
 years, has this Eden of national political hap- 
 piness been turned into an earthly hell ? Why ? 
 Because the accursed serpent of radicalism was 
 permitted to enter the sacred j^ortals of liberty. 
 We listened to his promise, "Thou shalt not 
 die." We ate of the forbidden fruit, and the 
 result was sorrow and mourning, desolation 
 and death. The radical well knew that the 
 only weapon which could accoiriplish his hell- 
 ish work of war and disunion was the weapon 
 of hate. The radical of the South inculcated 
 a political and moral hatred of the North, 
 argued the right of secession as no infraction 
 of the Federal compact, and appealed to the 
 ambition and greed of the great southern heart. 
 The radical of the North inculcated a moral 
 
3 • 
 
 and political hatred of the South in the fnrum, 
 in the press, and tiniillyby scattering the Ililper 
 book, indorsed by sixty members of Congress, 
 •as a campaign document broadcast over tiie 
 land — a book intended to excite sectional 
 hatred, massacre, spoliation, servile and fra- 
 tricidal war. 
 
 The Democratic party stood, as it always 
 had stood, for the Constitution and the Union, 
 between ''the living and the dead, and the 
 plague for a while was stayed." They appealed 
 to the people by the memories of their fathers 
 and the glories of the old Hag. The repre- 
 sentative radical proclaimed that flag "a 
 flaunting lie." By the compacts of the Con- 
 stitution the representative radical proclaimed 
 that Constitution "a covenant with death and 
 a league with hell." By the MockI of our sons, 
 threatened to be shed in a fratricidal war, the 
 representative radical proclaimed that blood- 
 letting was necessary. In vain they told the 
 people that sectional hatred would dissolve the 
 Union, and made every effort to save that 
 Union by compromises, by an appeal to that 
 law of love which (rod implanted in the bosoms 
 of our fathers wIumi they established and or- 
 dained the Constitution. Their voice was un- 
 heeded. The radical derided them as "Union- 
 savers," and told ihe people that there would 
 be "no rebellion, no dissolution of the Union:" 
 and v/hen at last the [jower of the Uemocracy 
 went down under the triumph of a sectional 
 party, inspired by sectional hatred, elected Ij}' 
 a minority of the people, the die was cast and 
 the result was disunion and blood. The result 
 we feel in every section of this broad land, and 
 it wmU be felt by genei'ations yet unborn. Such 
 has been the result of the radical doctrine of 
 hate, in opposition to the precepts of the Chris- 
 tian gospel of love. 
 
 The die was cast; the flag of the Union was 
 unfurled; from every iiill and valley of the 
 North our sous gathered around that flag, 
 determined that not a star should be torn fi-om 
 that glorious banner. They marched to sus- 
 tain the Constitution and maintain the Union. 
 1"he reprcsentativt^s of the nation, with, I 
 believe, but two dissenting voices, declared 
 by solemn resolution — 
 
 "That this w.Tr is not wajjed on our part in any 
 spirit of oru'rcssion, not- tor any purpose of conquest 
 or subjugation, nor purpose of ovcrtlirowins or in- 
 terfering with tlierislit.sor ustal)lished institutions of 
 those Stntcs. but to dcfcnil and maintain llic suiiruiii- 
 iicy of tbo C'oiislirntiiin, and to preserve tlio tlnion 
 with all tlie (li:,'nity, ei|uality, and rights of the sev- 
 eral States uuiuipaircd." 
 
 This declaration was a solemn pledge to the 
 South in the name of the North and the na- 
 tion, a pledge to the world — a covenant with 
 the gallant men who inarched to sustain the old 
 flag, and poured out their hearts' blood in its 
 defense. Under that pledge our sons pressed 
 to the conflict, under that pledge they fought, 
 
