013 744 794 pennulife* pH&S E 668 .S74 Copy 2 THE CITIZEN'S DUTY m, JHE TRESE51T CRWS. 4 A SERMO]^^ t§ , '^ v I'RKACnKD IN THE SOUTH PEESBYTERIAN CIIUPiCJI OF-BROOELYN, REV. SAMUEL T: SPEAR, D.D., OCTOBER 7th, 1866. NEW-YORK: N. TIBBALS. 87 PAUK JIOW. 1866. CA: SEEM ON. "But speaking the Truth in Love" — Epiiesiaxs 4 : 15. IXTRODUCTIOX. I PROPOSE, in discharging tlie duty assigned for this hovn*, to honor the direction of the text. I sliall try to speak the truth, I hope to do so in love. My theme is the citizen's duty in the present CRISIS. I assume that such a crisis exists. The public mind in this country is greatly excited, perhaps .as much so as it was at any time during the late "war. We are launched upon a war of ideas, involving a collision of intense and conflicting thought. The American peo- l)le are manifestly not unanimous as to the jjroper method of recon- structing the rebel States. Two theories of doing this work are be- fore the public mind. The one may be called immediate recon- struction, and the other constitutional reconstruction. "With the one the President is identified, and of the other Congress is the author. Between these theories, as matters now stand, the people must make a choice. What should that choice be? This is the Cjuestion which I propose to consider. As to the propriety of discussing such a subject in this j^lace, and at this time, you will, of course, form your own opinions. My opin- ion }^ou have in the fact that I do discuss it ; and for so doing I ofier no apology and make no defense. As to the discussion itself, you Avill be best able to judge when you have heard it. I do not stand in this place as a partisan, but as a Christian teacher, having opin- ions to express ujion a subject which I deem of the greatest import- ance to the present and future weal of this country. Such a sharp, and in some respects embittered, contest as that which now exists between the President and Congress, two coordinate departments of the same Government, is justly a matter for profound regret. It is attended with many perils. It abundantly shows that there is a most serious fault somewhere. Neither party is able to decide the issue for the other. Both have made their appeal to the people. You are a portion of that people, and so am I. Hence I have deemed it my duty to investigate the subject, and then do Avhat I can to aid you in arriving at a correct conclusion. I shall speak plainly upon the theme before us. I beseech you to hear me patiently. IMMEDIATE RECONSTRUCTION. I begin the discussion Avith the theory of immediate reconstruc- tion. Those who adopt this theory insist, that Congress should at once concede to the rebel States, taken just as they are, without any farther conditions, the right of representation in both Ilonses of Con- o-ress. This ought to have been done at the Last session of Congress ; and it ouc'ht now to be done at the earliest practicable moment. The President and those who support him hold this view. I do not adopt this doctrine ; and if you will give me your candid attention, I M'ill just as candidly state to you some of my reasons. FlKST, I FIND IN THIS THEORY WHAT SEEMS TO ME AN IMPROPER ASSUMPTION or EXECUTIVE POWER.— The rebel States, for whose im- mediate representation the demand is urged, have been reconstruct- ed, if at all, exclusively under the authority of the President himself He, and he only, has hxed the terms, witliout any legislation on the part of Congress to guide him. He did not consult Congress, but proceeded at once to solve the problem immediately after the Rebel- lion was crushed. The military part of the struggle was ended; and hence the President was not fighting battles, or adopting war measures for the purpose of conquest, but rather undertaking to re- organize civil society. What right then had he, npon his OAvn au- thority, and merely as the Executive of law, to decide this whole question, and especially so to decide it as to bind the action of Con- gress ? None whatever. General Dix, though he favors the Presi- dent's policy, nevertheless expressly concedes that his action was " not in pursuance of any constitutional power." I agree with this opinion. I am no lawyer, yet I can not for the life of me find the President's constitutional authority for his course of action. The Article of the Constitution referred to by the President as the basis of his action, reads thus : " The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, (when the Legislature can not be convened,) against domestic violence." You will mark, " the United States " shall do this ; and surely the President himself is not " the United States." The phrase evidently means the whole people, acting through the National Government, of which Congress is an indispensable branch. Louis XIV. once said, " I am the State ;" yet the parallel of this doctrine in a modern President will not be ac- ceptable to the American people. There is, moreover, a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, rendered in a case growing out of the Dorr Rebellion in Rliode Island, Avhich expressly declares that Congress must determine when a Republican government is organized in a State, and what is such a government. The Court says : " LTnder this Article of the Constitution it rests with Congress to decide which government is the established one ; for as the United States guarantee to each State a republican government. Congress must necessarily determine what government is established in a State before it can decide whether it is republican. . . . Undoubtedly a military government would not be a republican government, and it would be the duty of Congress to overthrow it." In this ruling of the Court it is distinctly implied that both the right and duty of action, as contemplated in this Article, are addressed to the Congress of the nation. And if this were sound doctrine in re- spect to the rebellion in Rhode Island, then surely it ought to be ap- plied to the Great Rebellion Avhich has just been suppressed. Yet the President flies right in the A'crv face of this doctrine by assuming i a power -wliicli, as the Supreme Court decides, belongs specially to Congress. He has guaranteed republicaji governments to the rebel States, without Avaiting for even the advice of the legislative de^jart- ment of the Government. It so happens, too, that the Senate of the United States, during the administration of Mr. Lincoln, expressed an official opinion on tliis subject. The Judiciary Committee, in reporting upon an appli- cation for the admission of Senators from the State of Louisiana, held the following language : " The persons in possession of the local au- thority of ]>ouisiana having rebelled against the autliority of the L'^nited States, and her inhabitants having been declared to be in a state of insurrection, in pursuance of a law passed by the two Houses of Congress, your Committee deem it improper for this body to ad- mit to seats Senators from Louisiana, till, hy some joint action of both Houses, there shall be some recognition of an existing State Government, acting in harmony with the Government of the United States, and recognizing its authority." This report was unanimouslj' ajilproved. Nobody then complained of this decision ; and yet be- cause the Thirty-ninth Congress has acted upon the very same prin- ciple, it has been severely denounced. This Congress has been virtu- ally asked to act mainly in the capacity of a recording secretary to the President. True, each House may judge of the qualification of its own members, to see that they have been duly elected, and bear Avith them the proper credentials ; but the President is the sole judge Avhether the State governments in these I'ebel States have been prop- erly organized, and whether they are republican or not. Not so thought the Senate, Avhen s^jeaking in the days of the lamented Lin- coln. It is also a very remarkable fact that the President, in his present position, stands contradicted by his own official^-ecord. On the 24th of July, 1865, in an official communication with Governor Sharkey of Mississippi, he said: "It must, howevei", be distinctly understood that the restoration to Avhich your proclamation refers, uull he suhject to the vrill of Congress.'''' On the 12th of September, in 18G5, in a like communication Avith Governor Marvin of Florida, he said : "The government of the State shall be provisional only until the State government is reorganized, and the basis of that organization will be suhjeet to tlie decision of Congress.'''' Why, then, does the President now contradict his own record, and condemn Congress for simply doing the A'cry thing Avhich in 1805 he said it Avould have a right to do ? I confess that I can not tell. I had supposed that Congress Avas not a body hanging " on the verge of the GoA'crnment," but an inte- gral part of the Government, in Avhich Avere A-estcd all the legislative pow'crs granted by the Constitution. I retain this opinion still ; and hence, if I approA^ed the President's terms of reconstruction, I should be compelled to protest against the source of those terms, especially Avhen they are set in array against the vicAvs of Congress. I find no power in the President to do wdiat he noAV claims to have done, I PIXD, I>g" THE SECOXD PLxVCE, NO NECESSITY FOR EXECUTIVE AC- TION AviTHOUT PREVIOUS CONSULTATION AviTH CONGRESS. — The Presi- dent might easily have couA^ened this body immediately after the col- lapse of the Ilebellion, or he might have held the rebel States under military authority until the regular session of Congress. Either 6 course avouIcI have given the Congress of the United States an op- portunity to speak of the subject before any policy was adopted. The position of things was novel, without any precedent in our po- litical history; and there Avas no earthly reason why the President, even if he had the power to do so, should take upon himself the whole load of deciding all the questions involved. Thei'e was no ne- cessity for it. It looks to me rash, especially so in one who had been elevated to his high ofHce not by the direct choice of the peo- ple, but by the murderous assassination of his predecessor. I have always regarded it as an exceedingly unfortunate step. Men in high position sometimes commit great mistakes ; even politicians, who make a business of managing tlie jiublic mind, do not always cor- rectly forecast the future. Occasionally they are sadly disappointed. I FIND, IN THE THIRD PLACE, THAT THE MAIN PllOPOSITION UPON WHICH THIS TIIEOKY OF IMMEDIATE EECONSTRUCTION IS. NOW^ URGED, IS A FALSE PROPOSITION. — If I Understand its advocates, they insist that the rebel States have a constitutional right to be represented in Congress without any conditions precedent thereto, and hence that any delay or prescription of snch conditions is an infringement upon the Constitution. Having stopped fighting, they have a perfect right at once to resume their places in Congress, and commence voting. The very moment the war ceased, the right sprang into being. Some go so far as to say that the right was perfect and intact even during the war. It was simply not