#L1BRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
 
 # # 
 
 # • # 
 
 I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 EON. WILLIAM E. ROBINSON, 
 
 OF NEW YORK, 
 
 ON 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION; 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 12, 1867. 
 
 ■J 3 
 
 "Our theory of government has no place for a State except in the Union." * * * * * "To 
 oblige the central authority to govern half the territory of the Union by Federal officers and by the Army 
 is a policy not only uncongenial to our ideas and principles, but preeminently dangerous to the spirit 
 of our Government." — Rev, Henry \Yard Beecher. 
 
 3Ce9 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
 
 1867. 
 

RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 The House having under consideration the bill 
 supplementary to an act to provide for the more effi- 
 cient government of the rebel States — 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I have desired to say a word 
 or two during these debates on the subject of 
 reconstruction, and now rise, not to make any 
 set speech, but merely to submit a few obser- 
 vations which I deem pertinent to the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 What, sir, has brought us together at this 
 time in extraordinary session of Congress? 
 Has anything been done by the South to pro- 
 voke it? Has any southern man or southern 
 woman or southern child done or said any- 
 thing calling for harsher laws than those we 
 have already imposed upon them ? No ; it is 
 merely because the proper officer of our Gov- 
 ernment has given a proper opinion on what 
 some call a very improper act of Congress, 
 that the representatives of the people and the 
 representatives of the States have been called 
 away from their pleasant homes to this hot and 
 dusty city in this heated terra. You have not 
 even the poor pretext of anything done by our 
 southern brethren for this additional legisla- 
 tion, for they have submitted with unprece- 
 dented willingness to every enormity of legis- 
 lation put upon them. 
 
 Sir, a short time ago, during the present 
 Congress, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
 [Mr. Stevens,] the gentleman from Ohio, 
 [Mr. Bingham,] the gentleman from Massa- 
 chusetts, [Mr. Butler,] and gentlemen from 
 every State in the Union then represented here 
 voted the sympathy of the American people 
 
 with the people of Ireland, suffering under the 
 cruel wrongs and oppressive laws which Eng- 
 land had inflicted upon her. That island is not 
 much larger than the first three districts of 
 New York, and has a population not exceed- 
 ing five or six millions. Every Representative 
 on this floor voted his sympathy with Ireland 
 in her sufferings from British oppression. But 
 here are ten States, with a population more 
 than twice the number of that of Ireland, and 
 ten or twenty times its extent ; our own terri- 
 tory, our own people, under our own flag, 
 enduring oppression such as no British Gov- 
 ernment ever attempted to force upon Ireland. 
 Why, sir, have we not heard that a military 
 governor, under a law which we have now met 
 professedly to make more stringent and more 
 despotic, has removed municipal and State 
 officers without trial and without any given 
 reason? Have we not heard of a military gov- 
 ernor, under a law now to be made more severe, 
 who stopped a civic procession till they pro- 
 cured and consented to carry a certain flag, to 
 salute that flag, uncovering three paces before 
 reaching it, bowing their necks as they passed 
 it, and remaining uncovered three paces beyond 
 it? What would have been the consequences 
 if some poor fellow, blinded with dust and 
 bedizzened with its splendor, had made a mis- 
 step or a miscalculation of steps, and uncov- 
 ered only two and a half pa ces before approach- 
 ing, and bowed when half a pace beyond, I can- 
 not tell. But this I do know: that during the 
 seven centuries of British misrule in Ireland 
 no military commander ever dared to remove 
 from office without accusation and trial even 
 
4 
 
 an alderman of Cork or Dublin, or any other 
 Irish city ; and though the Irish people had 
 cursed the British flag in oratory and song, no 
 military governor or tyrant ever dared to ask 
 them to carry that flag in any of their proces- 
 sions or to uncover or bow their heads while 
 passing it. Oh, sir, it is a sorry spectacle to 
 see the Representatives of a Republican people 
 voting sympathy with the sufferers under the 
 misgovernment and oppression of our neigh- 
 bors while planning and perpetrating for our 
 own fellow-citizens acts of tyranny and mis- 
 government such as no monarch, emperor, or 
 tyrant ever yet inflicted upon a subjected peo- 
 ple, however rebellious they may have been. 
 If British rule in Ireland were as tyrannical as 
 ours is in these ten suffering States every man, 
 woman, and child in Ireland would be a Fenian. 
 It is with the deepest sorrow I make this asser- 
 tion. I do it to avert, if possible, the spirit of 
 oppressive legislation, which if practiced in 
 any other country would call forth our sym- 
 pathy for the sufferers and our condemnation 
 of the oppressor. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. "Will the gentleman yield 
 for a moment ? 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I will yield with pleas^ 
 ure. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I beg leave to say to the 
 gentleman from Ireland [laughter] that no 
 longer ago than yesterday I introduced on this 
 floor a very devoted son of the Emerald Isle, 
 who has been for some years a naturalized 
 citizen of the United States and a resident of 
 the State of North Carolina, who appealed to 
 the various members to whom I introduced 
 him to overthrow by express letter everything 
 in the form of government in the South, save 
 the laws of Congress as administered by the 
 military commanders, and he presented to 
 these gentlemen, as well as to me, the argu- 
 ment that the very life was beinp: crushed out 
 of every loyal man, not by the United States 
 Government, but by the pretended State and 
 local governments of the South. And the gen- 
 tleman will not, if he travels through the South, 
 find one out of every ten of tl.e Irish Ameri- 
 can citizens there who does not look to Con- 
 gress to protect them from opjiression greater 
 than they endured in Ireland. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. In reply to what the 
 
 eloquent gentleman from Pennsylvania has 
 said, I need only say that I doubt not there are 
 a thousand Irishmen to-day living under Brit- 
 ish rule, for whose victims we so recently unan- 
 imously voted the sympathy of the American 
 people, who would appeal to the British Par- 
 liament if introduced upon its floor to over- 
 throw by express letter everything but British 
 rule in Ireland as administered by her Castle- 
 reaghs and Derbys, and would present that 
 the verj- life would be crushed out of every 
 loyal man if the Fitzgeralds and Emmets and 
 O'Briens had succeeded in overthrowing that 
 British rule in Ireland, against which we so 
 I'ecently and unanimously protested in this 
 House ; and the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
 will not, if he travels through Ireland, find one 
 out of every ten of the loyal men in Ireland 
 who feed and fatten on the patronage of Brit- 
 ish rule in their starving country who docs 
 not look to the British Parliament to protect 
 them and preserve them from the calamity of 
 granting to Ireland her rights and liberties. 
 And it is no argument to me that because some 
 Irishman, who has foresworn allegiance to Brit- 
 ish power and British law and fled from their 
 oppressions, has here become the apologist of 
 laws more galling and oppressive than those 
 whose authors he foreswore, that I should see 
 others faults and not my own ; that I should join 
 in voting condemnation on our neighbors and 
 cover up our own faults, equal, if not far tran- 
 scending theirs. I care not who such a man 
 is, he is not a true Irishman ; but a British — you 
 may fill up the blank as you please. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I did not say that that gen- 
 tleman said he had fled from the oppression he 
 speaks of. I apprehend that like the gentle- 
 man he came here because America was a freer 
 country than Ireland. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I thank the gentleman 
 for that word "was." It was a freer country. 
 I was here an old Clay Whig when the Demo- 
 crats were in power, daily protesting against 
 their attempts to infringe the rights of minori- 
 ties and trample down the safeguards of our 
 Constitution, but they never dared to trample 
 on the rights of their political opponents ; they 
 never dared to override all constitutional pro- 
 visions to perpetuate their power, as the party 
 in a majority here are now doing. I was an 
 