 under that pledge they died; by that pledge 
 we obtained men and money from the N^orth, 
 and by that pledge we constructed and strength- 
 ened a Union party in the South. Had the 
 war been waged for the purposes now declared 
 our sons had not died. Surely in the eyes of 
 that God who will hold nations as well as 
 individuals responsible for violated fiiith and 
 broken pledges the radical will be held re- 
 sponsible for the blood of our sons. Sir, when 
 the Union soldier met the rebel in deadly con- 
 flict, the one to sunder the Union, the other to 
 maintain it, who does not know th;:t if the 
 radical had then proclaimed in any cily of the 
 North what he now proclaims, that the war 
 was waged for the purposes of conquest, and 
 when the war ended by the triumph of north- 
 ern arms, the States in rebellion would be 
 declared "conquered provinces" and given 
 over to negro domination, he would have been 
 denounced as a sympathizer with the South, 
 as a traitor who would create disaft'ection in 
 the Army, disloyalty among the peoide, and 
 he would have been hung unshriven to the 
 nearest lamp-post by a loyal mob. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I never had any sympathy 
 with the monstrous heresy of secession. 1 
 gave my time and means and only son to aid 
 in crushing the rebellion and maintaining the 
 Constitution and the Union. I regard that 
 Constitution, and the Union guaranteed by 
 that Constitution, as a sacred gift of God to 
 our fathers, to be bequeathed intact to the teem- 
 ing millions of posterity who will live and die 
 under the flag of the I'epublic. But I do have 
 a sympathy for the honor and faith of my coun- 
 try. 1 hold that the ftiilh of a nation should 
 be sacred under all circumstances. I would 
 have the faith of my country, like "Ca?sar's 
 wife, not only pure, but nnsus])ceted." I 
 hold that the legislator in the legislative hall 
 should maintain faith and honor in his legis- 
 lative acts, as he would maintain his own per- 
 sonal faith and honor. Take away the laith 
 and honor of a Gover^iraent and you takeaway 
 from that Government all that is desirable in 
 the eyes of God or man. In the light of Chris- 
 tianity I charge the radical, when he proclaims 
 that the States lately in rebellion are "con- 
 quered provinces," that they are out of th« 
 protection of the Constitution, out of the 
 Union, and places them under a iniliiary des- 
 potism, with a gross violation of the national 
 faith, solemnly plighted by the reiiresentativea- 
 of the nation on the floor of Congress. I ciiarge. 
 him with an infraction of the plainest precept* 
 of Christianity, and believe that for this infrac- 
 tion God has brought upon us as a nation the 
 curse and punishment due to the covenant- 
 breaker. 
 
 How was this pledge of a Christian nation 
 redeemed? Under it our young men gathered to 
 the 6ght; under it some States were saved to 
 
the CTnicm ; under it the battle was fought, the 
 victory won ; every drop of blood that was shed 
 was to maintain, not to destroy, the Union. 
 Secession and its champions are trampled in 
 the dust. A radical Congress assemble and 
 pass acts for thegovernment of the States lately 
 in rebellion aa conquered provinces, and rad- 
 ical leaders declare that "the liberty, property, 
 and lives of the conquered are at the mercy of 
 the conqueror by the laws of war." What laws 
 of war? Not the laws of war ameliorated by 
 the humane teachings of Christianity, but laws 
 of war which justified the Tartar Khan in rear- 
 ing his pyramid of a hundred thousand human 
 skulls ; laws of war which justified slavery ; 
 laws of war, recognized and established by 
 robber chieftains and ruffian feudal lords, 
 when might was right and vengeance a virtue. 
 The Thirty-Ninth Congress did by legislation 
 what the southern traitors by force of arms 
 could not effect, a dissolution of the Union; 
 the Thirty-Ninth Congress reenact what the 
 rebel confederacy enacted, that an act of seces- 
 sion puts the seceding States out of the Union; 
 the Thirty-Ninth Congress resolved that the 
 seceding States should be kept out of the Union 
 by the bayonet; the seceding States attempted 
 to keep those States out of the Union by the 
 bayonet, a heresy against which we protested, 
 and against v/hich we struggled in a four years' 
 war ill fields of blood and carnage unparalleled 
 in the history of modern warfare. 
 