used. Now with all men who hold this theory, or any thing that involves it, I join issue. What is the case with which we are dealing? It is the case of treason — causeless, cruel, murderous. Heaven-defying treason — in the first instance that of individuals conspiring against the Government, and in the second instance that of political commu- nities, called States, organized with all the appliances of State author- ity, and levying war against the United States. Now, I ask in all candor, whether there be no forfeiture of rights as the necessary in- cident of such treason ? Do all things remain just as they were be- fore this stupendous crime was committed? If so, then we have the strangest government of law, and the strangest doctrine of rights, in this country, that were ever known among men. I had supposed that treason worked a legal forfeiture of all the ordinary rights of citizen- ship, even to that of life itself, and that any thing short of death was so much in the way of gratuity to the traitor. I had supposed that the disposition to be made of the traitor, was a question to be settled by the Government in the exercise of its legal authority. I had sup- posed that wlien treason is so general as to become the act of a poli- tical community known as a State, involving all the officers of the State Government, and especially that Avhen a number of such politi- cal communities combine together, actually levy war upon the United States, and pursue this work with the desperation of death for four long years — I say, I had supposed that such a state of facts, such an awful crhne, did at least make a slight cliange in the position and rclfition of these communities with reference to the General Govern- ment. I know that the doctrine of States and State Rights is recog- nized in the Constitution ; but this manifestly applies to loyal States, and not to States in the attitude of war against this very Constitu- tion. You must not reason about the rights of a rebel State as you I do about one that is loyal, since the two cases are not at all parallel. How, I beg to know, can such a State exercise the right of represen- tation in Congress, when, by the terms of its own condition, it has no State officers, no Legislature, and no Governor, in the cons-feitutional sense, to supply the indispensable preliminaries of the right? The State officers themselves are traitors, administering a treasonable government over a people involved with them in this common trea- son ; and the moment they are conquered the wliole thing, ijDso/acto, collapses without any power to y^rovide for the creation of constitu- tional successors. Tliere must hence be some action of the Govern- ment restoring rebel States to their lost position, before they are in a condition to talk about their right of representation in Congress. They must be in a condition which makes them legally competent to choose a representative. I do not care whether they were tech- nically in or out of the Union during the war, whetlier they were alien enemies or merely rebellious subjects, since I am utterly un- able to see how these people can resume the relations and privileges of a loyal people, except by some governmental action to define the method, and also to say when the thing is accomplished. Being criminals, they certainly can not sit in judgment upon their own case. As belligerents vanquished in war, they must accept what the con- queror chooses to give. The case is very different from what it Avould be in a merely local insurrection, that did not carry wnth it the Avhole machinery of State Government. In this case the State communities as such, and the individuals as such, in both capacities made war on this nation; and, although they did not cancel their obligations, they did nevertheless forfeit their rights under the Con- stitution wliich they were seeking to destroy. All this clamor about the right of representation in behalf of rebel communities, entirely overlooks the crime of treason laid to their charge. The doctrine of State Rights, such as even rebellion itself can not susj^end, disturb, or forfeit, such too as may spring into active exerqise at any moment when the rebels choose to have it so, may suit the pupils of John C. Calhoun ; but at the bar of common-sense it is a pure fiction, having not the slightest foundation in truth. It just plays its metaphysical antics Avith the word State, as if the State had a political being dis- tinct from the people that compose it, as if the State could be loyal and retain its rights as such when the people themselves are traitors. I hear an objection just here, coming from the lips of one who affirms that the President has changed the whole status of the ques- tion by his own action. Yes, I know he assumes to have done this. He assumes to have created loyal States out of those Avhich were rebel, and which being thus created, are now entitled to be repre- sented in the National Congress. But where was his authority for doing this independently of the action of that Congress ? I will thank any man to show me the clause in the Constitution, Avhich in- vests the President with the power to erect a State Government out of any materials, constitutional and republican in its form, where none exists. It is the business of Congress to provide for this result by special legislation. I deny that the President can turn a rebel State into a loyal one in the constitutional sense, without the action of Congress ; and he certainly can not do it against the will of Con- crress. I may as well put in another thoixglit at tliis i)oint, to which I ask your attention. It seems to me that tliis proposition of uiiforfeited State Rights as a plea for immediate reconstruction, reflects quite as severely upon the action of the President as it does upon that of Con- gress. Wliat right, I beg to know, had the President to interfere with the State Rights of these rebel communities ? Did he not appoint Provisional Governors, and invest them Avith temporarj- jurisdiction over these sovereign States, and sustain them by the military power of the Government? Did he not supersede their existing State authorities? Did he not, in express contradiction of State laws, order the calling of Conventions to remodel the Constitutions of these States? Did he not require the sovereign })eople to take the oath of allegiance before they should be permitted to vote? Did he not say who should be voters, and did he not ex- clude certain classes from this privilege ? Did he not insist that the rebel States should repudiate the rebel debt, revoke their ordinances of secession, and adopt the constitutional amendment abolishingt slavery, as conditions to be complied with before they could ex- pect to be represented in the National Legislature ? These acts of the President are matters of history. If he had done the same things in the loyal State of New- York, the people would have cried out in rage ; and the Congress of the nation would have at once impeached him. It seems then that there is a difference, by the President's own showing, between a loyal State and a rebel State. The two do not stand on the same basis of political rights and privileges. How liappens it then that the President condemns Congress for adopting a theory on this subject, of which he himself has given the example? The argument against Congress, as drawn from the so-called rights of the rebel States, falls with verj^ poor grace from the lips of those who indorse the President. It condemns every thing that the Presi- dent lias done from top to bottom. It is an utterly lalse argument ; but if it be good^ then the President is certainly wrong in all that he has done. If it be good, then he had no more right than Con- gress to interfere with the rebel States, and esjoecially to prescribe to them conditions of representation. It was their bixsiness to re- organize themselves, and fill the vacant seats in Congress at their own pleasure, and with just the men that suited them best. I advise those who denounce Congress to do one of two things — either accej^t this consequence of the principle from which they reason, or apply the same denunciation to the President. If Congress be guilty, then the President is equally guilty. I FIND, IN THE FOUETU PLACE, THAT THE FRUITS ATTENDANT UPON THE THEORY OF IMMEDIATE RECONSTRUCTION, AS THUS PAR DEVE- LOPED, SIIOAV IT TO BE ESSENTIALLY DEFECTIVE. It is a faCt SO UO- torious as to admit of no dispute, that the Senators and Representa- tives from the rebel States chosen under this policy were, for the most i)art, men who, within less than the period of a year, had occu- pied oflicial positions, civil or military, in conducting a Avar of trea- son against the life of this nation — men Avho could not take the test- oath Avithout perjury — men Avho submitted to the national autliority simply because they' could not help themselves — men Avho would • have been in their graves if the criminal laAVS of the country had been executed upon them ; yet Avho appeared in Washington to take 9. part in the legislative counsels of the nation. This is a stavtliiig fact in the very outset of the question, not a very flattering commenlary, one would think, upon the policy under Avhich it occurs. Was the like ever heard of before? True, these men had accepted the situa- tion as it is called, just as an infidel consents to die when the Provi- dence of God forbids him to live. The thing looks bad. It looks as if there were a screw loose somewhere. I for one did not go in for putting down the Rebellion, and then setting up distinguished trai- tors in official authority at such short notice. A reconstruction tliat carries along with it this consequence, is too immediate for my pur- poses. It startles nie by the rapidity of the work. It places men in the halls of Congress, who as richly deserve hanging as any men that ever died on the gallows. It runs directly against all the prin- ciples and convictions, which governed the loyal ])eople in their efforts to put down the rebellion. The distinguished author of the Cleveland Letter may view it as very magnanimous — a genuine feast of brotherly love — yet I must say that I am not yet quite prepared for such a feast. It is equally a fact, as shown by sworn evidence, that the rebel States themselves, as reconstructed under the policy of the President, are not in a fit condition to enjoy the right of representation in Con- gress. Congress took pains to examine this question of fact, appoint- ing a special committee for this purpose. The report of that com- mittee sets forth the following conclusions on the basis of testimony from the lips of hundreds of competent witnesses: " 1. The evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal Union, and an equally intense love for the late Confederacy, nurtm-ed by the war, is decisive. " 2. The ruling motive for their submission, for a time at least, to the Federal authority, js to obtain the advantages of a representation in Congress. " 3. Without the protection of United States troops, Union men, whether of Northern or Southern origin, Avould be obliged to abandon their homes; and they arc everywhere bitterly and relentlessly per- secuted. " 4. The conciliatory measui*es of the Government have not been met half-way; but, on the contrary, the bitterness and defiance exhibited toward the United States, are without a parallel in the history of the world. In return for leniency we receive only an insult- ing denial of our authority. The crime we have punished, they parade as a virtue ; and the principles of Republican Government Ave have vindicated at so terrible a cost, are denounced as unjust and oppressive. " 5. They would pay no taxes levied by the United States except xipon compulsion ; and they would, if they should see a prospect of success, repudiate the national debt. " 6. Their own Southern press, without any material exceptions, defends the men who led, and the principles which incited, the Rebel- lion, and calls npon the President to violate his oath of office, over- turn the Government by force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress. " 7. At festivals and in public demonstrations in henor of the Re- bellion, they openly insult and scoft"at the national banner. 