old-line Whig then, and I would be a recreant 
 and a coward if I failed to denounce now enor- 
 mities greater than those I then denounced. 
 
 Sir, I have some idea what these loyal south- 
 ern men are who come here to invoke oppres- 
 sion on their people. I know the power of 
 misrepresentation. I know the efforts made to 
 excite and keep alive a spirit of revenge against 
 the people of the South by persons calling them- 
 selves southern loyalists. I know the indigni- 
 ties heaped upon the southern people and the 
 threats made against them if they dared to com- 
 plain. I know that when the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania made his speech to the people of 
 Mobile he said they must be quiet for he had 
 the military at his back. This must have been 
 very soothing and calculated to hasten recon- 
 struction when he informed them that it might 
 be necessary to urge home his arguments with 
 the bayonet. 
 
 Mr. KBLLEY. I thank the gentleman for 
 raising that point, and beg him to yield for a 
 moment just here. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Does the gentleman say 
 that he did not say so? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. When the cry "Put him 
 down!" "Pull him down!" was raised, I 
 answered, "Gentlemen, you cannot put down 
 free speech by pulling me down. That is one 
 of the rights the exercise of which the Amer- 
 ican people established by^the late war. You 
 will do nothing toward suppressing it by pull- 
 ing me down. You should bear in mind that 
 the fifteenth infantry are at my back as a repre- 
 sentative of that great principle, and if they 
 cannot maintain it in Mobile the United States 
 Army will." But that did not cause the riot. 
 I proceeded, and the riot did not commence 
 until a prearranged signal of two taps upon 
 a bell, a pause and then one tap was given ; 
 then the gentleman's friends commenced 
 shooting at me. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I throw back the impu- 
 tation with scorn upon the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania that those who commenced the 
 riot were my friends. They were his friends 
 who commenced it, and I presume it could be 
 so proved if a proper committee were appointed 
 to investigate it. I had no friends there, and 
 the gentleman knows it. 
 
 [Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, who had 
 
 taken a seat immediately in front of Mr. 
 Robinson, said something not heard by the 
 reporter.] 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I have noi time to 
 answer every question put to me, but if the 
 venerable and distinguished gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania has any question to ask me and 
 will state it so that I can hear it, I shall take 
 pleasure in trying to answer him. 
 
 Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. ■ I only 
 said if the balls were going to fly I would 
 rather be out of the way. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I hope he will not move 
 away ; I am glad to have the honorable gen- 
 tleman near me ; I rejoice to see him over on 
 the right side. [Laughter.] The gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] calls me 
 the -gentleman from Ireland. Sir, I do not 
 claim to represent Ireland, but I am proud to 
 claim, here as in all other places, the honor 
 of being one of her sons ; but is he not more 
 an Irishman than I am, unless he has degen- 
 erated like his North Carolina Irishman ? A 
 great many Irishmen get degenerated, and 
 sometimes they change their names. I rather 
 suspect that if a committee to investigate the 
 matter were appointed, with the gentleman 
 from the Worcester district, Massachusetts, 
 [Mr. Baldwin,] one of the best ethnologists 
 and antiquarians in the country, and my ana- 
 tomatical friend from Ohio, [Mr. Mungen,] and 
 my friend from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Scofield,] 
 who introduced the other day the belligerent 
 letter of Professor Agassiz on the origin of the 
 human races, it would be found that the gen- 
 tleman from Pennsj'lvania was called O'Kelley 
 at home. Hemay say thathe has only mended 
 his name by dropping the significant O. When 
 he was mending his name he might have mended 
 his manners without detriment to either. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I simply assumed that the 
 gentleman represented Ireland, and therein 
 differed from me in the fact that I sometimes 
 consider and speak upon American topics, 
 while he never alludes to any other than Irish. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. The gentleman was the 
 first to introduce the Irish topic. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. On the contrary, I did but 
 respond to the gentleman's suggestion, that 
 
6 
 
 we have inflicted upon the southern people 
 greater wrongs than England has inflicted on 
 the Irish. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. My reference was to 
 American matters compared with those of 
 other countries. 
 
 Now, when interrupted by the gentleman 
 
 from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] I was about 
 
 to say something as to the parties guilty of 
 
 commencing these mobs and riots — for they 
 
 have been made the cause of all this swarm 
 
 of reconstruction bills enacted to subject the 
 
 South to military despotism on the ground that 
 
 life and property were not secure in those 
 
 States. The New York Tribune a few days 
 
 since had an editorial article on the recent 
 
 Birmingham anti-Popery riots. It appears 
 
 that a man had been sent down from London 
 
 to Birmingham to speak against Popery and 
 
 Ritualism. I have no doubt he thought, if 
 
 he did not say, that he had the British army 
 
 At his back. His speeches probably v/ere not 
 
 more bitter than those of the gentleman from 
 
 Pennsylvania were, and shrieked into ears as 
 
 unwilling as those of the people of Mobile. 
 
 No doubt the anti-Ritualist speaker said his 
 
 audiences, whom he was abusing, commenced 
 
 the row. The editor of the Tribune, however, 
 
 takes this sensible view of the matter. He 
 
 says : 
 
 " Vituperation, however, is not controversy. Re- 
 ligious enliglitenment does not come of hard names 
 and yelling defiance to a crowd of ignorant and ex- 
 citable laborers. If a preacher will throw mud at his 
 Christian brethren he must expei^t to get spattered 
 in return. If he darts into a crowd of Irishmen and 
 doubles his fists and dares them to come on, it is the 
 most natural thing in the world that he should come 
 out of the crowd with a black eye and a torn coat." 
 