 Sir, the Christian patriot and statesman, re- 
 vering the comiiacts of the Constitution, will 
 say, as the nation said during the great rebel- 
 lion, that no State can put itself out of the 
 Union either by peaceable secession or by 
 force of arms. We appealed to the God of Bat- 
 tles and God gave us more than a victory of 
 arms — He gave us a repentant people. The 
 Southron had been educated in an idea that 
 his paramount allegiance was due to the State. 
 He fought for that idea. He was defeated. 
 He ottered to purge his heresy by an oath that 
 he would support and defend the Constitution 
 and the Union. The radical spurned tlie re- 
 pentant sinner. His cry was hate and ven- 
 geance. Sir, any Government would have 
 hailed the return of its prodigal children as a 
 matter of policy except a radical Government. 
 The patriot who loves his country should hail 
 it ; the statesman who would have the llepublic 
 perpetual in the love of her citizens should hail 
 it. A Christian republic, acting in accordance 
 with the benign principles of the Man of Cal- 
 vary, would rejoice that this " my son was 
 dead and is alive again : he was lost and is 
 found." 
 
 Mr. PRICE. Will the gentleman from New 
 Jersey allow me to ask him a single question ? 
 
 Mr. SITG REAVES. Yes. sir. 
 
 Mr. PRICE. The gentleman is referring to 
 the history of the prodigal sou. As he is 
 
 speaking from a Christian stand-point I would 
 like to know whether he wishes us to under- 
 stand that the rebels who took up arms against 
 the Government occupy to-day the position of 
 the prodigal mentioned in the Scriptures? 
 
 Mr. SITGREAVES. The great mass of 
 them. 
 
 Mr. PRICE. That is all I wanted to know. 
 
 Mr. SITGREAVES. I resume at the point 
 where I was interrupted. 
 
 I never doubted the honor, patriotism, and 
 magnanimity of the nation. I know that the 
 nation would have hailed the return of these 
 erring children, and thus bound them to the 
 Union by chains of love, stronger than ada- 
 mant, forever. I say ''the Union," for they 
 were bound to our republican form of gov- 
 eriunent by education and instinct. They did 
 not wage war against ''a repul)Iican form of 
 government," but against the Union; they 
 warred for the preservation of their property 
 in slaves; they adopted ii constitution as 
 republican in form and spirit as the Constitu- 
 tion of 1787. There was no reason to doubt 
 their devotion to a rejmblican form of gov- 
 ernment; the indissolubility of the Unioii was 
 the rock on which they split. Yet when they 
 were willing to renounce this heresy and give 
 freedom to the slave, we rejected their advances 
 with scorn; and although beggared and dis- 
 armed, incapable of making either an aggres- 
 sive or defensive war, we subject them to all 
 the horrors of a military government, to be 
 followed by political subjection to a race of 
 men just emerged from slaver)', under the pre- 
 tense that they " are opposed to a republican 
 form of government." 
 
 Mr. Chairman, a code of laws framed in a 
 spirit of hatred is bad |>olicy in every Govern- 
 ment, but suicidal in a republic. The pages of 
 history tell us that no monarch, no nation, can 
 violate the Christian laws of love with impu- 
 nity by the administration of oppressive laws. 
 Where is the individual or nation who has been 
 taught by oppression to love the opjiressor. 
 Look at Ireland. Has oppression taught her 
 sons to love the hand of her Saxon tyrant? 
 Centuries have passed away since the independ- 
 ence of Ireland was trodden down in the blood 
 of the O'Connors and ten thousand Irishmen 
 on the fatal field of Alhonra?; for centuries 
 their loyalty has been enforced by the bayonet ; 
 yet at this hour the sons of Ireland in every 
 land only bide their time when they can crush 
 their oppressors. Centuries have passed away, 
 yet hostility to their oppressor and hatred to 
 the union with Great IJiitain have heen trans- 
 mitted as an heir-loom from father to son, (a 
 fact known to the world and candidly admitted 
 by Mr. Gladstone in a recent speech to his 
 constituents.) This undying faith in the re- 
 demption of Ireland, this undying hatred to 
 the oppressor and soul-longing for the resto- 
 
ration of the green flag, is thus truly expressed 
 by an Irish bard : 
 
 "Tho Irish inntlier, as she pressed 
 The warm, lull nipple to her breast, 
 Tlius luUabicd her bnbe to rest: 
 
 "Twill rise again.' 
 
 "It crossed the sea, the Irish race, 
 Uprooted fiom their dwellinq: place. 
 Came here new destinies to faeo — 
 It rose again. 
 
 "Oh, penerons, proud, and gallant race, 
 So oltcn rash, so rarely base; 
 Sure as the bright sun holds its place 
 "i'wiU rise again. 
 