10 " 8, They elect to their most important offices those of tlieir un- pardoned Rebel chiefs avIio. violated their oaths and abandoned their flao" and in some instances their selection to office of their chief mm-derers has been so shameless that even the President, 'at one time, would not permit them to enter upon their official duties." This statement of the conclusions to which the Committee on Re- construction arrived, I take from a recent speech of Judge Shellabar- crcv of Ohio. They are conclusions resting on sworn testimony, I do not say that such facts are wholly due to the President's policy, but that they exist under it, and are not prevented by it. . The grant- ing of pardons to traitors by the Avholcsale is well calculated to im- press the Southern people with the idea that the Government is not, after all, very much opposed to such things. I insist that political communities thus marked ought not to enjoy the right of representa- tion in Congress. It looks very much as if they wanted reconstruct- ing again. As now reconstructed, infamous traitors are in power at the South; they hold the State offices, and enact and execute the State laws ; they are the men who, under the President's policy, ask for seats in Congress ; and Union men, who never bowed the knee to Baal, are persecuted, and in many instances, as at NeAV-Orleans and elsewhere, murdered for their loyalty. Treason is the passport to favor, and loyalty during the war the badge of proscription and dis- honor. The greater the traitor, the better the man. This, I confess, seems to me a queer kind of reconstruction. It is a very singular w^ay of making treason " odious." You have, perhaps, read the Address to the American people issued by the Second Convention held at Philadelphia, differing in very many respects from the First Convention held in the same city, and parti- cularly in the fact that it was composed exclusively of loyal Soutli- erners, many of whom had to be secretly appointed in order to escape the hand of violence. These loyal Southerners draw up a most ter- rible indictment of facts against the course pursued by the President. They set forth their own condition as the tried friends of this Govern- ment, and because they are such, and were such in the darkest days of the struggle. Tliey tell us, too, of the unprotected condition of the Freedmen. They are credible witnesses. They have lived in the midst of the scenes they describe. Bitterly, justly, yea, im- ploringly, do they complain that Union men at the South should, in the hour of national triumph, be left unprotected by this Government. They declare the policy of the President to be their curse and their ruin, I believe their Avords. I will believe such men much sooner than I would believe unrepentant rebels, especially when the facts that from time to time reach the public ear, exactly correspond with the testimony. There is no getting rid of the main facts. There they are. They stare you right in the face. Tell me not to be silent. I have a duty to perform, and you have, and I pray God that you may perform it. I have no faith in the loyalty of those who persecute loyalty, while they load treason with their choicest honors. I have no faith in a public sentiment like that which now prevails in these rebel States. The majority of the people, abusing the mistaken leniency of tlie Government, are to-day as trea- sonable in ihc[Yfecli7i(/s, and would, if they could, be as treasonable in their actionj as they were at any time during the war. I am not 11 so anxious for immccriate reconstruction that I will consent to take these people upon tlic conditions projjosed by tlie President. I pre- fer to try again, and, if necessary, I prefer to fight again, I insist that it is the duty of this nation to make treason odious and loyalty honorable. I insist, in tlie hmguage Avhich the President himself once employed, that traitors shall take the back seats and loyal men the front seats. And then in respect to the Freedmen, never with my consent shall they be left where they would be left, if Ave were to close up this question according to the policy in question. They fought for us and they fought with us ; they were our friends when we wanted friends and were very glad to welcome their services ; and now to remit them to the tender mercies of our former enemies and their former oppressors, Avith no legal care for their interests, with no guaranteed equality before the law, Avith the liability to be virtually reenslaved by State laws regulating labor, Avould be an act of treachery and ingratitude well Avorthy of the curse of Heaven. The moral sense of the Avorld Avould cry out against us, if Ave Avere to do this thing. This people are poAverless to protect themselves ; they Avant our help ; and Ave are in covenant before God to afford the help. AVe are bound to be true to the men that were true to us. Shame on this nation, if Ave should noAV break faith Avith these allies sought and ac- cepted in the hour of our agony ! History Avould scoff at us forever. It seems to me, in the fifth place, that immediate eecox- structiok on the basis proposed, would leave the avay open FOR FUTURE EVILS OF THE VERY GRAA'EST CHARACTER. Let US Stop a moment, and see Avhereunto this thing is likely to grow. Grant to these rebel States representation in Congress, just as they are Avitli- out any additional restraints or guarantees; and I believe that you wall sow the seeds of evil for many generations to come. Let me state to you some of the as2)ects of tliis peril. In the first place, the men Avho led the public mind of the South during the Avar, Avould very speedily find their places in the halls of Congress. Nothing can Avell be more certain than this. They are representatiA'e men, such men as the Southern people delight to hon- or ; and to admit them to their seats, you must of course repeal the test-oath. You Avill have jierjured traitors creejiing back into Con- gress, or rather entering that body Avith flying colors. In the second place, the number of these Southern Representatives would be A^ery considerably increased, at the next apportionment, by the abolition of slaA'ery, since all the colored people, though not enfranchised, Avould be counted in fixing the ratio of Southern Re])- resentation. This Avould add to the future political poAver of the States Ave have conquered. They Avould in this respect be actual gainers by the rebellion. In the third place, the Southern Senatoi's and Representatives in Congress Avould be A'ery certain to be united on all questions incident to the rebellion. They Avould represent Southern ideas and Southern interests, and make Southern demands. They AA'ould offer themselves as a compact body to any political party at the North, that Avould accept their services on condition of adequate payment to them. They Avould be in the Northern market to be bought at their own price. There Avould also be a Northern party ready to pay the 12 very higlicst i)rice which it dare pay, for the sake of securinpr the lananimous vote of the South ; and it is not at all insupposahle, or even inii)rol)ahle, that this party, strengthened by the united suj)- port of tlie South, might gain the control of the National Govern- ment, It was by just this conjunction of things tliat the South prac- tically ruled the country before the Ilebellion ; and by a similar con- junction it might do the same thing again. Now take these three elements and place them in the political prob- lem of the future, if we restore the rebel States with no guarantees for that future ; and what are some of the questions almost certain to be involved in that problem ? There is the National debt con- tracted to pay the expenses of whipping the Rebellion, not very wel- come to a people whom we have conquered. There is also the rebel debt, worthless now, yet capable of being assumed in whole or in part, and which the bondholders, mostly Southern men, would doubt- less be very glad to have the Government assvmie, paying a large bonus for votes in the way of bribes. There is again the question of compensation for the forced emancipation of slaves, in wliich their former masters have a great pecuniary interest. There is also the system of Pension laws adopted as a testimonial of the nation's grat- itude to the soldier and the sailor ; and it would unquestionably be very agreeable to the South to have the Confederate soldiers and sailors'placed on the Pension list. And besides all this, there is the question, already mooted, whether the legislation of Congress, dur- in**" the absence of these Rebels from their seats, is to be deemed valid. The President himself has put in the entering wedge of this idea, in two of his veto messages, by assigning it as one of the rea- sons for his veto. I do not suppose that he actually meant to raise this question ; but he has certainly opened the way for some one else to raise it. And still further, there is the question whether slavery itself has been constitutionally abolished, since it may be said, yea, it has been said, that the Conventions called by the President in the rebel States were nothing but illegal and revolutionary bodies, having no right to organize a State Government, or vote upon a constitutional amendment, or to do any thing else legally binding on the people. I am no alarmist ; but I give you my opinion that, if we settle tlie account with the rebel States in the way proposed, it will not be many years before some of these questions will be launched upon the dangerous seas of sectional strife and party politics. The door would be left wide open for them. You would hear of those questions in Congress ; and you Avould find the rebel States marching in solid column in one direction, ready to ally themselves with those who would favor their views. Now I want something safer and stronger than the proposed theory of Immediate Reconstruction — something more radical than what seems to me a mere system of patchwork. I want to carry these questions, so far as the thing can be done, be- yond