 Now, is it not easy to see that vituperation 
 or throwing mud or yelling defiance to a crowd 
 or threatening to shut their mouths with the 
 fifteenth United States infantry might lead to a 
 riot in Mobile as well as in Birmingham ? And 
 is it not quite natural to suppose that the riots in 
 Llobile, New Orleans, and elsewhere were just 
 as chargeable to the speakers themselves as to 
 the crowd who, even at the points of the fifteenth 
 United Statesinfantry bayonets, were compelled 
 to listen? The fable of the poor lamb which 
 was killed by the wolf for riling the water 
 which he was drinking up streatii might serve 
 to illustrate many transactions between human 
 lambs and human wolves, who must make 
 
 some pretense to throw the blame of the quar- 
 rel upon those whom they had determined to 
 worry into it anyhow. 
 
 But, sir, New Orleans, Mobile, and Mem- 
 phis have not been the only places where mobs 
 and riots have occurred, and where human life 
 and property have been in danger. If I rightly 
 remember, the city from which the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania hails had mobs and riots 
 in which churches were sacked and burned and 
 lives lost. 
 
 Mr. FARNSWORTH. I rise to a question 
 of order. I submitthat this discussion is alto- 
 gether wide of the question before the House ; 
 and I make the further point of order that 
 gentlemen must take their seats. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. What is the gentleman's 
 point of order? 
 
 Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is that the remarks 
 of the gentleman are very wide of the subject 
 before the House. 
 
 The SPEAKER pro tempore, (Mr. Cook in 
 the chair. ) The Chair overrules the first point 
 of order raised by the gentleman, but sustains 
 the second ; gentlemen must take their seats. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. If I remember correctly 
 there were men in that city of Philadelphia, 
 dressed in the apparel of men, who had the 
 courage to spit in the faces and otherwise 
 insult women, and those women sisters of 
 charity! I know excuses were then made, as 
 they are now made, that the insulted and mal- 
 treated were the guilty parties. The weak and 
 insulted parties were belied and vilified. The 
 spirit of revenge was evoked and scenes of 
 carnage and outrage followed, such as have 
 never disgraced any city of the South. But 
 blood once shed, the demon spirit of revenge, 
 bora of hell and accursed of God, which has 
 no eyes nor ears nor senses to discriminate 
 between right and wrong, was evoked then, as 
 it is now evoked, and let loose to shriek for 
 more blood and clamor for more vengeance. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. Will the gentleman allow 
 me a moment ? ' 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I will yield as much of 
 my time as I can afford. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I will endeavor to procure 
 you compensation for anytime I may consume. 
 As the gentleman has made these remarks in 
 connection with a somewhat personal colloquy, 
 
I desire to say that it was my privilege at the 
 time to which he has referred, with a police- 
 man's staff, to meet armed rioters, and to be 
 bespattered with the blood of policemen shot 
 at my side while performing the same humble 
 duty that I did in defense of those churches. I 
 beg leave to say further that the aspersion cast 
 upon me in the Mobile Times as a means of 
 fomenting a scene of murder was utterly false. 
 The lie designed to excite the Irish citizens of 
 Mobile against me, that I had abandoned the 
 church of my fathers and burned the temples 
 in which they had worshipped in Philadelphia, 
 was as false as the heart that coined it — that 
 of William D. Mann, late of Michigan, but now 
 assessor of internal revenue at Mobile and 
 owner of the Times. I was born into the Pres- 
 byterian church, but forgetting all save the rights 
 of man, as the people of Philadelphia, both 
 Catholic and Protestant, will bear witness, I 
 periled my life to defend the churches to which 
 the gentleman alludes, and, as prosecuting at- 
 torney, prosecuted those who could be arrested 
 and brought to trial for the crime. I was then 
 what the gentleman was not — a member of the 
 Democratic party. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I was going to ask the 
 gentleman as to that. It seems that he has 
 been getting wrong while I have been getting 
 right. He was a Democrat then, and that with 
 some may account for the correct manner in 
 which he acted on that occasion ; but I have 
 made no allusion to him as having had any- 
 thing to do with instigating that riot. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I then believed as I do now 
 in the rights of humanity for all men, whether , 
 Irish or American, whether white or black. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I have referred .to that 
 simply to show that life and property have been 
 unsafe in northern cities as well as in southern 
 cities, and that it is as unfair to inflict these 
 oppressive laws upon the whole South for the 
 Mobile or New Orleans riots, as it would have 
 been to have appointed a military governor to 
 play the tyrant over the entire people of Penn- 
 sylvania because a few people in Philadelphia 
 had engaged in a riot, however fearful. 
 
 Take, again, the State of Massachusetts. A 
 seminary of learning under the charge of inno- 
 cent and defenseless nuns was burned down by 
 a Boston mob. On the lofty walls of that black- 
 
 ened monument of Massachusetts' bigotry stood 
 the significant inscription, " The Lord Seeth." 
 Year by year these holy, defenseless, innocent 
 women have appealed and appealed in vain to 
 the State of Massachusetts to pay for their 
 losses. Still "the Lord Seeth" that Massa- 
 chusetts permitted the outrage, and refused all 
 just compensation. 
 
 Mr. WILSON, of Iowa. I rise to a point of 
 order : that the remarks of the gentleman are 
 not relevant to the subject pending. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair cannot see the 
 relevancy of the argument to this bill, which 
 is for the reconstruction of various States of 
 the Union known as those lately in rebellion. 
 The gentleman must be aware that his remarks 
 are irrelevant. 
 
 Mr. BUTLER. Will the gentleman yield to 
 me a moment? 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. For a question only. I 
 cannot yield for any remarks, as my time is 
 nearly up. 
 
 Mr. BUTLER. I do not desire to ask any 
 question. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I am sorry the gentle- 
 man has run short in his catechism. [Laugh- 
 ter.] I was going to refer to another State, if 
 I am not out of order. I presume I shall be 
 in order if I can move an amendment. Is the 
 bill open to amendment? 
 
 The SPEAKER. It is not. The motion to 
 recommit is pending. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I want to say, and think 
 I can say it in order, that if every State that 
 has permitted a mob or a riot to take place, or 
 in which life and property are not safe, or ia 
 which republican forms of government are 
 wanting, is to be put under military dictator- 
 ship, (and these are the reasons given why the 
 southern States are so put under,) then this 
 bill should be so amended as to include Penn- 
 sylvania, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, 
 and these States should also be deprived of 
 their representatives in both Houses of Con- 
 gress, and more particularly New Hampshire, 
 the constitution of which to-day precludes Cath- 
 olics and other denominations from holding 
 office. If any State of the Union needs recon- 
 struction it is not Maryland, the mother of Lib- 
 erty in this country, but New Hampshire, the 
 only country in this world — as there is but one 
 
8 
 
 in the next — from which men are excluded on 
 account of religion. 
 
 The SPEAKER. When the bill shall be 
 open to amendment, if the gentleman then 
 offers his amendment his remarks would be 
 germane. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I submit to the rulings 
 of the Speaker, which are almost always cor- 
 rect. 
 