 "The old srccn flag, the good old cause, 
 l»espitc the check of cnimping laws, 
 Shall yet obtain the world's applause, 
 When risen again. 
 
 "Wherever England's flag may float. 
 Or slaves may wear her scarlet coat. 
 Leap, L'cniaus, at the tyrant's throat. 
 And try again 1 " 
 
 Ah, when tlie time shall come when England 
 «fiall be C()m|)assed with hostile fleets or her 
 throne rocked in the throes of revolution, her 
 statesp.ien will then know that Ireland should 
 have been governed by the Christian law of 
 love. And that time will come. The green 
 flag "will rise again ;" the Irish harp, so long 
 silent in Tara's halls, will sound the jubilee of 
 Irish freedom. 
 
 Acts of hatred by individuals or nations are 
 visited, sooner or later, by the retributive jus- 
 tice of Heaven — to the individual by the halter, 
 the penitentiary, orthe undying, witheringscorn 
 of men, as in tlie case of the jailor of Ander- 
 sonville ; to the nation by revolution, rebellion, 
 demoralization ot"lhe people, or destruction of 
 their material interests. Cotton was once king; 
 it gave us the balance of trade, it erected our 
 manufactures, and spread the sails of our mer- 
 chant ships on every ocean. The insane hatred 
 of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, by a refusal to 
 restore the Union and by the imposition of an 
 onerous tax on cotton, has not only driven that 
 great staple of the South from the markets of 
 the world, but has driven it away forever. We 
 have the testimony of a Republican Senator 
 on the floor of the Senate that the British man- 
 ufacturers now produce from India cotton an 
 article equal to the American staple, and he 
 feared we had lost this great interest forever; 
 and so we have, ibr the vast lands of the British 
 Empire, capable of producing that staple, will 
 hereafter sujiply the world. The Thirty-Ninth 
 Congress have detiironed cotton as king of 
 trade; but at what a cost! — starvation of the 
 Southern people, stagnation of Northern cap- 
 ital, and destruction of a great national resource 
 of the nutioii Ibr all time to come. 
 
 OlKcial dishonesty was once the exception, 
 now it is the rule. The gross violation of the 
 national faith and disregard of constitutional 
 rights by the Thirty-Ninth Congress have pro- 
 duced their legitimate fruits in an ofEcial cor- 
 
 ruption that has no parallel among men. 
 But a few days since the astounding and hu- 
 miliating fact was proclaimed on the floor of 
 this House by the able chairman of the Com- 
 mittee of Ways and Means [Mr. Schexck] 
 and the eloquent member from Illinois, of the 
 same committee, [Mr. Logax,] that it was 
 impossible to collect the whisky tax through 
 the authorizedagentsof the Government; that 
 the major part of the great army of revenue 
 oilicials were composed in effect of double 
 rectified rascals. And, sir, these declarations 
 are true. The hard-handed laborers, the in- 
 dustry of the country, pay an annual tax of 
 millions to fill up the deficit made by these 
 stupendous otficial frauds. 
 
 Legislation inspired by hate — denunciations 
 of haired in and out of Congress, ignoring the 
 law of love by giving free rein to the unbri- 
 dled passions of men, inculcation of revenge in 
 the ])ress, upon the stump, and in the legisla- 
 tive hall — has resulted in a fearful demoraliza- 
 tion of the people. Violence, rape, fraud, and 
 arson stalk rampant throughout the whole 
 land. The Police Gazettes record the fact 
 that not a day passes without tiie shedding of 
 bl^od by the hand of the murderer. 
 
 The spirit of hate inaugurated by the radi- 
 cals. North and South, during the rebellion and 
 perpetuated by the Thirty-Ninth Congress, in 
 the names of " loyalty, liberty, and liunuinity," 
 has invaded even the sanctuaries of the Most 
 High — men wearing the livery of the court of 
 heaven, ordained to minister at the altars of 
 Him who summed up all the commandments 
 in one great law of love, preach all the unchari- 
 tablenessof party hate, blasphemously incorpo- 
 rate it ill their prayers, trail the standard of the 
 King of Kings in the filthy mire of politics, and 
 " crook the pregnant hinges of the knee" to 
 Cajsar, and they have their reward. Surely 
 there is no more pitiable sight on God's foot- 
 stool than the modern political priest. Angels 
 must view such treason to Jesus with amaze- 
 ment, the true Christian with abhorrence, and 
 even the radical, while " he loves the treason, 
 must despise the traitor." 
 