the reach of ])olitical parties. I do not want them to be left to any system of bargain and sale among those who make a trade of politics. I want, if possible, so to rig the ship now that she will probably sail safely through the future excitements of the public anind. It has cost a vast outlay of treasure and blood to save this nation ; and the men wlio have saved it, and not those who sought 13 its life, are the proper persons to fix the terms of final settlement. It becoiucs the liebels to be exceedingly modest, and wait patiently, while patriots sit in counsel on this question. I OBSERVIi; FINALLY, THAT THIS THEORY OF IMIMEDIATE EECON- STRUCTION IS SINGULARLY EMBARRASSED BY BOTH ITS ADVOCATES AND ITS OPPONENTS. I grant most cheerfully, that among its supporters are a great many patriotic and true men, whose lionestjr it is not for me to question. Yet among these supporters I find — and this is the thing which staggers me — all the Southern rebels and traitors — all the Korthern sympathizers with the Rebellion — all the men who de- nounced, the Avar, and did what they could to embarrass the (Tovern- ment in its prosecution — all the fault-finders and grumblers against Mr. Lincoln. All these classes seem to be exactly suited with this policy. This I look upon as a very sus])icious circumstance in the case. It gives me the impression that there must be something not quite right about it, and hence that the true men who favor it are honestly making a mistake. When such a mau as General Forrest, who murdered our troops at Fort Pillow, and others of like character, advocate a plan of reconstruction for the rebel States, I think it quite time for loyal people to open their eyes, and carefully examine the plan. I feel quite confident that what is so universally pleasing to traitors, can not be the thing which the nation wants and ouglit to have. When traitors shout for an idea, I shall look very thouglitfully before I shout. If we both shout, then one or the other of us must be wonderfully deceived. On the other hand, I find among the opponents of this theory the great body of the loyal people, who during the war were as true as steel, who supported the administration of Mr. Lincoln, and in 1864 reelected him with overwhelming triumph. They do not agree with the President in his present policy. He does not at all represent their views. As to the position of the Army and the Navy, I think that the recent Convention of soldiers and sailors at Pittsburg shows which way the current is drifting with the men who fought and bled for their country. That was a very different Convention from the one to which General Forrest found it convenient to send a telegram of greeting. The Congress of the nation has also by a very large majority taken its ground. It is quite possible, yea, I think it more than ])robable, that there may be as much wisdom in the two Houses of Congress, as in the best views of any single man, however elevated in official position, or penetrating in his sagacity. When you turn to the loyal men of the South, the men who opposed treason during the war, you find them unanimous in. most earnestly condemning the policy of the President. So far as the people have had an o]>j:)ortunity to speak through the ballot-box, no man can doubt as to Avhat they think. The judgment of Maine and Vermont is already upon the record, and soon other States will be heard. The President must see, he can not but see, that his policy does not represent the views of those Avhose A'otes placed him in power. This great and rising excitement of the public mind results from an antagonism between the policy of the President and the judgment of a large portion of the people. Nothing is more evident than that the President to-day occu})ies a position, in reference to the people, widely ditlerent from the one he occupied when he Avas sworn into oftice. lie is now 14 praised by those who but yesterday denounced him, and now opposed by the men who sincerely hoped, and some of them prayed, that the mantle of the martyred Lincoln might fall upon his shoulders. We hear no more from his lips about making treason " odious." The whole tone and temper and drift of the President's mind have been changed. There is no doubt of the fact. He may be perfectly honest in all this — far be it from me to say that he is not ; yet of the fact there can be no doubt. My conclusion from this line of argument is, that the policy of Immediate Reconstruction as inaugurated by the President, ought not to go into eifect. With the President as a man, as a citizen, I have nothing to do in this discussion. I simply deal with him as a public officer, whose official acts are before the people for review. Of these I have spoken freely, without epithet, without passion. I meant to do so; and if I have done so, then I have done the very thing I meant to do. I want the outstanding questions of this Rebel- lion settled as speedily as possible ; yet I should regard it as a very dark day for this country, if they were settled according to the pro- gramme given us by the President. In my judgment we should be in great danger of losing nearly all the benefits Ave supposed we had gained at the terrible price of victorious Avar. We should leave the country in a condition for endless agitation, even if Ave did not have to fight the Avliole battle over again. Let us settle this thing right if possible ; and then it Avill stay right Avhen we are sleeping in the grave. C ONSTITUTI ON AL EEC OXSTRUCTI ON . The Congress of the United States has expressed its opinion upon the problem of Reconstruction by j^roposing to the people an amend- ment to the Constitution, and inserting in that amendment certain proA'isions groAving out of, and having reference to, the question. It is the judgment of Congress that the Constitution should be altered in several respects, properly to meet the exigencies of the case ; and as to the nature of the proposed alterations, I shall speak to you freely in the sequel of this discourse. It is a good Constitution ; yet the fathers Avho framed it, and the people Avho adopted it, did not then see and feel Avhat Ave have seen and felt in this age. It is fair to suppose that Ave in this age are better prepared to judge as to Avhat the country noAV Avants, than the men Avho lived three quarters of a century since. We do not disparage their Avisdom in thinking that we can improve the National Charter Avhich came from their hands. In submitting this amendment to the people. Congress assumes its OAvn poAvcr of action in the case. It certainly has pOAver to propose amendments to the Constitution. This no one Avill dispute. Each House of Congress is also the judge of the qualifications of its OAvn members. And, moreover, as I have already shoAvn, this question of restoring rebellious communities to their forfeited privileges belongs )>roperly to the Congress of the United States. The question mani- festly is one Avhich should be settled by law, and according to laAV ; and in Congress, and not the President, are vested the law-making- powers of this Governuient, alike in peace and Avar. The President virtually says that he is the sole judge in the case. No, says Con- 15 gi'css, this subject belongs more properly to the legislative depart- ment of the Government; and it is, moreover, one of so much im- portance tliat it is best to incorporate the principles of the settlement in the fundamental law of the land. You perceive also that Congi-ess solicits the public judgment upon this whole question. The policy of the President would settle it at once by executive authority without taking the sense of the people. The policy of Congress refers the Avhole matter to the sovereign people by asking them to amend the Constitution of the country. The policy of the President would be virtually a snap-judgment, while that of Congress gives the fullest opportunity for the most careful deliberation. Keep in mind, too, if you please, that Congress does not propose to disturb or nullify what the President has done, but simply to make some additions thereto. It charges upon the President no usurpation ; it takes tlie case just where he leaves it, without reversing a single one of his acts, and merely adds what it deems necessary to a safe and prudent solution of the problem. It has always seemed strange to me, that eitlier the President or anybody else should attack the Congress of the United States for so doing. The severe denunciations of Congress tailing from the lips of the President during his late tour, filled me with surprise. I read his speeches Avith amazement. That whole tour, in the conduct of its principal actor, was a most astounding spectacle. The question has been asked, and it deserves an answer, What connection is there between the proposed amendment of the Consti- tution and the restoration of the rebel States to their former position in the Union? Suppose the amendment to be adopted: what then? Would Congress admit Senators and Representatives from these rebel States ? I answer, Yes, of course, provided they complied with the principles of what would then be the Constitution of the United States. The object of the amendment is to open the way for this result. Its adoption would be at once followed by wliatever legislation might be necessary to this end. The Thirty-ninth Congress was even more lib- eral than this, since it admited the Senators and Representatives from Tennessee upon its oion adoption of the amendment, without waiting to see whether it would be ratified by a sufficient number of States. That may have been Avise in the case of Tennessee ; perhaps it was politic as an answer to the slanders which have been heaped upon Congress ; yet I have very strong doubts as to its expediency. I Avould not repeat the thing in the case of a single other State. I would wait till the amendment is actually adopted by the requisite vote before acting upon the theory which it sets forth. It will be quite seasonable to act upon the principles contained in this amend- ment, when they become a part of the constitutional law of the land. Having stated these preliminaries, I shall now call your attention to the amendment itself, section by section. (section I.) " All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of 16 tlie United States; nor phall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or })roperty without due process of law, nor deny to any per- son within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This section, if adopted, settles the question which the Constitution as it now exists, does not, settle, as to loho are citizens of the United States, and also of the State in which they reside. Citizens, in this sense, will then he " all persons born or naturalized in the United. States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The citizen of the United States wilKof necessity be a citizen of the State in Avhich he resides, since the same terms of citizenship apply equally to both. Is there any valid objection to this doctrine V Ought not the Consti- tution of a Republican Government definitely to fix the meaning of this Avord, citizen f