'"■*. 
 
 •a? «<> 
 
 . % ^ a> * VSR's 
 
 
 1° 
 
 C 
 
 '^ 
 
 * <f? «£• "^ 
 
 «** o 
 
 
 
 
 O * „ „ o 
 
 *<r . 
 
 
 V0 
 
 - •» -A. »» * 
 
 
 
 o V 
 
 •^m**- ^^ 
 
 % 
 
 jr 
 
 'oK 
 
 '•'o' 
 
 k°V V 
 
 V 
 

 
 
 
 j-. 
 
 
 O. *o . » * A, 
 
 A o** «\> «/» 
 
 o " ° « « 
 
 -^ 
 
 
THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
FROM THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT COSTER 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens at 72 
 
THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 A S+u.dj in American Po/i-Kca./ 
 -HiS-ho f\/ t £s p<zci a lly in +■ h<- 
 
 ^nod. of the Ct'Vi'l vVav 
 find ~Re<L.ohst-r uuci-h i o n 
 
 By 
 James Albert Woodburn 
 
 Thd 
 
 i a n a po / 1 s 
 
 Bobbs-I'errill Company 
 
 i 
 
Ea\s 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 The period of the Civil War and the Reconstruction 
 of the Union has been the subject of more historical 
 inquiry and production within recent years than has 
 any other in American history. The books, essays, 
 magazine articles, monographs and reminiscences that 
 have been devoted to this period indicate the prevalent 
 interest which the epoch holds for many men of many 
 minds. As the period recedes in time and other events 
 of moment come and go, there may be a recession in 
 this interest, but it is not likely permanently to decline. 
 As the history of modern Europe still centers about the 
 French Revolution, so will the tremendous upheaval of 
 the Civil War continue to occupy the center of the 
 stage in the history of the nineteenth century in Amer- 
 ica. That struggle has been called from the bench of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States "the greatest 
 civil war known in the history of the human race." it 
 is but natural, indeed inevitable, that generations of 
 Americans should be interested in a struggle that has 
 so vitally affected the history and destiny of their 
 nation. 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens was the dominant figure in the 
 American Congress during this notable period. It- 
 may reasonably be claimed that no more masterful 
 leader ever directed the politics and legislation of the 
 House of Representatives. The House under Stevens 
 was not ruled by a system that created a one-man of- 
 ficial power. A man then led the House according to 
 bis strength and the strength of his cause. Stevens 
 
 as given no set of rules that arbitrarily suppressed 
 
PREFACE 
 
 opposition. The House following was free to act; it 
 was free to accord or to withhold support, and Stevens, 
 while the recognized leader, often found himself de- 
 feated and frustrated in the ends that he wished to ac- 
 complish. But there is no doubt of the preeminence 
 of Stevens' personality in the House in the War dec- 
 ade, and it may be said that for a part of this decade 
 he led both the House and the nation by the sheer force 
 and energy of his mind and will. He was the strong 
 man in the arena, and it seems fitting that these con- 
 secutive studies in Civil War and Reconstruction 
 should be gathered around the life and career of this 
 Congressional leader. 
 
 During the War, under the leadership of Lincoln, 
 the presidency was the dominant department of the 
 government. In Reconstruction the presidency was 
 subordinate, if not impotent, and the Congressional 
 arm of the government was all-powerful. In that pe- 
 riod the leadership of Stevens, especially of his party 
 majority in the House, was unquestioned. His career 
 there and his speeches throughout the bitter period of 
 war and the more bitter strife that followed the war 
 offer a subject for study that no historian can neglect. 
 It can hardly be claimed that this biography makes a 
 full or adequate presentation of any part of Stevens' 
 career; nor, in view of the great amount of matter that 
 has been published on this era, that it throws a great 
 deal of new light upon the period in which he figured 
 so largely. But it may be claimed, however, that it 
 does enable Stevens to speak more fully for himself 
 than he has been allowed to do by others who have 
 treated in a more limited way his principles and poli- 
 cies. The biography also brings into greater promi- 
 nence, and presents, as I have ventured to believe, a 
 more equitable review of Stevens' opinions and agenc> 
 
PREFACE 
 
 in the important financial controversies of his times in 
 which he took such a vigorous part. 
 
