O THE REPUBLICANS
OF THE HOUSE OF EE PRE SENT ATT YES.
Having been appointed against nay wishes,
expressed both publicly and privately, by the
Speaker as chairman of a committee to in¬
vestigate the state of affairs in the South,
ordered to-day by Democratic votes against
the most earnest protest of more than a two-
thirds majority of the Republicans of the
House, and certainly against the almost
unanimous wish of the Republicans of the
States whom it most specially concerns, my
self-respect and deference to your good opin¬
ion requires me to explain to you, and
through you to the country, why I shall not
serve on "that committee—being convinced, as
I am, that no good but harm only can come
of it to the Republican party.
First. Because this committee was forced
upon the Republicans by the nearly unani¬
mous vote of the Democratic party in the
House, aided by some twenty or thirty Re¬
publicans only, against the decision of the
majority of that party in a duly called caucus
of the members of the House.
Second. Because this committee was raised
by a combination of the high-tariff Republi¬
cans with the Democracy; the one class will¬
ing to permit the slaughter and extermina¬
tion of their political friends in the South if
the tariff could be saved, even for nine
months, by an early adjournment of Con¬
gress, and the Democracy acting with them
in pursuance of a deliberate plan, carefully
concocted, in my belief, to murder and out¬
rage enough Union men of the South to over¬
come, by fear, intimidation, and injury the
Republican majority at the next Presidential
election, well knowing that this committee
can do them no harm, and that it will furnish
an excuse to the tariff Republicans to vote
with them for an early adjournment, without
legislation to protect Union men in the rebel
States.
Third. Because such committee would be
wholly powerless for any good purpose. Sit¬
ting in the vacation, it can have, under par¬
liamentary law, no power to compel the at¬
tendance of a single witness who does not
choose to come, or an answer from one when
he does come; as the only method by which
any witness can be brought before a Con¬
gressional committee and made to answer
when unwilling is, the House being in session,
by its order of arrest, and imprisonment
for his contempt during the session only;
so that any unwilling witness can not be
compelled to testify to anything; and the
witnesses willingly coming before the commit¬
tee to testify anything against their Ku-klux
neighbors would be killed on their way home
from the committee room. I do not, there¬
fore, propose to make myself accessory be¬
fore the fact to the murder of every faithful
Union man of the South who shall be brought
before the committee and give truthful evi¬
dence of the state of outrage and wrong
which I know to exist there.
Fourth. Because my service as chairman
of the committee would furnish the best
electioneering document that could be placed
in the hands of the Democracy in the com¬
ing contest, in this, that the report of the
committee would be wholly nugatory, illu¬
sory, and useless to show the exact state of
things at the South. Whenever and wherever
the committee would go there would be sun¬
shine and peace, and we should be com¬
pelled so to l'eport. Where we were not
and could not be, banded murder, robbery,
arson, would stalk abroad at night, to be
disbanded by the rising sun. Besides, I have
not the slightest doubt that while serving on
your committee in the Southern States I
should be treated with the highest and most
distinguished consideration and respect.
That* would be in the farthest de¬
gree politic, and Southern men under¬
stand politics. 1 fully believe that I can go
anywhere through every portion of the South,
alone and unattended, and, a fortiori, when at
the head of a Congressional committee of in¬
vestigation, without personal harm or in¬
sult. Therefore, when Republicans should
claim in the canvass that it was necessary to
maintain the Republican party in power to
have peace at the South and protect our loyal
friends there, they would be answered on
every Democratic hustings, "You are not to
be believed when you say that the laws can
not be executed at the South and men's lives
and property are in danger there, when you
see that General Butler, the man who hanged
one of these rebels' brethren; the man who
brought New Orleans into subjection: the man
who is more hated and vilified in the South
than any other, can go through it untouched
and unharmed." 1 have no intention of aid¬
ing the Democratic cause and breaking down
the Republican party by furnishing in my
own person any such argument with no
countervailing good.
Fifth. Because with these views of the ef¬
ficiency and powers of the committee, my ser¬
vices would be useless, and lam not accus¬
tomed to undertake to do that which I feel
that I have no power successfully to accom¬
plish. And it is a parliamentary practice
which has lately been illustrated in a signal
instance in the Senate that the chairman of a
committee should be in harmony with the
majority who constitute it; and there is no
element of harmony between me and that
Democratic party, largely composed of Seces¬
sionists, old Whigs, and Know-nothings, who
are the majority that constituted this com¬
mittee.
Sixth. Because this committee was brought
into being by a legislative trick—and not a
creditable one at that—by which the wishes
of the Republican majority of the House have
been thwarted by a Republican minority, by
the aid of Democratic votes, with which pro¬
ceeding, as a Republican, I desire most ef¬
fectually to divorce myself.
Seventh. Because the very resolution which
authorized the committee was so framed, and,
in my belief, purposely, in the interests of
the Democratic party, that such committee
cannot report under the rules of the House
in the face of the Democratic opposition, and,
by their permission, in more than a year from
this time, the usual power not being inserted
in it, "to report at any time;" and being a
special select committee, it cannot, under
the rules of the House, be called in its turn
until after all the standing committees have
been called, which, in the last House of Rep¬
resentatives, took more than a year. So that,
without the leave of the Democrats, such
committee could not even make a report and
have it printed until after the end of the next
Presidential canvass.
Eighth. Because the passage of the resolu¬
tion is a seeming discourtesy to the other
branch of the Legislature; the Senate having
taken up an investigation through its own
committee, having proceeded to a very con¬
siderable extent in it, and made a report in
part, which certainly to every Republican
mind shows a state of crime and horror suffi¬
cient to justify legislative action. The House
is made to say to the Senate, "You are not
competent to perform the work you have
undertaken; we will take it out* of your
hands."
I have no fear that you, my Re-publican
friends, will think for a moment that any
considerations looking to the labor and
fatigue of such an undertaking in the heat
of summer and the height of the yellow fever
season in the Southern States, or the fact
that I should be drawn from my home to
carry on the investigation during those
months, after laborious and arduous service
here for more than four months, would deter
me if I believed anv good could arise to the
country from the labor or the exposure. I
have spent more than one summer under a
Southern sky to give what aid I could in pre¬
serving the life of the country; and if any
good conld come of it, I would be quite will¬
ing to spend another, although when there
before I was master of the rebellion within
my reach and the scarcely less deadly and
venomous'yellow fever.
I am compelled to take this mode to ad¬
dress you in declining to serve, because the
announcement of the committee was not
made by the Speaker until after the vote of
adjournment had been taken, and imme¬
diately thereupon his hammer fell, by which
he adjourned the House, so as to preclude
the possibility of resigning the place thus
attempted to be forced upon me at the
time. I believe I can demonstrate, even if a
majority of a parliamentary body can force
a Massachusetts man off a committee at plea¬
sure, that it is quite another thing for Ae
Speaker to force another on a committee
against his consent.
1 have the honor to be, very truly, your
friend and servant,
Benj. F. Butler.