Ought not the word to have the same meaning throughout the whole country ? Ought not a citizen of the State to be also a citizen of the United States, and ought not a citizen of the United States to be equally a citizen of the State in which he resides? And, moreover, are not " all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," the proper persons to be citizens in this broad sense ? It is enough to ask these questions, since they answer themselves. This clause of the section 'carries upon its very face its own demonstration. No one can oppose it without at the same time opposing the fundamental principles of a Republican Government, coming irom the whole people, and existing for the ichole people. As to what are termed civil rights, it is de- signed to place all the people on the same basis of equality before the laws. This is manifestly just. And to guard this point Avith the greatest possible care, the section, in three 2)rohibitory clauses, im- poses such a restraint upon all State legislation as would interfere with the equal civil rights of every citizen in each and every State. This prohibition is virtually im})lied in the first clause of the section, yet it was thought best to j»ut it in express language. No one who is a believer in the doctrine of equal civil rights will object to the restriction. Allegiance and protection are correlative obligations. The Government that demands the former, is always bound to aftord the latter. It must protect those to whom it speaks as the subjects of law. How Avill this section aftectthe Frcedmen, those who were formerly slaves, but are slaves no longer? I answer, just as it will afiect all other men. It will recognize them as citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside, and will afford to them pre- cisely the same protection which it afibrds to white men, no more and no less. While it does not determine the question of political franchise, and was not designed to do so, it does guarantee to all citizens the equal enjoyment of their civil rights. It knows nothing about the color of a man's skin. It precludes all class legislation. It makes it inq^ossible for the State to have one set of laws for the civil rights of white men, and another set for black men. The laws must be equal by affording the same protection to all. As was very hai)pily said by the I Ton. Horace INlaynard, like the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, it speaks to men, and of them, simply as men. As to personal and civil rights, it meets all the v\-ants of the colored population, both North and South, by simply ignoring this question of color. As I liave no doubt, it Avas the special intention of Congress, in proposing this section, to secure a proper protection to tlie colored people of the Southern States, to make their freedom a fact, and render it impossible to evade this fact by any system of partial and unjust legislation. This ought to be done, and it ought to be done now, rather than at some future day. It is riglit noio, and it is a duty noio. The faith of the nation is pledged to this result. The people ought not to consent to any plan of reconstruction which leaves this question unsettled, especially when we remember that the colored people as yet have no voice at the South in the election of those who enact and execute the State laws. I am not willing to commit their fate to their former masters in this unprotected condition. In the present temper of the South, I should greatly fear that State laws in relation to testimony, contract, labor, property, vagrancy, and appi-enticeship, enacted with special reference to the Freedmen, would virtually reproduce the system of slavery. Every man knows that slavery has not been abolished with the good-will of a majority of the people at the South. It was a matter of compulsion rather than of choice. Southern public sentiment has undergone no essen- tial change on this subject. It is to-day just what it has been for years past. Hence I am not willing to leave the way open for the legal expression of that sentiment against the civil rights of the Freedmen. I know that we have been earnestly exhorted from a very distinguislied source to trust the South on this subject, es2)ecially as this is a progressive age in which some progressive men strangely take the back-track ; yet my common-sense has taught me that when I trust, I should have sufficient reasons for so doing. I do not in this case see the reasons, and this is my difficulty with the trust. I do not propose to be deceived on this point. I want to fix things " right first, and then trust afterward. Give me this section of the amendment, and an honest Congress, and a faithful Executive, and then I am ready for the trusting theoiy. (SECTIOJf II.) ■ " Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States ac- cording to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But wjieu the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial Officers of a State, or the Members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any Avay abridged except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in tlie pro- l^ortion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State." In my comments on this section I grant, in the outset, that the policy here proposed, is not all that I think would be perfectly proper and just. I believe that the Constitution of the United States ought to define a citizen in the political S'^n^io, and that the definition should be placed on the broad principle of 'impartial suffrage. I have never been al)le to see why a colored man should be politically disfranchised for a reason not equally applicable to white men. If he may be 18 taxed to support the Government, and may be compelled to fight for it, then, like all other men, he ought to have a voice in the clioice of those Avho make and execute the laws. He has in the question all the interests and rights which belong to Avhite men ; and why should he not have the same privileges? If you have a test, whether of in- telligence or property, then apply it impartially to all. If you have no test, then let all vote. This has always been my doctrine. I have always voted for it Avhenever I had the opportunity of doing so ; and I think I always shall. The loyal Union men of the South are now demanding Negro suifrage as necessary for their own protection. This may be a reason with them for the demand ; it may be too a good reason; but it is very far from being the highest reason. The })lain and obvious justice of the thing is the true reason for impartial suflVage. The New-York Tribune has set forth universal amnesty and impartial suffrage, as being the truest doctrine for the political exigencies of the hour. I am not able to see that these two prin- ciples have any necessary connection with each other. As has been well said by another, they may both be right, or they may both be wrong, or one may be right and the other wrong. I am not in favor of tmiversal amnesty to all traitors upon any basis, any more than I am in fivor of universal amnesty to all murderers ; but I am in favor of impartial suftrage upon its own merits. And if Congress had seen fit to submit this specitic question to the people, I should have given it my earnest support. Congress has not done so ; and hence with this brief statement of my opinions, I shall proceed to consider the point that is before us in the second section of the proposed amend- ment. You perceive at once that population in the respective States is ' made the basis of representation in the lower Hoiiso of Congress' ; not the voting population, but the wAo^e population, including (//^persons with the exception of Indians not taxed, and of course including those who were formerly held as slaves, and who during the period of slavery were counted in the basis in the proportion of three fifths of their whole number. Slavery being abolished, this three fifths rule of course is at an end ; and noAV it is proposed to count all the people, black and white alike. The South, I presume, Avill not com- plain of this part of the section. The white people of the South will be entirely willing to count the blacks in estimating their represen- tative population, since by so doing they add to the number of their Representatives in Congress. There is no reason why the North should object to the principle, provided it be consistently carried out in good fjiith. You will observe too, that this section does not decide as to " the male inhabitants" who shall in fact constitute the voting population of a State. It leaves this question, where it always has been left, with the respective States, to bo determined by State Constitutions or State Legislation. It does not disturb the old practice on this subject. This particular point will of course excite no debate. Con- gress assumed that tiie country was abundantly satisfied with the tiling as it is, and hence proposed no change. The real point Avhere the pinch comes, and about which the con- troversy will gather its forces, is the proposed reduction in the number of representatives from any State that shall see fit to place 19 any class of its male inlialntants,' being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, and not gnilty of rebellion or other crime, in the list of a non-votinfi population, whether in respect to State officers or those of the Federal Government. The section says that if any State shall exclude any class of persons from the voting ])rivilege, then the class so excluded, shall not be counted in estimat- ing the number of Representatives in Congress to which that State is entitled. This is the principle set forth ; and just here is the difficulty, if there be any, with this section. As an abstract proposition dissevered from any special relations, I think it simply just and fair. It secures a just and equal representa- tion in Congress among all the States. It puts them all on the same foundation. While it does not forbid the States to exercise the power of " denying the election franchise to a part of their people," it nevertheless insists " that the political weight of each State in the House of Representatives shall be measured by and based upon its enfranchised population. If any State shall choose, I'or no crime, to deny political rights to any race or caste, it must no longer count that race or caste as a basis of political power in the Union." Leaving this voting question with tlie State, and being 2>erfectly just to all the States considered in their relation to each other, tliis section in its moral effect supplies a motive against the formation of political oligarchies in the State. It fosters, and to some extent guarantees, the democratic principle. Apply the theory to Irishmen, if you please. It says, that if the State of New- York shall deny the elective franchise to Irishmen, then Irishmen shall not be counted in estimat- ing the political weight of this State in the Union, and thus furnishes a motive in favor of the political rights and privileges of this class of men. Is there any objection to the principle when applied to Irish- men ? I suppose not ; and yet I