 Sir, who doesnot know that hatred is the cor- 
 ner-stone on which every measure of recon- 
 struction is based? The animus is seen in 
 almost every speech on reconstruction. No 
 measure has been proposed or passed without 
 an appeal to the bitter passions engendered in 
 the hite conflict of arms. An appeal to this fell 
 spiritby radical legislators, a radical press, and 
 radical priests has enabled the ra ;icaLs to tear 
 ten stars from our glorious old flag, and to 
 enthrone a government of the b.ayonet over tiie 
 ruins of the Constitution in ten States; while 
 the firmness of one man, under God. pi'evented 
 the establishment of a military gf)verrment in 
 every State of this Union. I allude to the act 
 of Congress of the (Jth of February, ISGG, to 
 amend the Frcedmen's Bureau, extending mil- 
 
6 
 
 itary jurisdiction to all parts of the United 
 States containing freedmen or refugees. I need 
 not say that this embraced, or could in a day 
 be made to embrace, every State in this Union, 
 loyal or disloyal. This bill intended to subvert 
 the constitutions of theStates, strike down the 
 right of trial by jury, and trample down the 
 God-given liberties of the people under the heel 
 of military power — this bill, which, in violation 
 of the plainest precepts of the Constitution, 
 placed the military above the civil power — this 
 bill, intended to give the President the power 
 of an a-utocrat, and which was passed by every 
 Republican vote in both Houses, only failed to 
 become a law by the ])utriotisra and firmness, 
 under God, of that President. Such is the 
 recorded act of the intentions of a Republican 
 Congress, and there ic v.'ill stand on record for- 
 ever as a warning to future generations of the 
 madness and danger of partisan legislation in- 
 spired by partisan hate. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the great leader of the Re- 
 publican party in this House [ilr. Stevens] 
 has introduced a bill, intended as a model 
 school for all the schools in the nation, requir- 
 ing that the equality of man enunciated in the 
 Declaration ot independence shall be inscribed 
 " in large capitals," on "'unfading material," 
 over the main entrance of every school-room, 
 and cause it to be recited at least once a day 
 by the students: and that over every school 
 cemetery should be inscribed the "immortal 
 words:" 
 
 " Pallida mors equo pulsat pede pauperum taber- 
 nas reguui tunes." 
 
 Sir, I would advise that this bill of the Cth 
 of February, IStJii, providing for the extension 
 of military jurisdiction in all the States, should 
 be engraved on tablets of bronze or marble 
 and placed in every legislative hall, that future 
 legislators may n-ad it as a Republican com- 
 mentary of a Republican Congress on the 
 powers of the Constitution, and over the grave 
 of radicalism, now being dug so deep that there 
 will be no resurrection, I would inscribe "on 
 unfading material:" 
 
 " Quoin Dcus vult pcrderc prius dementat." 
 
 I have said that this attempt to establish a 
 military jurisdiction in all the States was only 
 prevented, imder God. from becoming a law by 
 the patriotism of Andrew Johnson. From the 
 hour that Andicw Johnson returned that bill 
 to the Senate v;itli his veto he has been hunted 
 by the bloodhounds of party hate with a fe- 
 rocity unparalleled in the modern history of 
 partisan wart'are. That veto is the key to im- 
 peachment; that veto was in reality the "high 
 crimes" of which he was guilty in the eyes of 
 the Radicals ; that, veto explains v/hy the legis- 
 lative would curtail the executive power of the 
 Governmeni; that veto explains the astound- 
 ing fact that a member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives was permitted unrebuked to pro- 
 cJaira before the nation and the world the 
 
 atrocious charge that Andrew Johnson, Pres- 
 ident of the United States, was accessory in the 
 murder of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Andrew Johnsoti does not hold his high 
 position by my vote or by the vote of the Dem- 
 ocratic party, yet I cannot but admire the man 
 for honestly adhering to the principles for 
 which the war was waged. I admire the man 
 as he stands erect and undismayed, for the 
 compacts of the Constitution and for the resto- 
 ration of the Union, against party hate enun- 
 ciated by a partisan press and a partisan Con- 
 gress, firm and unyielding as a rock in the 
 ocean lashed by the fury of the tempest. 
 