 Stevens' views on money and finance have usually 
 been referred to as errors and vagaries by orthodox 
 writers on finance as well as by most of the historians 
 of the time. But these views may hardly be said to 
 have been fully and impartially presented by many of 
 those who have been most severe in their criticisms. It 
 is due to Stevens that in any treatise on his life and 
 times, the "other side" of the financial issue for which 
 he so stoutly and constantly stood should be more ade- 
 quately presented. Wherein this biography appears to 
 condone his "errors" or show too much sympathy for 
 his "heterodoxy" it will, of course, be subject to the 
 same condemnation and rebuke with which Stevens' 
 financial utterances were always visited in his day. But 
 it is believed that his cause is better understood than it 
 was in his generation and that if it is not approved by 
 academic economists it will at any rate find more sup- 
 port, sympathy and appreciation than in former days 
 among thoughtful and intelligent students of finance. 
 
 I am indebted to Honorable Samuel W. McCall's ex- 
 cellent brief Life of Stevens; to Mr. W. U. Hensel, 
 of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for his study of Stevens 
 as a Lawyer, and to Mr. Hensel and other citizens in 
 Lancaster for help in other ways; to my colleague, 
 Professor William A. Rawles, for helpful suggestions 
 in certain parts of the volume ; to Mr. Herbert Putnam, 
 Librarian or Congress, for liberal privileges in the use 
 of the Stevens letters and manuscripts in the Mac- 
 Pherson papers that are yet unpublished. The scope 
 of the volume has permitted the use of these papers to 
 but a limited extent. It is to be hoped that some stu- 
 dent of the period will soon edit and bring to the light 
 these letters and papers which the late Edward Mac- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Pherson had intended before his death to make the 
 basis of a full and adequate presentation of the life, 
 letters and speeches of Thaddeus Stevens. This biog- 
 raphy is offered not as such a work, but rather as 
 merely a further contribution to the study of an impor- 
 tant period and character in our history. 
 
 James A. Woodburn. 
 
 Indiana University, Bloomington. 
 January 8, 1913. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Early Days 1 
 
 II The Early Anti-Mason 13 
 
 III The Buckshot War 28 
 
 IV Defender of Free Schools 41 
 
 V The Early Fsee-Soiler 55 
 
 VI In Congress Before the War; Anti-Slavery 
 
 Philippics 73 
 
 ' VII On the Eve of War 125 
 
 ''VIII Disunion, Secession, and No Compromise . . . 152 
 
 IX Slavery and the War 168 
 
 X The Constitution and the War 207 
 
 XI Ways and Means in the War ; the Greenback . 239 
 
 XII Reconstruction During the War 293 
 
 XIII Johnson and Reconstruction 324 
 
 XIV The Breach with Johnson 339 
 
 XV The First Congressional Plan 369 
 
 XVI The Appeal to the People 406 
 
 XVII Military Reconstruction 431 
 
 XVIII Military Reconstruction (Continued) . . . 458 
 
 XIX Impeachment 491 
 
 XX Confiscation 521 
 
 XXI The Greenbacker ; Funding, Debt Payment and 
 
 Contraction 536 
 
 XXII The Greenbacker; Funding, Debt Payment and 
 
 Contraction (Continued) 561 
 
 XXIII Closing Days and Characteristics .... 584 
 
THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY DAYS 
 
 THADDEUS STEVENS was born in Danville, 
 Vermont, April 4, 1792, the year following the 
 admission of Vermont to the Union. His parents had 
 come from Massachusetts a few years before, in a 
 family migration with the Harrises, Morrills and 
 others. The mother of Stevens was a Morrill, who, 
 judging from all accounts that have come down, was a 
 woman of the finest and highest type. The father was 
 not thrifty nor enterprising and did not succeed in pro- 
 viding very well for his famify. He was a shoemaker ; 
 and the son, Thaddeus, learned enough of the father's 
 trade to enable him to make shoes for the family. 
 Through all his long life Thaddeus Stevens was sel- 
 dom heard to refer to his father, and perhaps he knew 
 little about him. He spoke of his father's great repu- 
 tation as an athlete, and Thaddeus remembered that his 
 father had been known as the champion wrestler in all 
 the country round. The later years of the elder 
 Stevens' life appear to be wrapped in mystery. Some 
 say that he left his family soon after settling in Ver- 
 mont, and was never heard of again. Another tradi- 
 
 I 
 
2 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tion is to the effect that he was killed in the War of 
 1812; while still others assert that he died at home 
 when his children were very young. 1 Certain it is that 
 the mother, with four little children, all boys, was left 
 in dire poverty. Thaddeus, the youngest, and the 
 mother's favorite, came up through adversity and the 
 trials of penury. He never ceased to recall with af- 
 fection and gratitude his mother's love and sacrifices 
 for him in these trying years. 
 