 Mr. O'NEILL. I wish to raise a point of 
 order. The gentleman from New York having 
 traveled through Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, 
 and New Hampshire, ought to be permitted to 
 come back to his own State of New York to 
 explain to this House the draft riots in which 
 innocent men were killed 
 
 The SPEAKER. That is not a point of 
 order. 
 
 Mr. O'NEILL. In which the colored orphan 
 as3'lum was burned to the ground by his own 
 Democratic constituents. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman is out of 
 order. 
 
 Mr. O'NEILL. Would it not be in order for 
 the gentleman to explain all that? 
 
 The SPEAKER. It would not. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. The gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania [Mr. O'Neill] has taken one of my 
 favorite topics which are ruled out of order. 
 I was coming to that riot, in which a brave 
 Irishman and worthy Democrat died in defense 
 of our glorious flag in putting down that mob. 
 I was going to say something about its origin, 
 but we have had no congressional committee 
 as yet appointed to inform us whether New 
 York also wants reconstruction and a military 
 dictator. If Mr. Hoffman had been elected 
 Governor it undoubtedly would. I should like 
 to say more on this point if it is in order. 
 
 The SPEAKER. It is not. 
 
 Mr. O'NEILL. The gentleman took good 
 care, in his long, rambling speech, not to come 
 down to his own city. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I should like, by speak- 
 ing on that subject, to oblige the gentleman ; 
 but the Speaker's decision prevents both of us 
 from further indulgence, and I must decline to 
 yield any further. I must say, however, that 
 while I shall always obey with pleasure the 
 rulings of the Speaker, I cannot see how my 
 ■ remarks are out of order. All these recon- 
 
 struction bills have been based upon the New 
 Orleans, Memphis, and other mobs and riots. 
 I cannot see why it is not entirely germane to 
 the subject under discussion tO show, as New 
 York, Philadelphia, and Boston have had 
 more serious riots than Mobile, Memphis, or 
 New Orleans, and did not need reconstruction 
 or military governors, that the southern States, 
 where life is quite as safe, and religious liberty 
 much better secured, should not have imjDOsed 
 upon them a despotism so cruel and antagon- 
 istic to the spirit of our institutions. 
 
 Sir, as to the New Orleans riot, it looked 
 very like a preconcerted scheme to influence 
 the fall elections against the Democrats of the 
 North. There is no doubt that the meeting 
 of the defunct convention was an illegal assem- 
 blage. Parties had come from Louisiana to 
 this city to see if they could obtain congres- 
 sional support in their rebellion against the 
 government which they themselves under a 
 Republican member of this House and under 
 President Lincoln had established. It was 
 urged in secret caucus of the Republican mem- 
 bers of Congress that they had better not ad- 
 journ the Thirty-Ninth Congress then in sum- 
 mer session, for some important matters might 
 come to them from New Orleans. General 
 Sheridan had been applied to by the president 
 of that convention to see whether, if it assem- 
 bled, he would grant military protection. He 
 replied that he would disperse the mob and 
 the convention together. The president then 
 abandoned all idea of calling the convention 
 and came North. In his absence and the ab- 
 sence of General Sheridan a minority of that 
 'convention got together, having somehow made 
 a president j^ro tempore without any authority, 
 in the person of a man whom the convention 
 had formerly refused to elect as its i^resident, 
 and having held public meetings to fire the 
 hearts of the most ignorant classes of society, 
 declaring that every man, woman and child in 
 the interest of the Lincoln-Banks government 
 should be killed, and urging that these ignor- 
 ant classes thus stimulated to the killing point 
 should come armed in procession to the con- 
 vention. That convention, thus heralded, thus 
 planned in Washington and New Orleans or 
 in both, with assurances of support from Con- 
 gress, came together with processions of these 
 
9' 
 
 inflamed and ignorant classes, with music, 
 banners, and arms, and all " the jjomp and 
 circumstance of war." The first shot fired 
 was by a negro at a municipal officer. 
 
 Sir, this was the beginning of the riot. Had 
 the police of New York been so assailed and 
 their arrests so rescued, the streets would have 
 run with blood or the guilty parties in the pro- 
 cession would have been secured. Unfortu- 
 nately Sheridan, who had declared that he 
 would disperse the convention, was away. 
 The military allowed the illegal mobs in the 
 streets and in convention to prevail over the 
 municipal authorities, and the howl for ven- 
 geance and blood swept down truth and reason 
 before it. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I am sorry to interrupt the 
 gentleman again, but he is wrong in saying that 
 the gentleman to whom he refers testified that 
 he could get support from Congress. The 
 gentleman from New York will find if he exam- 
 ines the record that the gentleman referred to 
 stated that he did not find hero the support 
 he had expected. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Well, the gentleman did 
 come here. He got encouragement enough 
 to, proceed to call that illegal and revolution- 
 ary body together. The proceedings of the 
 Republican caucus here showed that parties 
 here were cognizant of the movement. The 
 getters-up of that convention had been the 
 most bitter secessionists, voting to take Louis- 
 iana out of the Union, making speeches 
 against our flag and our Union, one of them 
 since removed by General Sheridan. The gen- 
 tleman who stated that a letter signed by three 
 members of Congress was in existence, was 
 not called by the committee, though his at- 
 tendance was requested by the minority of the 
 committee. The gentleman to whom I refer 
 is, I believe, the so-called Governor of Louis- 
 iana, now in this city, Mr. Flanders. 
 
 Mr. KELLY. No sir ; it was Judge Howell 
 who swore that he did not get the moral sup- 
 port of Congress. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. At all events the man 
 who said he had seen the letter was not called 
 by the committee, because, I presume, they 
 did not want too much information. That the 
 riot was planned to influence the fall elections 
 of 1866, I have no doubt, and such will be 
 
 found the fact if ever a fall and impartial in- 
 vestigation can be had. . 
 
 Sir, the South is not represented here to- 
 day. Loyal and disloyal are both excluded, 
 though it is admitted there are people now 
 waiting for admission numerous enough, aftei 
 stooping their necks to the military yoke, tc 
 comprise ten States in our Union. The chain 
 is eating into their flesh, the blood is oozing 
 from their pores, while we apparently infu- 
 riated into madness by the spirit of revenge, 
 are dancing on their prostrate bodies to the 
 music of reconstruction. 
 
 Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. I sup- 
 pose the gentleman is referring to Ander- 
 sonville ? 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. No, sir, I am not. Those 
 who shriek for more blood and sufi'ering may 
 unfold the gory record of Andersonville. That 
 record is terrific enough and ever to be con- 
 demned. But there may be exhibited a worse 
 spirit than was manifested at Andersonville. 
 That has been claimed by the rebels as a mili- 
 tary necessity. But there is a spirit of wrong, 
 a spirit of Satan, a spirit entirely inconsistent 
 with the spirit of the age and of all religion, 
 which without the poor excuse of military 
 or other necessity shouts for vengeance and 
 yells for blood. The present fall elections 
 are approaching: again mast the horrors of 
 Andersonville be revamped, revarnished, and 
 rehearsed : committees at enormous expenses 
 wrung from a suffering people be published in 
 huge volumes and scattered broadcast over the 
 land to renew the wearied spirit of carnage and 
 revenge. The poet Moore represents Erin 
 sitting on the banks of the Boyne, her Ander- 
 sonville, the very mention of whose name 
 always renewed the spirit of hell, which the 
 spirit of Christ had almost conquered : 
 
 " ' When will this end, ye powers of good ?' 
 .She weeping asks forever. 
 But only hears from out that flood 
 The demon answer, ' Never ! ' " 
 
 And never shall we have reconstruction till 
 reconciliation fans its holy spark into a vivify- 
 ing flame. Never, while men who should be 
 pleading for forgiveness as they hope to be 
 forgiven crawl around the tombstones of the 
 bloody past like another ' ' Old Mortality, ' ' with 
 incessant mallet and steeled chisel deepening 
 the records of human frailty which the winds 
 
10 
 
 and rains of Heaven were mercifully providing 
 
 to obliterate. 
 
 "A canting crew, 
 So smooth, so godly, yet so devilish, too. 
 Who, armed at once with Bibles and with whips. 
 Blood on their hands and Scripture on their lips, 
 Tyrants by oreod and torturers by text. 
 Make this life hell in honor of the next." 
 
 Let "bygones be bygones" if you ever mean 
 to let us become one people again. If you 
 mean to keep us forever apart, say so and be 
 honest. We have fought the South with their 
 Johnstons and their Stonewall Jacksons, and 
 they, by our superior numbers and resources, 
 are at our feet. The prodigal son, at whom 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ste- 
 vens] recently sneered, has returned from 
 scenes of dissipation and riotous living. If 
 you mean to take him back, do so, and kill the 
 fatted calf. If you mean to slay the prodigal 
 son and keep the fatted calf kicking up its 
 heels around the barn-yard, say so. Do some- 
 thing ; but do not talk reconstruction while 
 you are plotting disunion. If the erring wife 
 has returned, take her to your bosom, or if 
 you cannot do this, cast her from you forever. 
 Do not be reconstructing her into another and 
 different person, for that would not be recon- 
 ciliation, but bigamy. [Laughter.] If you 
 mean to live with her, banish from beneath your 
 roof, as you would a spirit from hell, every 
 croaking miscreant who would shriek into both 
 your ears the follies and the crimes which you 
 both committed and which led to your separa- 
 tion. If you mean to restore to the weeping 
 Union its former children, oh give her back 
 her darling boy, and not the sickly, fairy child 
 with which you would mock a mother's prayer. 
 
 Sir, these are words of truth and sober- 
 ness. I believe the speediest way to recon- 
 struction is honest reconciliation and mutual 
 forgiveness. I stand not here to justify the 
 South. While she was in rebellion she was 
 my enemy ; in submission she becomes again 
 my friend. I would not inflict upon her one 
 single unnecessary humiliation. Of crimes 
 against us she has been guilty, but who can 
 cast the first stone of innocence? I tell you 
 that there were more crimes against life, per- 
 son, and property perpetrated in Massachusetts 
 since the rebellion was put down than in South 
 Carolina ; crimes deeper and more damnable, 
 some even nameless, for which no punishment 
 
 was inflicted, not even expulsion from the legis- 
 lative body of which their perpetrators were 
 members. I tell you that life and person and 
 property have been more unsafe, that crimes 
 against them have been more numerous in one 
 single northern district than in the entire State 
 of North Carolina. Life, liberty, and property 
 to-day are in more jeopardy in Tennessee, 
 which you do not propose to reconstruct or 
 control, than in any other portion of the world. 
 
 Let me go back and say to the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] that I never 
 read the article from the Mobile Times to which 
 he referred. I do not know, nor is it my busi- 
 ness to inquire, whether he is a Catholic or a 
 Presbyterian. I do not profess to be the 
 champion of any religious denomination. I 
 was simply showing that people who burned 
 churches dedicated to the service of the liv- 
 ing God, and spat in the faces of defenseless 
 women, should be slow to charge upon other 
 localities a want of safety to person and prop- 
 erty. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I prosecuted the cases and 
 I never heard of such an allegation before. If 
 it were so I think I was in a position to have 
 heard it. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. If they were not guilty 
 of spitting in women's faces they have enough 
 to account for instead of hunting up others' 
 crimes. 
 
 Mr. FARNSWORTH. I rise to a point of 
 order. This bill has nothing to do with the 
 burning of churches or spitting in women's 
 faces. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair sustains the 
 point of order. This is a bill supplementary 
 to the reconstruction act, and the burning of 
 churches or spitting into women's faces, as the 
 gentlemfin from Illinois states, has nothing to 
 do with the subject. 
 
 Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. That 
 being the case I rise to move that the speeches 
 hereafter be confined to five minutes, and shall 
 be confined to the pending subject. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman from New 
 York has the floor and cannot be taken off it 
 for that purpose. 
 
 Mr. ELDRIDGE. I object to any further 
 interruptions of the gentleman from New York. 
 
 The SPEAKER. He has the floor and has 
 
11 
 
 uttered no disorderly words that would take 
 liim off it. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Speaker how many 
 minutes have I left ? 
 
 The SPEAKER. Twenty minutes. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Sir, we have not got at the 
 entire secret of this legislation. Its authors 
 strike at the distinguished Attorney General 
 of the United States through the prostrate 
 South, on which they can further trample, 
 rather than answer his arguments. They want 
 also to show their teeth at the President of 
 the United States. Sir, I have been pained, 
 sitting here from day to day, listening to re- 
 marks in reference to the President, which, if 
 it were parliamentary, I would denounce as 
 ribaldry. I have been pained to witness the 
 degeneracy in the debates of Congress since 
 I was here twenty-five years ago in the capacity 
 of a correspondent. As a Clay Whig then I used 
 to denounce the Democratic party daily for 
 lack of dignity and for assumption of power; 
 but, oh, how changed since then ? Is it not 
 degeneracy when members on the floor will 
 rise from day to day and in a spirit utterly dis- 
 graceful to American citizens 
 
 Mr. PILE. I rise to a question of order. I 
 ask if this course of remark is in order? 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair must decide 
 that it is not in order for the gentleman to 
 speak of the conduct of his fellow-members as 
 disgraceful. He may say that it is unjust, but 
 to say that it is disgraceful is a personal reflec- 
 tion, which is not considered parliamentary. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Of course I yield to the 
 decision of the Speaker. It seems perhaps a 
 little Pickwickian to say that a man's actions 
 are unjust and yet not disgraceful. But, sir, 
 I will say, I trust in order, that I have been ^ 
 pained to hear abuse of the President of the 
 United States. I believe that any one who 
 would try to degrade the President of this great 
 Republic in the eyes of the world is a greater 
 traitor to our institutions than those who 
 starved our prisoners at Andersonville or plot- 
 ted treason under Jefferson Davis. It would 
 be a greater calamity to have the President, 
 the head of our country, made a hissing and a 
 scorn to the rest of the world than the continu- 
 ance of allJefferson Davis's forces in the field 
 for forty years. I have been particularly pained 
 
 by the conduct of a committee of this House, 
 which seems to act upon the principle, which 
 was formerly followed in Ireland, of hanging 
 men for being suspected of being suspicious! 
 