 It will not be denied that a party has existed 
 sitice the days of Alexander Hamilton in favor 
 of a construction of constitutional ]iower in 
 favor of the Federal Government and against 
 the reserved powers of the State. It will not 
 be denied that the Democratic party have ever 
 been the champions of the reserved rights of 
 the States, while at the same time they main- 
 tain in letter and spirit every power delegated 
 to the Federal Government. By these princi- 
 ples of the Democratic jtarty the Government 
 lias been administered and its policy shaped. 
 Under God that grand old party has pilaced 
 this Republic in the van of nations. That 
 policy was a strict adherence to the letter and 
 spirit of the Constitution. 
 
 Sir, I believe, with the Democratic party, 
 that the Constitution is a masterpiece of wis- 
 dom, capable of embracing a continent or a 
 world; that it is a constitution of checks and 
 balances — checks against despotic powers, a 
 triple government of legislative, executive, 
 aiuJ judicial brtmches ; that you cannot im- 
 l)air the power of one without disturbing the 
 harmony of all; that centralization of the 
 powers of the Government in one branch is a 
 despotism. 
 
 Sir, the Constitution of our fiithers was 
 founded on the Christian law of love; it v>'as a 
 work of coiuiu'omise, glorious in its inception, 
 intended to be as lasting as time; a sacred 
 covenant which no man under its protection 
 can break without meeting the retributive 
 justice of heaven. The men of the South 
 attempted to break this heaven-born compact, 
 and their land is desolate, their people beg- 
 gared, and mothers weeping in almost every 
 household, and will not be comforted because 
 their sons are not. The very instincts of the 
 peoiile of the North are to maintain sacred the 
 compacts of that Constitution in all their 
 entirety in letter and spirit; for this they poured 
 out their blood and treasure as no other people 
 have done. They were earnest in the war for 
 the Constitution to the death; they are earnest 
 now. I am not a prophet nor the son of a 
 prophet, but I predict to the dominant party in 
 this House that if you carry out infractions of 
 the Constitution, by bills of reconstruction 
 and confiscation and legislative centralization, 
 
before ten 3'ears have run their course you will 
 as a party lie ground to powder between the 
 upper and nether millstones of the States and 
 the people. 
 
 I said liie Constitution is a compact ; it is a 
 covenant with the States, a covenant with the 
 people, and a covenant with the individual man. 
 Constitutions are made for minorities, not for 
 majorities. Under theaegis of that covenant the 
 wood-sawyer in your streets, the pioneer wood- 
 cutter of tlio West in his log caliin, has rights as 
 sacred as the shoddy millionaire in his brown- 
 etone palace ; these rights all the power of a 
 Congress or a State Legislature cannot destroy 
 under any pretense whatever. In these rights 
 he should be protected against the world. Sir, 
 if there were but a single loyal man in the 
 South who had riglits under thatcovenantbefore 
 the rebellion, when you strike down those 
 rights and jilace him under a government of 
 the bayonet, and say that his life, liberty, and 
 property may be disposed of without due pro- 
 cess of law, you violate the most sacred rights 
 of a citizen of the llepublic ; and when you 
 violate the rights of one you violate the rights 
 of all ; you stab liberty at the very horns of her 
 altar. 
 
 When you strike down that great bulwark 
 of the right of the citizen against executive or 
 legislative despotism — the great writ of habeas 
 corpus — extorted from a tyrant king at Runiiy- 
 uiede. and incor[iorated in our Constitution, 
 you violate his constitutional rights, and you 
 again stab liberty at the very horns of her altar. 
 When you ignore constitutional law to legis- 
 late for partisan power or partisan hate you 
 display to the world an inconsistency, an igno- 
 rance, and a lolly that must retard the advance 
 of republican principles and strengthen the 
 thrones of kings. We see it in every bill of 
 reconstruction. While you curse England with 
 a grievous curse for recognizing the rebel con- 
 federacy as a '•belligerent power," you iiless 
 thegreat '• Commoner'' of thisand the last Con- 
 gress with a heartfelt blessing for his new ver- 
 sion of international law that the rebels were a 
 ''belligerent power," which alone could make 
 them ''conquered provinces." Under the 
 great law-giver of Israel half the tribes stood 
 on Mount Gerizim to bless the good, and half 
 on Mount Ebal to curse the evil ; it was 
 reserved for the modern Radical Levite to de- 
 nounce the alternate curse and blessing of 
 Hi-aven on the same ))rincipleand the same act. 
 