presume that hundreds and thousands of them will vote against it. Ah ! but, says the objector, there is a negro in this question. Well, suppose there is, what of that ? Are you going to forsake a good principle because it may have some bearing upon the question of negro suffrage, especially in the Southern States ? Let us look at the case a moment. There are now no slaves at the South. Tlie people are all free by law. The population of the ten States not yet represented in Congress is, in round numbers, about four millions and a half of white jicople, and about three millions and a half of black people. In some of these States the blacks are the most nu- merous. Now, if these States deny the elective franchise to the blacks, and yet are permitted to count them in the basis of their rep- resentation in the lower House of Congress, it will then follow that the voters of a white population of four millions and a half will, for the purpose of choosing President and Vice-President and Represen- tatives in Congress, wield all the political power that is granted to eight millions of people in the hitherto free States. In South-Caro- lina there are about thi-ee hundred thousand white people, and about four hundred thousand black people. And if the political franchise be limited to the Avhites, then three hundred thousand whites in South-Carolina will have as much political power in the Union as seven hundred thousand whites living in the State of New-York. A white Southern voter in the ten excluded States would be nearly 20 equal to two such voters at the North. . How do you like tliese figures? Suppose there is a negro in tlie question ; p)lease to tell ine how these figures suit you ? l)o you think it just and equal, that the South should entirely disfranchise the colored population, and yet claim for that population the right of representation in Congress, thus increasing the political power of Southern white men in the General Government ftir beyond what is due to their own number ? Will you consent to this ? I will not, if I can prevent it, I am of the opinion that a Northerner ought, in the political sense, to be at least as good as a Southerner. When I vote for the President of the United States, I do not want my vote counterbalanced by what would practically be two ballots given by a single voter in South-Carolina. I cast a single ballot, and let him do the same. I hence like the principle set forth in this section, even if there be a negro in it. I would present to the Southern States this alternative distinctly : Either grant the right of suflrage to the colored people, or acce})t the consequence of not having them counted as an element of political power to be wielded by white men. Make your choice. If you do not think this people fit to vote, then I do not think them fit to be represented. Your reasons for denying to them ])olitical rights shall be my reasons for denying to you an nnjust and disproportionate po- litical power. In reconstructing the rebel States, and adjusting the Constitution to the new condition of things, I Avould stand by this princi})le to the last. I Avould not have a politically , disfranchised popidation used as the basis of power by the very men who insist upon this state of things. We must carry the principle. If we do not, the rebel States Avill increase their political power in conse- quence of the abolition of slavery. I am, moreover, in favor of the j^rinciple as the friend of the col- oi'ed man. I can think of nothing more likely to be eftectually per- suasive with the white people of the South than this very amend- ment. It will supply a very powerful argument for enfranchising the black population. It makes negro suftVage very largely the political interest of the South. I am not sure that it is not the shortest road to the result. It is certainly good as far as it goes. It is a good thing in the right direction. Perhaps it is all tliat the public mind is prepared to receive at the present moment. Wliether it is des- tined to be the final proposition of Congress on this subject, I can not tell. It is enough for me to know that it is the present issue. Hence I take the thing as it is, as it is submitted to me, and go for it with all mj'" heart. I do so because it is just and equal as between the States theniselves ; and I do so because in my judgment it is a long step toward impartial suffrage. (section III.) " No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President or Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion 2L against the same, or given aid and coinfovt to the enemies tlievcof. But Coiigress may, by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove sucli disability." You see at a glance that the application of this section is coniined exclusively to perjured traitors — traitors who, being under oatli to support the Constitution of the United States, engaged in tlie Rebel- lion, thus adding the crime of perjury to that of treason. Tliey were office-holders, either under the State or under the General Govern- ment. In respect to this class of traitors, the section declares tliat they shall never hold any office, either State or Federal, unless the Congress of the United States, by a vote of two thirds of eacli House, shall see fit to remove this disability. The disability does not descend to their posterity; it does not affect the great body of the Southern people ; it does not destroy the political franchise of these office-liolding and perjured traitors ; it does not confiscate their property or in any way touch their civil rights ; but it does declare that, having violated their oath of office in the commission ot treason, they shall not again be eligible to office, unless Congress, by the requisite vote, shall judge it best to restore to them tliis priv- ilege. Such is the substance, and such the ai)plication of this sec- tion. Now it strikes me that the disability imposed aims at the men upon whom rests the chief guilt of the Rebellion. These perjured traitors Avere.unquestionably the great plotters of this treason. But for them it would never have occurred. Tlicy were the traitors in office ; and they took advantage of their official position to com- mit treason against the United States. I hold that such men ought to be disqualified for holding office, either State or Federal. They embarked in this treason with forethought ; they plamied it ; tliey knew Avhat they were doing ; and then they pursued the work till their power Avas subverted at an enormous sacrifice to the Govern- ment. As individuals, they forfeited all their rights, and rendered themselves justly amenable to the punishment of death. They ought to be truly grateful to the American people for permitting tliem to enjoy any rights, yea, for permitting them to live under a gOA^ern- ment Avhich they did their utmost to destroy. In any other country no such clemency Avould be practiced toAvard such oftenders. In any other country they Avould have met the stern and j)rompt retribu- tion of confiscation for some, banishment for others, and caj)ital pun- ishment for still others. The ])roposition contained in tliis section is exceedingly mild and lenient. It falls immensely sliort of tlie offense. If there be any good objection to it, it is on tlie ground of its mildness. It moreover places these ofienders on their good behavior in the future. If they shall prove their repentance by showing a truly loyal state of mind tOAvard the GoA^ernment, then there is a provision for removing the disability ; and thus mercy is mingled Avith justice. The President once told us that Ave must make treason " odious." He told us that mercy to the traitor Avas cruelty to the State. We believed his Avords, and thouglit tliat he meant to carry them into ettect. Sadly disappointed in the President, and finding that his plan of reconstruction makes treason honorable and loyally odious at the South, we turn to this specific measure of Congress, Avhicli, if 22 adopted, will place in the fiindainentnl la.w of the land a mark on the traitor. Let me add that this measure is needed for the future safety of the country. So far as I can judge, these perjured, office-holding traitors exhibit no sense of the crime they have committed. They have simply been defeated. By a thousand signs they show them- selves to be to-day the same men that they Avere during the war. They are unrepentant and audacioias Rebels, claiming to have been injured, declaring that they Avere simply fighting for their rights, and even demanding as a right under the Constitution the privilege of sitting in Congress, or holding any other office in the gift of the people, just as if they had been peaceful and laAV-abiding citizens. Now shall we permit such men — men Avith such antecedents — men in such a temper — men to conquer Avhom the nation has poured forth torrents of its choicest blood — I say, shall Ave permit such men to resume office, and thus be placed in positions of power ? I say cmpliatically, No. I do not think it safe for the country. Let these official traitors " take the back-seats ;" and then let them stay there till an outraged GoA'ernment shall at least have time to take a very good observation of them. I do not Avant to see your Lees, your Johnstons, your Beauregards, your Hoods, your Forrests, your Ste- phens, your Breckinridges, your Slidells, your Masons, your Hunters, your men of this cast, Avalking into the halls of Congress, or any other halls of official power. It Avill be safe to have these men stand back for a Avhile. Let them Avait till we can see how things are Avorking. But the South Avill never consent to this, says the objector. The Southern people are a chivalrous people, and they Avill never permit such a mark of humiliation and disgrace to be placed upon their leaders. I reply, that if the constitutional majority shall pass this section, it Avill then be the supreme laAV of the land, and the South Avill have to consent to it ; and further, that if the Southern people attempt to resist it by force, then the Government Avill simply give them another disj^ensation of military poAver, I do not i>ropose to ask traitors as to Avhat they Avill give their consent to, Avhen decid- ing Avhat it is best to do in respect to them. As to the bluster of traitors, I have long since cured myself of any special timidities. The truly loyal men of the South are not offended Avith the measure. They like it, and Avould like something much more SAveeping and radical. But again, the Southern people in their present temper will elect no men to office except those Avho would be excluded by this section. Very Avell ; if they choose to do so, then let them do so. If they can stand it, I can ; if they are so in love Avith treason that they must and Avill have perjured traitors to administer State Govern- ment for them, and represent them in Congress, or haA'e no officers of hxAV, then let them try the experiment, and take the consequences. I do not propose to go out of my Avay for the sake of accommodat- ing such men or such communities. But, once more, if you exclude this ctass you Avill leave no men in the community fit to hold