 Stevens grew up in a democratic society. The 
 Revolutionary War was a recent event at the time of 
 his birth, but ten short years having elapsed since its 
 close. Its heroes and its issues were fresh in mind and 
 that great struggle was generally thought of as a con- 
 flict for human equality and the rights of man. The 
 early settlers in Vermont who had borne their fair 
 share in the Revolutionary struggle, were an honest, 
 rugged, independent God-fearing people. The great 
 mass of them were engaged in making a plain living 
 by industrious toil, and an aristocracy of wealth 
 and rank was practically unknown. Men were not 
 measured by the property they had, but were recognized 
 for what they were, for what they could do, for what 
 service they were able and willing to render to the com- 
 munity. Men and women alike were hardy toilers, and 
 there was a neighborliness among them that led them 
 
 1 Stories are told to the effect that the paternity of Thaddeus 
 Stevens is wrapped in mystery, and a former resident of Lancaster 
 asserted that circumstantial and documentary evidence once ex- 
 isted to show that he was the illegitimate son of Count Talley- 
 rand, who, in the year of Stevens' birth, was a visitor in 
 America. This may be only irresponsible gossip about the family 
 of Stevens, but it will serve to show the kind of stories that 
 have gathered in undue volume around Stevens' name. 
 
EARLY DAYS 3 
 
 to share one another's burdens and to respect one an- 
 other's virtues. There were no rich to be oppressors ; 
 luxury was unknown and the poor were not despised. 
 In such a social surrounding Stevens grew up, all his 
 early impressions being calculated to implant in his 
 mind hatred of privilege and of all inequalities that 
 may be promoted by artificial restraints and favors of 
 government. 
 
 Stevens, besides being lame from birth, was a sickly 
 youth. He seemed too frail and tender to earn his 
 living by manual toil. This fact may have been, in 
 part, the reason why his mother determined to send 
 him to college ; but it must also have been true that she 
 detected within him a talent and disposition that edu- 
 cation and a college training were likely to develop. 
 The mother must have perceived the great intellectual 
 possibilities of the son, and she wished, above all, to 
 provide for him opportunity for growth and a career. 
 She must have been led many times to ponder in her 
 heart the sayings and inquiries of a bright boy. 
 Stevens was sensitive to her suffering, to her spirit of 
 sacrifice and self-denial. One of the lasting memories 
 and impressions of his childhood was of his mother's 
 service during a plague of the spotted fever in Dan- 
 ville and the surrounding country. At a time when 
 so many were stricken that medical attendance and 
 nursing could not be secured, Mrs. Stevens was un- 
 tiring in her devotion and attention to her stricken 
 neighbors, to those in worse circumstances than herself. 
 She ministered to their wants, going from house to 
 house and relieving their suffering in every possible 
 way. Young Thaddeus was frequently taken with his 
 
4 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 mother upon these errands of mercy, and the impres- 
 sions that he received from the suffering that he wit- 
 nessed, combined with his own experience in lameness 
 and illness, led him to a keen and lifelong sympathy 
 with suffering which was one of the notable traits of 
 his character. 1 
 
 In later years Stevens gave frequent tributes to his 
 mother's virtues. In one of these expressions, recall- 
 ing her early hardships and poverty, he said : 
 
 " I really think the greatest pleasure of my life resulted 
 from my ability to give my mother a farm of two hundred 
 and fifty acres and a dairy of fourteen cows, and an occa- 
 sional bright gold piece which she loved to deposit in the 
 contributors' box of the Baptist church, which she at- 
 tended. This always gave her much pleasure and me much 
 satisfaction. My mother was a very extraordinary woman. 
 I have met very few women like her. She worked day 
 and night to educate me. I tried to repay her afterwards, 
 but the debt of a child to his mother, you know, is one of 
 the debts we can never pay." 
 
 The county court with its court-house was settled 
 at Danville, but a county academy was established in 
 Peacham, an adjoining town, and Mrs. Stevens moved 
 from Danville to Peacham to educate her boys. To 
 her mind the schoolroom was better than the court 
 room. The Peacham Academy, established in 1795. 
 has had a long career of usefulness, and in its early 
 days it attained an enviable reputation as a good fitting 
 school for college. 
 