 Congress, under the inspiration of Radical 
 leaders, forgot the fact, settled for ages, that if 
 •A people engaged in war are belligerents they 
 cannot be traitors, and if traitors they cannot 
 be belligerents, and legislate agains*; these 
 people as belli?'>rents and at the same time 
 refuse them representation as traitors. 
 
 Radical statesmen seem utterly oblivious 
 and sublimely ignorant of the fact that they 
 expose themselves to the derision of every 
 
 well-read lawyer on earth when they urge the 
 legislative branch to declare the rebels as bel- 
 ligerents, and at the same time urge the judi- 
 cial branch to try the rebel chief as a traitor. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that the 
 sacred ark of our liberties can be overthrown 
 by armed traitors or a hostile world. I do not 
 believe it can be overthrown by the Executive, 
 because he has no aggressive powers; I do 
 not believe it can be overthrown by the judi- 
 ciary, for they have no aggressive power; but 
 I do believe that it can be overthrown by a foe 
 more potent than armed traitors or a hostile 
 world — that foe is constructive power. All 
 writers on mixed forms of government agree 
 that the legislative branch is aggressive; and 
 it was against this aggressive usurping power 
 of the Legislature that the barriers of the 
 judiciary were erected. Sir, it is no wonder, 
 then, that the nation was startled at the assump- 
 tion of power by this Congress, first by a 
 bill requiring a two-third vote of all the jus- 
 tices of the Supreme Court, and finally by a 
 bill forbidding the Supreme Court by even a 
 unanimous vote to declare an act of Congress 
 unconstitutional. Sir, precedent begets pre- 
 cedent, and this precedent would enable any 
 Congress to overturn the Republic. 
 
 Mr. PILE. Will the gentleman allow me 
 to ask him one question? 
 
 Mr. SITG REAVES. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. PILE. The gentleman has spoken, ag 
 I understand, of the protection of the rights 
 of loyal men in the South. 1 wish to ask 
 the gentleman whether those loyal men, white 
 and black, in the South»do not ask Congress 
 for their protection to overthrow and repu- 
 diate those Slate governments set up by Mr. 
 Johnson, and reconstruct those States upon 
 the policy of Congress? 
 
 Mr. S1TGREAVE3. The gentleman has 
 misunderstood me. I was speaking of loyal 
 men who were entitled to the rights guaran- 
 tied by the Constitution prior to the rebellion. 
 
 Suppose)'our reconstruction schemes are car- 
 ried out bygiving the domination of the south- 
 ern States to the black man, and some future 
 partisan Congress should find it necessary to 
 disfranchise a^Stute in order to maintain their 
 power — they declare that New York, Ohio, or 
 Pennsylvania have no republican form of gov- 
 ernment because they have not given suffrage 
 to the negro — they may enact (as they would 
 have a right to do under this precedent) that 
 the Supreme Court shall mit decide the uncon- 
 stitutionality of an act of Congress without the 
 concurrence of every member of the bench, 
 and one justice would thus control the action 
 of the court. That one justice could be 
 found. Human nature is the same in every 
 age. The despot James II found a Jeflreys 
 to execute his hate and bathe the ermine of a 
 chief justice in the blood of judicial murder; 
 and party malice can find Jeflreys now to exe- 
 
8 
 
 cute party hate. Or Congress may declare (as 
 this Congress have declared) that they have the 
 exclusive power to decide the form of a State 
 government, and in either case the result would 
 be that the people of New York, Ohio, or 
 Pennsylvania would ha disfranchised and placed 
 by some reconstruction act under a government 
 of the bayonet, and could not appeal from this 
 damning outrage. Sir, this very argument 
 will be used by the radical when the southern 
 States are reconstructed on a negro basis. 
 