office. You shut off all the great men of the Soutli, the representative men, the men of brains. Not quite, in my judgment. There are at least a fcAV such men as Horace May- 23 narcl at the Soutli ; and I think tliat, upon a pincli, cnouc^li of these men could be found to do all the necessary Avork of lioldhig office. There are also very many men at the South who, thougli guilty of treason, are nevertheless not perjured traitors — men too of very de- cent intelligence ; and I presume that the Southern people could till all the offices with this class of men, even if they did not like the Horace Maynards, and men of his stamp. If Avorst came to worst, then let them go down to the bottom of society and take common men for the service. They probably would not lose much by doing it. I see no difficulty here that can not very easily be surmounted. A daily Paper in the city of Xew-York, and cf well-known pro- clivities, has urged that this section of the amendment, even if passed, would be unconstitutional, since it would be virtually an " ex-post facto law," by making the law and assigning the penalty after the crime was committed. Whether a lawyer wrote that edi- torial or not, I can not tell ; but when I read the article, I thought that the writer was prodigiously in want of an objection. It is true that the Constitution as it now reads, and as it will read, says, that " no bill of attainder or ex-post facto law shall be passed." Passed by lohom, ? By the Congress of the United States. This clause is simply a restraint upon the legislative powers of Congress. Is it any restraint iipon the people in respect to their power of amending the Constitution in the way provided for by the very instrument itself? Not at all. The people may, if they choose, strike out this clause al- together. The Constitution itself simply provides for an amendment, bxit does not lay down any law as to what that amendment shall be or shall not be. This is always left with the people. Hence to re- sort to the Constitution to prove the unconstitutionality of an amend- ment constitutionally passed, is really one of those wonders of tran- scendental logic which it was reserved for this age to supply. I am sure that there was no such reasoning in old times. N.ewspapers had not then reached the higher grades of editorial championship. I think I shall not quit the principle for this reason, especially when I remember that a constitutional provision, making a certain class of men ineligible to office, is not in the nature of an ex-post facto law at all. It does not arrest them for trial, or invade their personal lib- erty, but, for reasons of which the people are comj^etent to j'udge, simply imposes a disability to hold office. Have not the people the right to determine such a question, and so amend the Constitution as to make it express their judgment ? I think they have, notwith- standing the learned opinion of the New-York editor. (SECTIOX IV.) " The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for suppressing insurrection and rebellion, shall not be ques- tioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation inciirred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of slaves ; but all such debts, obligations, or claims, shall be held illegal and void." The wisdom of this section is upon its very f:\ce. It makes sacred the National debt. ' It also makes it constitutionally impossible for 24 the General Government or any of tlie States to assume or pay any j)ortion of the rebel debt. It is quite enough for the people to pay the expenses of conquering treason Avithout being taxed with the expenses of the treason. The usurped authorities of the rebel States were treasonable during the war; and surely you would not consent that loyal State Governments, when organized at the South, should tax the people to jiay the debts contracted by traitors in power. Nor do you propose to pay the rebel masters for their emancipated slaves. The loss to them, I know, is very great ; but those who perpetrate treason must bear the consequences. They took upon themselves this liability, and have no one to complain of but tiiemselves. These vital points are, by this section, so determin- ed as to place them beyond the reach of politics. The section is ob- viously a good one. It is just Avhat ought to be incorporated in a plan of reconstruction, whose object is to restore to their political privileges and powers the very communities out of whose treasonable conduct have grown these questions. These questions ought to be settled vihen we are restoring them, so as to put them beyond the reach of debate after they are restored. No one, I presume, at the North will urge any objection to the natm-e of the settlement as here proposed. If any one has objections, he will, as I imagine, keep them for private use, since they will not j^ay for being published. The bondholders of the rebel debt and the ex-masters of course Avill not like this section ; it does not move in the line of their interests ; and this is a very important reason why it should be passed, so as to guard them against temptation on the one hand, and the nation against any dangerous agitation on the other. I do not want to have the Southern people tempted Avith these questions, or the nation periled by them, wlien things shall have returned to their normal condition. (section v.) " The Congress shall have power to enforce, by approjiriate legis- lation, the provisions of this Article." If the provisions be adopted, then there ought to be power somcAvhere to enforce them, by ap- propriate legislation, just so far as may be needful ; and Congress is of course the suitable body to be clothed Avith this power. You now haA^e before you the plan of Constitutional Reconstruction as submitted to the people upon the authority of Congress. My opinions of it have been expressed in the course of this analysis. I greatly prefer it to the system of Immediate Reconstruction as inau- gurated and urged by the President. His system seems to me about as defective and Avrong as any thing AA^ell can be. This I endeavored to show in the proper place. On the other hand, the plan of Congress I hold to be one of eminent Avisdom. It is exceedingly mild in its treat- ment of Rebels, proposing the very least that can be proposed in consist- ency Avith the new position of things and the future safety of the coun- try, I am sorry that the President o])poscs it. I am quite sure that in so doing he is making for both himself and the country the greatest mistake that a President of these United States ever made. What are his objections to the proposition of Congress, and Avhat are the objections of those Avho speak and Avrite on his side of the question ? That you may see the different aspects of this most important subject, 25 I propose before takiug my seat to detain you a moment witli some of these objections. OBJECTIONS. 1. It is said for the President — and though the saying is not yet liis over his own name, still it corresponds witli some things which he has said — that tlie amendment, even if passed, will not be constitu- tionally valid, because it Avas proposed by a Congress which declined to admit Senators and Representatives from the rebel States. This objection, if it has any weight or Avorth, simply denies that the Thirty- ninth Congress Avas in point of fact the Congress of the United State's. It may be a rump Congress, a " Congress so-called," " a body hanging on the A'erge of the Government ;" but it is not the Congress, It is a little too late in the day for the President to say this, or any body to say it for him, since he has already recognized this body as being \he true Congress. It Avas, moreover, chosen by the same votes that made him Vice-President. The fact that the States tliat rebelled ■ Avere not represented in this Congress, has nothing to do with the legal A'alidity of the body itself, or any of its acts. They Avere not represented in the previous Congress. By their OAvn treasonable action they made their seats in Congress vacant ; and Avhen they shall be permitted to fill these seats again, is, I conclude, a question not for them to decide, or the President to decide, but for Congress itself to decide. And the fact that Congress does not agree Avith the Presi- dent as to the time or the terms, has nothing to do Avith the legiti- macy of its organization, or the reality of its legislative poAver, The President's opinion may be entitled to respect ; but on this subject it has no authority binding upon Congress, or affecting the integrity of its constitutional being. 2. It has been suggested that Congress may not in good faith act upon the amendment even after its adoption. This supposes that Congress Avill be untrue to its OAvn proposition. A public sentiment that secures the passage of the amendment, Avill also instruct the Thirty-ninth Congress as to the Avill of the people, and at the same time elect a majority in the Fortieth Congress committed to the prin- ciples of this very amendment. This furnishes a very strong- guarantee that the plan of Constitutional Reconstruction Avill go into eftect, if the people ratify it. Congress Avill at once apply the prin- ciples of the plan by appropriate legislation ; and then the excluded States Avill have to conform thereto in order to secure their represen- tation in Congress. 3. It has been said, that if we Avait to settle this difficulty in the way propo^d, the country may be involved in the dilemma of two rival bodies, each claiming to be the true Congress — the one com- posed of the Representatives from the excluded States Avith the addition of all other Representatives Avho sympathize with the A'lews of the President, and the other composed of those Representatives Avho dissent from these vicAVS — and moreover, that the President may recognize the former as being, in reality, the Congress of the United States. This suggestion can of course haA^e no ap})lication to the present Congress, since this body is already organized, and as such has been abundantly recognized by the President himself. It is too late for tlie President to apply the idea to the Thirty-ninth Congress, even if he Avere disposed to do so. In respect to the Foi-- 26 tieth Congress, tlie one now being elected by the people, I clo not see any occasion for being specially alarmed. The suggestion is cer- tainly a very poor compliment to the President, since it supposes that, in order to carry his ends, he would launch the country into a state of revolution and civil Avar. Such an experiment would soon satisfy the President that Washington is not Paris, and tliat the American people are not Frenchmen. The people have once saved the country, and they would save it again were the President to attempt any such thing. It, moreover, takes a Senate to make a constitutional Congress ; and no man supposes that the Senate, as now organized, could be made a party to any such revolutionary transaction. And still farther, it requires a majority of all the mem- bers of each House to make a quorum ; and hence the people who elected the Thirty-ninth Congress can guard themselves against this