 Sir, there is one in our list of Presidents who 
 is, and I trust ever will be, supreme in the 
 affections'of the American people. Upon his 
 pinnacle of glory he now stands, and there let 
 him s!tand forever. I say that, with that one 
 exception, and perhaps without exception at 
 all, no one of our Presidents could have stood 
 the searching investigation which Andiew J ohn- 
 son has successfully endured at the hands of 
 this energetic committee. That investigation 
 has proved that he is the purest man, with per- 
 haps this one exception, who ever occupied the 
 presidential chair. I doubt whether the house- 
 hold of George Washington or of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson, or of any other save that of his own, 
 could have stood the ordeal. The committee, 
 not seeming contented with examining into 
 everything themselves, have an attendant, for 
 whom we have no name, and for whose services 
 I hope there will be no pay, who hunts up in- 
 formation for them, descending to visit haunts 
 of perjury and crime and the convicts' cells, 
 raking the bottoms of these dens of iniquity to 
 see if anything can be found to be bribed or 
 suborned to testify against the executive head 
 of this nation, that he and the people at whose 
 head he stands may be degraded in the eyes of 
 the world ; eavesdropping and keyholing around 
 the back and under entrances of the White 
 House, and kneeling to its scullions to see 
 whether they can find out what the President 
 eats or drinks, or what he does before he goes 
 to bed. 
 
 Mr. BROOMALL. I must raise the ques- 
 tion of order that the gentleman's remarks are 
 not relevant to the question under discussion. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair did not like 
 to check the gentleman from New York, who 
 appears disposed to take a wide range. I^ut he 
 does not see what relevancy the examination 
 of the scullions of the White House has to 
 the military reconstruction bill. Perhaps, the 
 gentleman may be able to explain its rele- 
 vancy. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Well, sir, I had under- 
 stood that the President and the Attorney 
 General were the sole cause of this session. 
 
12 
 
 I cannot understand why all this interruption 
 and these calls to order are now made by a 
 party who in almost every speech delivered, 
 either in the last or the present Congress, made 
 executive action the pretext for these uncon- 
 stitutional reconstruction bills. If the Presi- 
 dent's failings are urged as an argument for 
 the severity of these measures, may not his 
 virtues be pleaded against them? 
 
 But I shall try to continue my remarks in 
 order. I thought of moving to lay this whole 
 matter on the table. I believe that would be 
 in order, notwithstanding the pendency of the 
 motion to recommit. 
 
 The SPEAKER. That motion would be in 
 order. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. My opinion is, as I said 
 on opening, that this measure is brought in, not 
 because the South has done anything to call 
 for this new legislation, but to oppose the action 
 of the President and his distinguished legal 
 adviser ; and I am trying to show that there is 
 nothing in the executive action to justify it. 
 After descending to the most unjustifiable 
 means in search of scandal, to be printed at 
 vast expense and to the disgrace of the nation, 
 after two years of searching and swearing, no 
 man here can stand up and make one single 
 charge against Andrew Johnson, either as citi- 
 zen or President ; and his persecutors, after all 
 their searches, reputable or otherwise, stand 
 mute when challenged, as we now challenge 
 them, to report a single charge against him. 
 
 Nor has his patriotic family escaped, for even 
 on this floor we have heard their names dragged 
 in to serve base party purposes. Sir, the 
 charming hospitality of that Mansion, the spot- 
 less purity of the character of its inmates, the 
 weeds of woe scarcely removed which told of 
 a gallant son dying in the military service of 
 his country, and a lovely daughter widowed by 
 the same holy service, might have protected 
 that household from the prying propensity of 
 committees and the things that pander to their 
 purposes. Well might I say, sir, that even 
 the household of Washington or Madison or 
 Jackson could not have stood the ordeal 
 through which our present Chief Magistrate 
 has passed. 
 
 Sir, the character of Andrew Johnson defies 
 the viper that bites the file. There is, perhaps. 
 
 no better example of American character than 
 his. Born in the humble walks of life ; reared 
 in lessons of industry, virtue, and religion ; 
 self-educated, self-supported, and self-reliant; 
 rising by that American rule of gradation from 
 a town commissioner and mayor of Greenville 
 and trustee of its academy to be member suc- 
 cessively of both Houses of the Tennessee Legis- 
 lature ; a member of this House, in which he 
 proved himself during his repeated terms of 
 reelection an able, upright, and eloquent states- 
 man ; urging high considerations of national 
 policy, inculcating love and harmony between 
 the North and South ; denouncing then as now 
 all usurpations of power by the General Gov- 
 ernment; defending that sacred doctrine of our 
 Constitution, State rights, which now, through 
 the folly of its violent friends, has been crushed 
 to earth, but will rise again ; jealously guard- 
 ing the Treasury from plunderers ; defending 
 the rights of naturalized citizens ; introducing 
 in 1845 and, by determination and indomitable 
 tenacity of purpose, carrying and marching with- 
 it through both Houses of Congress and over 
 executive vetoes, the homestead law ; then 
 Governor of the State of Tennessee ; then Sen- 
 ator of the United States, where he stood true 
 when almost every southern Senator fal ered 
 and fell. Then appointed by President Lin- 
 coln military Governor of Tennessee, saving, 
 by his firmness and bravery, the capital of that 
 State by opposing its evacuation. Then nom- 
 inated by the Republican party on a platform 
 on which he still stands and which they have 
 deserted, hurling curses like all deserters at 
 those who remain true ; himself and that plat- 
 form, since abandoned by its framers, contrib- 
 uting largely to the success of the ticket which 
 without them would not have been successful. 
 Then President of the United States ; a south- 
 ern man true to the North ; presiding over a 
 northern Congress unforgiving to the South ; 
 himself the providential link around which the 
 returning emotions of union and harmony will 
 yet crystallize and cluster when the enmities of 
 the present hour will be forgotten or remem- 
 bered only to be deplored. Wise in forethought, 
 brave in danger, forgiving in victory, posterity 
 will award to him a high position among Amer- 
 ican Presidents, equal to any, if not superior 
 to all save one. 
 