 Sir, before this constructive power claimed 
 by Congress to overthrow the judiciary — that 
 august bulwark against despotism ; that pride 
 and glory of American people — all other powers 
 claimed by this and the last Congress shrink 
 into insignilicance. Sir, I ask any member of 
 this House, Conservative, Radical, or Demo- 
 crat, if the framers of the Constitution ever 
 intended to confer such a power on Congress? 
 I ask, if it had been incorporated in the Con- 
 stitution, if the people of the States or the 
 people of a single State would ever have rati- 
 fied it? Yet this is the Constitution you would 
 give to your children — a power in Congress to 
 disfranchise a State, and place the lives, lib- 
 erties, and property of its citizens under mili- 
 itary rule upon the same pretense now urged for 
 the passage of reconstruction bills, and without 
 appeal to any human tribunal. Sir, the time 
 is rapidly approaching when these " glittering 
 generalities'' about "republican form of gov- 
 ernment" and '' liberty, equality, and loyalty," 
 which now conceal the schemes of reconstruc- 
 tion, will be torn from radicalism like the glit- 
 tering vail from the f^^ce of the false prophet of 
 Khorassan, and the people will see the face of 
 a hideous serpent. 
 
 Yes, sir, there are modes of overturning the 
 Constitution by violating its spirit while adher- 
 ing to its letter. It was done in New Jersey. 
 The late constitutional amendments were never 
 submitted to the people. Q'he Legislature was 
 convened in extra session but two months be- 
 fore the annual election, to prevent that sub- 
 mission and to pass these amendments, and 
 they did pass them. This act of the New Jer- 
 sey Legislature was in strict accordance with 
 the letter, but who will say that it was not a 
 gross violation of the spirit of the Constitu- 
 tion ? thus show'ing that the organic law may 
 be altered not only without the knowledge 
 but against the will of the people. Yet this 
 action of the New Jersey Legislature was ap- 
 
 plauded by men who disfranchised ten States 
 because they had " no republican form of gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 Such are a few of the many fruits of recon- 
 struction. Sir, we want no reconstruction; 
 we want restoration. This Congress can re- 
 store the Union in an hour, and thus confirm 
 the principles of and obey the behests of that 
 great Magna Chavta of the American States and 
 the American citizen — the Federal Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Continue your insane policy of reconstruc- 
 tion, based on the corner-stone of partisan 
 hate and partisan ambition, those accursed 
 principles which impel hatan in every conflict 
 with Ood and man, and so correctly person- 
 ified in Milton's Portress of hell ; carry out 
 your policy of striking down the independence 
 of the judiciary and the constitutional powers 
 of the Executive, and so sure as efi'ect follows 
 cause so sure will this Republic be drowned 
 in a sea of blood, so sure will the fairest tem- 
 ple of human liberty that the sun of heaven 
 ever shone upon go down with a fall that will 
 shake the nations, and you and j'our children 
 and the hopes of human freedom will perish 
 alike in the mightj' ruins. 
 
 But disband your southern army ; restore 
 the Union of the States; let your legislation 
 now and henceforth be inspired by the lav/ of 
 Christian love, by that heaven-born charity 
 which alone recognizes the true bi'otherhood 
 of man ; forgive your brother his trespasses 
 as you hope to be forgiven ; let the sublime 
 doctrines of Him who spake as never man 
 spake permeate every law ; let the ministers 
 of the living God burn no more unhallowed in- 
 cense on His altars, but teach the people that 
 " Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a 
 reproach to any people." Then the voice of 
 disunion will be heard no more in our borders : 
 then, with the eye of undoubting faith, we can 
 look through the cycles of coming ages and 
 behold this great Republic standing immuta 
 ble in her strength, waving her glorious flag, 
 emblazoned with a himdred stars, over these 
 States, over the British Provinces, overthe land 
 of the Montezuraas, and the Antilles islands 
 of the sea, the great symbol of human freedom 
 and the sovereignty of God as the Pailer of the 
 nation, until the last seven thunders shall utter 
 their voices, until the heavens shall be rolled 
 together as a scroll, and the elements shall 
 melt with fervent heat. 
 
 Printed at the Congressional Globe Office.