peril in respect to the Fortieth, by simply electing, as I have no doubt they will, at least a constitutional quorum not at all in sympathy with this plan, if plan it be. They might, if they choose, ask each candi-. date beforehand, to which Congress he woiild present his credentials in the event supposed, the bogus one to be gotten up by revolution, or the Constitutional Congress organized under law and according to law. There are not many Congressional districts at the North, I should hope, not even one, that would trust a candidate for a moment if he were committed to this infamous theory of a bogus Congress. I do not impute any such idea to the President. It has been suggested as a dangerous possibility, in the first instance by a journal adopting the President's views ; and hence I speak of it. The people will not, I imagine, feel its force as an argument against Constitutional Recon- struction. It is an appeal to their fears, andAvithal a most discredit- able imputation against the President. If I were advocating his policy, I certainly would not address such an argument to the popu- lar mind. 4. It is said again, that this is not the proper time to tinker with the Constitution. First reconstruct these rebel States ; and when they are all represented in Congress, then do this work if necessary. I answer, that the present seems to me just the time to do it. The thing to be done has direct reference to the question of reconstruc- tion ; and hence, if you are going to do it at all, you must do it when the question is being decided. The time to give medicine is when the patient is sick — not before, and certainly not after, he gets well. 5. It is said also, that the States not yet represented in Congress ought to have the privilege of voting upon this amendment. In re]>ly let me say, that there is nothing in the action of Congress pro- posing the amendnient, or in the amendment itself, to prevent the Legislature of South-Carolina, or any other rebel State as recon- structed after the model of the President, from voting on this ques- tion. South-Carolina can walk arm-in-arm with Massachusetts if she chooses, just as she did at the first Philadelphia Convention. Con- gress has not said that she shall not do so, and surely the President has not said it. But is it not manifestly inconsistent to permit a State to vote upon a constitutional amendment, and yet decline to permit its Senators and Representatives to take their seats in Con- gress ? I grant that under ordinary circumstances this would be inconsistent, since the State, if competent to the one, would, ordinarily, 27 be entitled to the otiier ; yet whatever inconsistency there may he in the present case, is due to the precipitate and exceedingly hasty action of the President. The President acted as if lie meant to close np this whole question before it could be reached at all by Congress, or at least place it in such a position, as to make it exceedingly diffi- cult for Congress to reverse or in any way modify his policy. De- clining to convene Congress in a si)ecial session, he appointed Provi- sional Governors, some of Avhom had been prominent rebels ; lie organized the rebel States according to his own notions ; he then suspended the functions of these Provisional Governors, and connnitted the States to the jurisdiction of their local authorities ; he then, by proclamation, declared the Rebellion to be ended, and peace estab- lished ; he did all this without a single scrap of legislation to guide him, or warrant the action ; and iinally, when the Congress assembled in December last, he virtually said to them. Gentlemen, the problem of reconstruction is solved ; the President of the United States has solved it ; it is a thing already accomplished ; and what remains for you, is simply to admit these Senators and Representatives from the rebel States to their vacant seats in Congress. Such was the state of things Avhich the President foficed upon Congress, seemingly by design. Now, in these difficult circumstances, Avhat should Congress do ? Should it declare all the acts of the President to be null and void, and order the whole work of reconstruction to be done over again from the very beginning ? This would have been a very radical measure, and in some respects perfectly just ; yet the President had carried the case so f;xr without consulting Congress, that such a measure w\as beset with very great practical difficulties. Should Congress then accept the President's plan, and by its own action make it final with no additions thereto ? This was impossible, for the simplest and best of all reason, that Congress did not approve of it. Kot having been consulted, as it should have been, at the proper time. Congress did about the only thing it could do ; it arrested the President's plan by refusing to admit to their seats Senators and Representatives from the rebel States chosen under that plan ; it stopped the plan at this point ; and, after taking time for delibera- tion, Congress then proposed to remedy the defects of the plan through the agency of a Constitutional Amendment. Hence, if there be any inconsistency in permitting these rebel States, as organized by the President, to vote on this amendment, "vvhilc their Senators and Representatives are not permitted to take their seats in Congress, then tliat inconsistency is due to that complication of things of which the President is the sole author. It grows out of his improper action, and Avould not and could not exist at all if he had consulted Con- gress in season upon this whole subject. I suppose that neither the President nor his supporters Avill find any fault Avith Congress for leaving the amendment open to the vote of all the States. They urge it simply as a technical inconsistency, while they have no objection to the thing itself; and if it be so, then the President, himself, is responsible for this inconsistency. lie, and not Congress, has made the case out of which it springs. 6. But again, Ave are told that the amendment must fail because it will require the vote of at least tAventy-seven States to adopt it, and this can never be gained; This is merely a matter of opinion. I 28 lliink that it ■will be adopted, I have A-ery little doubt of it. At any rate, I proi^ose to make a thorough trial of the question. The Eastern, Western and Middle States will probably vote for the amendment Avithout a solitary exception; and this will almost carry it. When the Southern States discover that this amendment is the very least that the country will accept; that in this respect it is the idtimatum ; and that, if they reject it, they may reasonably expect something not quite as agreeable to themselves, I believe that they will act the part of sensible men, and take the best they can get. Let us try the thing ; we can but fail ; and if we do fail, then we shall see what we shall see, and act accordingly, I. But ought not loyal States to be represented by loyal Senators and Kepresentatives in Congress ? What is the use, my friend, in attempting to befool yourself!, for you will not befool the people, by ringing the changes iipon these phrases ? Who denies this proposi- tion ? Nobody, unless it be the supporters of tlie President's policy. It is the very thing which Congress is aiming to secure. We want the States that liave fought tliis Government to be loyal ; we want them to send loyal Representatives ; we want some reasonable evi- dence of tliis state of facts; and As to what this evidence shall be, Ave think Congress quite as competent to judge as the President. 8. Did you not fight the rebel States to keep them in the Union ; and if so, Avhy do you noAV keep them o^itF We do not keep them out. We simply claim the right, and mean to exercise it, of deter- mining upon Avhat principles they shall resume their former relations to the Government. Having AvithdraAvn their Senators aiul Pepre- sentatives from the halls of Congress for the purposes of treason, Ave propose now to say upon Avhat terras those Senators and Represent- atives shall again take their seats. With these terms they must comply ; and if they Avill not, then they keep tliemselves out. Tlie terms of the President are not sufficient to meet the Avants of the case ; and hence Congress has made additions to remedy their defects, as far as possible. 9. But the rebel States Avere neA'er otit of the Union ; and if so, Avhy are they not entitled to representation in Congress without any conditions precedent thereto ? No : they ncA^er Avere out, in the sense of being absolved from the laAvful jurisdiction of the Government ; but they Avere out in the sense of utterly expelling the authority of that Government from the midst of them, and forfeiting by treason all their rights under the Constitution, So thought the President Avlien he proceeded to reconstruct these States ; and so thinks every man Avho has a clear head and a loyal heart, and no party ends to subserve. The victorious Government is uoav the party to say upon what terms, if any, forfeited privileges shall be restored. 10. But is there no danger that Southern blood Avill be Avarmed up, perhaps to the pitch of another civil Avar, if Ave delay the ques- tion for a constitutional amendment ? I propose to take all the risks of this. We have already Avhipped one rebellion ; and, if necessary, I sui)pose that we can Avhip another. On this subject, I take no counsel from my fears. II, Is there no danger of foreign complications, and possibly Avar, in Avliich event the rebel States, unless reconstructed immediately, might join hands Avith our enemies ? I do not propose to take this 29 peril, be it great or small, into the account. Tlie suggestion is, upon its very face, a menace of disloyalty, very much like the old logic of dissolving the Union. If these States wish to try a second rebellion in this form, then I shall not bribe their treason to prevent it. Let them try it, if they wish to do so. 12. But would it not on the whole be better to trust our Southein brethren, and settle the thing up at once without any delay, taking for granted that all things will right themselves afterward ? This is about Avhat we find in a very famous letter which has excited not a little comment. The idea is a wonderful display of good nature ; but whether it is an equal display of good sense, is another question. When a man cheats me once very badly, I want some proof of his honesty before I trust him the second time. So Avhen traitors seek to destroy this Government, I want suitable proof of their loyalty before I restore to them the privileges of law-abiding citizens. While I nrge no* iindue vengeance for the past, I do demand suffi- cient guarantees for the future. We are settling up the accounts of the Avar ; and now is the time to do it in the safe and proj^er Avay. This I think to be good sense, while not at all inconsistent Avith good uatm*e. 13. Another, reasoning from a very different stand-point, says that the proposed amendment does not go far enough to represent all his views, especially on the qiiestion of suffrage. I agree Avith this indiA'idual, Avhoever he may be. The amendment does not represent