 Stevens' academy days there were without unusual 
 event. The one event that has survived the humdrum 
 
 1 McCall, p. 8. 
 
EARLY DAYS 5 
 
 of his school life was his rebellion, with twelve other 
 students, against a rule forbidding " tragedies, come- 
 dies and other theatrical performances." The rebel- 
 lious students were censured by the board of control 
 for proceeding to exhibit a " tragedy " on the evening 
 of September 4, 181 1. This was denounced by the au- 
 thorities as " contrary to the known rules and orders 
 of the school and the express prohibition of the precep- 
 tor, a gross violation of the rules and by-laws of the 
 institution, tending to subvert all order and subordina- 
 tion in said school, and to disturb the peace of the 
 Society." The students were required to sign articles 
 of submission asserting that upon reflection they were 
 convinced that they had done wrong, and promising 
 that as long as they continued students of the academy 
 they would observe the rules laid down by the board. 
 It is said that Stevens signed this paper with reluctance 
 and chagrin, and that he soon thereafter completed his 
 preparation for college. 
 
 Stevens entered Dartmouth as a sophomore in the 
 fall of 181 1 in his twentieth year. He spent one or 
 two terms of his college life in the University of Ver- 
 mont (1812-13), but he returned to Dartmouth and 
 graduated there in 1814. 1 Then, as now, Dartmouth 
 
 1 A story is told of Stevens' rife while at the University of 
 Vermont, which illustrates his character. An obstinate farmer 
 insisted upon letting his cow run loose for pasturage on the 
 college campus. This was irritating, especially at commence- 
 ment time, and some of the students made way with the cow. 
 Stevens and another student had killed the animal, perhaps while 
 carrying a practical joke farther than they intended. The irate 
 farmer demanded payment and a certain student who was alto- 
 gether innocent of the deed, but whom circumstantial evidence 
 seemed to convict, was about to be expelled from college. 
 Stevens and his guilty comrade could not see the innocent suffer 
 for their wrong-doing while they escaped by silence. They deter- 
 
6 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 was one of the leading colleges of New England. It 
 then numbered, approximately, as many graduates in 
 a decade as Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, and its presi- 
 dent and faculty were as well-known in the world of 
 learning. Doctor John Wheelock, the son of the dis- 
 tinguished Eleazar Wheelock who had founded Dart- 
 mouth nearly half a century before, was President 
 when Stevens came. George Ticknor had graduated 
 there in 1807 and Daniel Webster in 1801. 
 
 It was a restricted classical course that was laid 
 out for Stevens in his college days, consisting chiefly 
 of the Latin and Greek classics and the higher mathe- 
 matics, with the addition of mental and moral philos- 
 ophy, and perhaps a study of the Greek Testament. 
 
 Stevens studied well, appreciating his time and oppor- 
 tunity and keeping in mind, no doubt, the sacrifices of 
 his mother for his education. His training in the 
 classics gave accuracy and precision to his style of 
 speech, and while in his subsequent public speeches he 
 professed to despise form and rhetorical rules, the 
 clearness of his thought and the directness and force of 
 his speeches gave to his sentences a grammatical qual- 
 ity that would always stand the test of criticism. His 
 classical studies and logical mathematical processes al- 
 ways stood him in good place. 
 
 Stevens was twenty-two when he graduated from 
 Dartmouth. He had determined to study law, and 
 
 mined to make a clean breast of the matter and confessed 
 fully to the owner of the cow. He generously refused to take 
 pay for his lost property and shielded the culprits while exoner- 
 ating the student under suspicion. The interesting sequel of the 
 story is that years afterward Stevens, who was ever mindful of 
 1a friendly act, sent the farmer a gold watch and chain with a 
 draft for more than the value of the cow. (McCall, p. 18.) 
 
EARLY DAYS 7 
 
 in order to support himself while pursuing his studies, 
 he taught for a year in Peacham. The following year, 
 moved partly by the spirit of youthful venture and 
 from a desire to find a wider opportunity for the future 
 practise of his chosen profession, he went to York, 
 Pennsylvania, where through the influence of Samuel 
 Merrill, a friend and former teacher of Stevens, he had 
 secured a position as instructor in the academy of 
 York. This important step in Stevens' life was pro- 
 moted primarily by the influence of Merrill. Samuel 
 Merrill was a Peacham boy and, like Stevens, was a 
 graduate of Dartmouth. He and Stevens seem to have 
 been very close friends. In a letter written by Stevens 
 to Merrill in 1814, a gossipy account is given of mar- 
 riages and other personal matters in Peacham and of 
 college affairs at Dartmouth. He spoke of an uncom- 
 mon epidemic at Peacham, 
 