13 
 
 The historic RoUin, in sketching the char- 
 acter of Cyrus, thus describes his beau ideal 
 of a statesman and patriot : 
 
 " But an inward stock of goodness, compassion, and 
 gentleness toward the unhappy; an air of modera- 
 tion and reserve, even in prosperity and victory; an 
 insinuating and persuasive behavior ; tlie art of gain- 
 ing people's liearts and attaching them to him more 
 by affection than interest; a constant, unalterable 
 care always to have right uponhis side, and to imprint 
 such a character of justice and equity upon all his 
 conduct as his very enemies are forced to revere; 
 and lastly, such a clemency as to distinguish those 
 that offend through imprudence rather than malice, 
 and to leave room for their repentance by giving 
 them opportunity to return to their duty. These are 
 qualities rarely found in the most celebrated con- 
 querors of antiquity, but which shone forth most 
 conspicuously in Cyrus." 
 
 Sir, I tell you and this House that Andrew 
 Johnson does not deserve and can despise all 
 these persecutions heaped upon him. The 
 people of these United States, forgetting all his 
 trivial faults and remembering his great vir- 
 tues; the independent tiller of his own soil, 
 secured to him as a homestead through the 
 foresight of Andrew Johnson ; the naturalized 
 citizen, enjoying his rights largely through the 
 opposition of Andrew Johnson to Nativism and 
 Know-Nothingism ; the northern people, re- 
 membering how he stood as a tower of strength 
 against the inroads of secession and disunion, 
 and the South remembering that he received 
 the most violent abuse which any man ever 
 received because he contended that there were 
 rights and should be clemency for the fallen : 
 these will win for him the gratitude of all true 
 citizens of a restored and united country ; 
 while those who are persecuting him and seek- 
 ing to secure and jjerpetuate disunion and 
 strife through these measures falsely called 
 reconstruction bills will be execrated by their 
 posterity, who will eflFace their forefathers 
 names from the tombstones of their burial- 
 places, or apply to the Legislatures of their sev- 
 eral States to change their names that they may 
 get rid of the disgrace of being the descendants 
 of their ancestors ! I feel no hesitation in be- 
 lieving that Jefferson Davis will, with all his 
 faults and crimes and follies, stand better 
 with posterity than will any one who by vote 
 or voice or deed, after the military necessity 
 had passed, struck or attempted to strike one 
 star from our glorious constellation of equal 
 and sovereign States, or dimmed its luster 
 within the Federal Union. The genius of 
 American liberty around each State beneath 
 
 her banner draws the magic circle of the re- 
 publican church, and on the head of him who 
 dares to invade with hostile foot the sanctity 
 of that circle she will launch the awful curse 
 of her eternal hatred ; and in the fire of that 
 hatred and the withering power of that curse 
 his memory will shrivel into nothingness or 
 live only in the stench of its quenching. 
 
 But, sir, there is another suggestion I wish 
 to make, inasmuch as I believe that all this 
 legislation is instigated simply through a de- 
 sire to influence the next presidential election. 
 This truth is so patent that it is difficult to look 
 serious when denying it. I urge, then, against 
 further legislation of this kind that the next 
 President is already chosen, and the gentlemen 
 on the other side cannot help it. The people 
 have already anticipated and rendered useless 
 all caucuses and conventions and their con- 
 comitant corruption and log-rolling. The other 
 side, though they are afraid to trust him, and 
 are plotting to weaken him, cannot prevent his 
 election. They dare not put up any of the I'ec- 
 ognized advocates of their principles. [Laugh- 
 ter.] They will be compelled to vote for him, 
 and when elected they will try to use him for 
 their own purposes. Need I say that in that 
 they will fail, and failing in it, they will de- 
 nounce hitn as they denounce Andrew John- 
 son, and as they had already begun to denounce 
 President Lincoln. Had President Lincoln 
 lived, the more conservative, the better half of 
 the Republican party, who now seem afraid to 
 break away from their bell-wethers, would have 
 been with us in sustaining his policy of restor- 
 ation, and the more radical portion of the 
 party would have been howling to-day for his 
 impeachment, as I venture to predict, and am 
 willing to risk all the character of prescience 
 in politics I might wish to get credit for that 
 before our next President gets through with 
 them — the first session of next Congress — they 
 will be clamoring for his impeachment. I need 
 not say that our next President, if he lives, will 
 be Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
 " There's a divinity that shapes our ends," 
 and that divinity has shown His Almighty 
 hand throughout our history. Whether it was 
 Washington or Lincoln or Johnson, just as we 
 wanted him, the man fitted for the times ap- 
 peared. And now, after having led our armies 
 
14 
 
 with a power and energy never witnessed in 
 any war b«ibre, and when there is danger of 
 any mere politician playing the demagogue 
 and pandering to the excited passions of the 
 multitude, the man for the crisis, in whom all 
 classes have confidence, who is above the arts 
 of the demagogue, and has power with the peo- 
 ple to dispense with the wire-pullers and act 
 for the public good, steps into the place which 
 needs him. 
 
 And now, sir, for the few minutes which 
 remain to me let me say that the policy which 
 I would adopt has been well and wisely stated 
 by ray illustrious constituent, Henry Ward 
 Beecher. Mr. Beecher was at Peekskill, on his 
 Mount Sinai, and there the Almighty revealed 
 from Heaven to him the true doctrine of recon- 
 struction, which he wrote in his Cleveland let- 
 ter, and which should be engraved on tablets 
 of stone. 
 
 Mr. WILSON, of Iowa. I rise to a point of 
 order. I insist that the rule should be enforced, 
 and that the gentleman should keep to the ques- 
 tion. His remarks are certainly not relevant to 
 the subject before the House. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. Does the gentleman from* 
 Iowa say that a message from Heaven is not 
 in order in this House? [Laughter.] 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman raises the 
 question of order that the inscription of Mr. 
 Beecher' s letter upon tablets of stone is not in 
 order. 
 
 Mr. ROBINSON. I shall then adopt his 
 
 sentiments as my own, and hope they may then 
 
 be in order. [Laughter.] H*.re are his words : 
 
 "Our theory of government has no place foraState 
 except in the Union." * * * * "The Army 
 become;; indispensable to local government and 
 supersedes it. The Government at Washington is 
 called to interfere in one and another difficulty." 
 
 * * * * "OurGovernment, wisely adapted 
 to its own proper functions, is utterly devoid of those 
 habits and unequipped with the instruments which 
 fit a centralized government to exercise authority in 
 remote States over local atfixirs." * * * * 
 "The Federal Government is unfit to exercise minor 
 police and local government, and will inevitably 
 blunder when it attempts it. To keep a half score of 
 States under Federal authority but without national 
 ties and responsibilities ; to oblige the central author- 
 ity to govern half the territory of the Union by Fed- 
 eral civil officers and by the Army is a policy notonly 
 uncongenial to our ideas and principles, but preemi- 
 nently dangerous to the spirit of our Government." 
 
 * * * * " Itis.infact, acourseof instruction 
 preparing otir Government to be despotic and familiar- 
 izing the people to a stretch of aiitliority which can 
 never be other than dangerous to liberty." * * 
 
 * * "I hear with wonder and shame and scorn 
 the fear of .a few that the South once more in adjust- 
 ment with the Federal Government will rule this 
 
 nation." * * * * "Unless wo turn the 
 Government into a vast military n^achineXharQ c&vnxot 
 be armies enough to protect the frecdmen while 
 southern society remains insurrectionary. If south- 
 ern society is calmed, settled, and occupied and 
 soothed with new hopes and prosperous industries, 
 no armies will bo needed; riots will subside." 
 
 * .* * * " Whether we regard the whole 
 nation or anv section of it or class in it the first 
 demand of ou- times isen/iVcrev)i?'on." * * '■= 
 
 * "For the sake of the freedmen, for the sake of 
 the South and its millions of our fellow-countrymen, 
 for our men sake, and for the great cause of freedom 
 andciviliz ition, I urge the immediate reunion of al! 
 the parts which rebellion and war have shattered." 
 
 With this message Mr. Beecher came down 
 to his people, as Moses descended, with words 
 of wisdom from Heaven. But in his absence 
 the Aarons of his congi-egation had set up a 
 new god, a blatant calf. He found his pulpit 
 in possession of Governor Brownlow and a 
 godless crew, who were "swinging round the 
 circle" after the President. Amid the cheers 
 of his people he heard Brownlow, with the 
 spirit of hell condensed into one sentence, < 
 and embracing the extreme radical creed of 
 reconstruction, shouting: "First kill, then 
 burn, then survey;" shoot and otherwise kill 
 the men, cut the throats of the women, and 
 dash out the brains of the infants sleeping in 
 their cradles ; and then, for fear men, women, 
 or children might linger through the massacre 
 or recover from the carnage, burn the houses 
 over their heads that their gore and gashes 
 might be licked with the tongue of flame or 
 consumed with its breath; and then confiscate. 
 Such were the terrible blasphemies which 
 greeted his message from Heaven. I forgive 
 him for dashing the tablets of stone to pieces. 
 God never condescended to give him another 
 copy! 
 
 Sir, did time permit, I should ask attention 
 to words of wisdom from others who in the 
 past and present have pleaded for mutual good 
 will, forgiveness, and reconciliation : from 
 George Washington, from Abraham Lincoln, 
 Andrew Johnson, Horace Greeley, and others, 
 who, "with malice towards none, with charity 
 for all," would bind up the nation's wounds ; 
 and contrast them with those who in the Rad- 
 ical column, with Brownlow at their head, and 
 "all hell following in the rear," are shouting 
 "kill, burn, and survey, impeach, and confis- 
 cate, and when the South asks for restoration 
 give them the penitentiary of hell." 
 
 Sir, we have been playing political thimblerig 
 
15 
 
 with the South, and who can tell under which 
 thimble the little joker which will secure resto- 
 ration is to be found? The lower the South has 
 bent the knee the more intolerable have become 
 the terms of pardon ; even kindly words from 
 any friend of the South were answered with 
 greater indignity, till finally conditions are ex- 
 acted which none but bullies would demand or 
 cravens yield, for "the knee that is forced had 
 been better unbent." But there is hope ahead. 
 In after years, from a common bond of love, 
 beneath a common flag, from a common broth- 
 erhood born of our northern children, mingling 
 in holy family ties with the children of the 
 South, men will look back and wonder that 
 there was wickedness enough in the world to 
 inflict such injuries upon one another ; but will 
 bless the peacemakers among their ancestors 
 and curse the miscreants who fanned so long 
 the flame of contention. Nay, I shall live to see 
 that day ; and shall not be ashamed to look my 
 children in the face and to say that there was one 
 who fought the rebels throughout the rebellion, 
 but when the war was over pleaded for forgive- 
 ness, believed in southern honor, and voted as 
 he believed ; who never attempted ' ' the future' s 
 portal with the past's blood-rusted key ;" who 
 would rather grasp the bloody hand of an open 
 foe than touch the slimy finger of the coward 
 that skulked from danger ; who never kicked 
 the undermost dog nor struck a fallen foe. 
 
 "When the foe has knocked under, to tread on him 
 then — 
 By the list of my father, I blush for thee, Ben !" 
 
 Let me say a closing word for my fellow-cit- 
 izens of the South. I cannot forget that they, 
 too, have sorrows that might well arouse re- 
 venge. There are vacant chairs around many 
 
 a lonely southern hearth. There are madden- 
 ing meniories which matched against our own 
 and shrieked into each others ears would keep 
 us for ever apart. They have hearts to feel 
 and eyes to weep for loved ones lost, for hus- 
 bands buried on distant battle-fields, fathers 
 slaughtered in the mountain passes, and sons 
 taken away by early death, all buried in name- 
 less and unknown graves. They fought gal- 
 lantly, but they are down, and cursed be the 
 hand that smites the fallen. I long to see 
 them back in the Union, that they and we, 
 forgiving and forgetting the past, and girding 
 up our loins for the magnificent future, may 
 enter upon the career of greatness and glory 
 which stretches away before us. 
 
 I have sought to elevate my own mind above 
 the vengeance of a divided present, and have 
 looked to the brightening flag of a united 
 future as the inheritance of glory for a com- 
 mon posterity. In days gone by I learned my 
 creed from Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, 
 John M. Clayton and John J. Crittenden. I 
 stand by the record and refuse the teaching of 
 Brownlow and Phillips. 
 
 I see in the future an ocean-bound Kepublic ; 
 in the immediate future a hundred millions of her 
 ! united people. Where but a few stars flickered 
 j in her sky I see constellations blazing ; the 
 flutter of her flag is reflected on every sea, the 
 I plash of her propeller vexes every ocean ; and 
 i to that future I summon back our brethren of 
 i the South, for without them success would be 
 ! a failure, and our glory would be but shame. 
 
 ' Oh would thou wert near me, my southern brother, 
 I love thee as dear as the son of my mother; 
 I am lonely and sad since the day that we parted, 
 My lips have the tone of a maid broken-hearted ; 
 But come, from the future fresh flowers ^e'll gather. 
 And sing the sweet songs of our Union forever." 
 
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