 " which it is sincerely hoped will thin the ranks of our old 
 maids and send their withered ghosts to the dominion of 
 that old tyrant Hymen." He told of the literary societies 
 at Hanover ; that " Old Josh Holt is President of the fra- 
 ternity ; " that " Joseph Tracy, Gent, has been loaded with 
 Phi Betian honors, Kent likewise;" that " Fisk is the 
 Social's orator. Sam Wells hopes to be the Frater's, but 
 is loosing [ ?] popularity. Charles Leverett has entered into 
 the service of the aristocracy, in the capacity of scullion ; 
 and it is expected, as a reward for his services, he will be 
 knighted, i. e., elected Phi Betian." ..." Those fawning 
 parasites who are grasping at unmerited honors, seem for 
 once to have blundered into the truth, — that they must 
 flatter the nobility, or remain in obscurity; that they must 
 degrade themselves by sycophancy, or others will not exalt 
 them. The democracy rule in the fraternity. The aristoc- 
 racy make threatening grimaces, but it is only sport for us 
 
8 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 poor plebeians." ..." Friend Sam, I assure you, you can 
 hardly conceive the anxiety your friends feel for you in 
 that distant country. Considering you exposed to the in- 
 vincible charms of those fair Dutch wenches, with their 
 dozen pair of petticoats, they are really afraid that you will 
 lose your heart or get lost with Goodie Twiller's ladle, in 
 one corner of their pockets ; that filthy lucre will induce 
 you to become the son-in-law to some Ten-Breeches, and 
 then we shall despair of seeing you again." 
 
 Stevens in his letter then spoke of his anticipated 
 graduation from Dartmouth the following August, — 
 "unless honored with degradation" — and then he 
 would confront the necessity of entering into a school. 
 " If you think," he wrote, " that I could be sure of em- 
 ployment in Pennsylvania, I should like very well to 
 come into those parts. If you know of any vacancies 
 and could assist me, without trouble to yourself, you 
 would do me a favor." He closes with his compli- 
 ments to Merrill's brother and to Mr. Blanchard. 
 
 This letter explains Stevens' coming to Pennsyl- 
 vania. 1 It shows a feeling that was a part of his 
 
 1 The Samuel Merrill to whom Stevens wrote, was a man of 
 unusual parts, who became one of the pioneer commonwealth- 
 builders of Indiana. He removed to Indiana in 1816, the year 
 in which the state was admitted to the Union. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Legislature which selected Indianapolis as the capital 
 of the state, and he assisted in giving the name to the capital 
 city. He was elected Treasurer of State in 1820, a position 
 which he held for twelve years. In 1820 he helped to remove 
 the state archives and property from Corydon, the old capital, 
 to Indianapolis. After retiring from the state treasurership, he 
 helped to organize the State Bank of Indianapolis and was its 
 President for many years. This was one of the few state banks 
 of the time to win financial success and honor. Merrill after- 
 ward became President of the Indianapolis and Madison Rail- 
 road, the first railroad in Indiana. He died in 1855, an honored 
 citizen of the state. His descendants have won distinction in 
 the civic and educational life of Indiana, in the professions and 
 in business, and many of them have rendered notable service to 
 the commonwealth. 
 
EARLY DAYS 9 
 
 whole life, of sympathy and fellowship for the " poor 
 plebeian " against the " aristocracy." ' His remarks 
 about the " Pennsylvanian Dutch " were merely idle 
 cajolery and should not be taken to indicate a lack 
 of sympathy or appreciation of that worthy stock with 
 many of whose representatives Stevens afterward en- 
 tered into many and enduring ties of friendship. 
 
 At York in Pennsylvania, a county seat of impor- 
 tance, Stevens pursued the study of the law. As a 
 teacher and as a student of law, he was diligent in his 
 studies and retiring in his habits. He had begun his 
 legal studies in Vermont under Judge Mattocks; he 
 now continued them diligently in York under David 
 Casset, a leader of the local bar. 
 
 The familiar account of his admission to the bar 
 was afterward related by Stevens. For some unex- 
 plained reason he did not apply for admission in York. 
 Some rule of bench or bar may have made his 
 admission difficult if not impossible, probably the rule 
 that forbade a man's admission to the bar while he was 
 pursuing some other occupation. At any rate he rode 
 on horseback to Bel Air, the county seat of Harford 
 County, Maryland, the adjoining county to York, and 
 presented himself, an entire stranger, for membership 
 at the bar. Theodore Bland, Zebulon Hollingsworth, 
 and Joseph H. Nicholson were the judges presiding. 
 Their committee on the examination of the applicant 
 learned that young Stevens had read Blackstone, Coke 
 upon Littleton, Gilbert on Evidence and a work on 
 Pleading, and that he knew some of the elementary 
 legal definitions. Before this strenuous examination 
 began, the aspiring candidate was informed that a 
 
io THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 couple of bottles of good Madeira were requisite, and 
 as the examination drew to a close two more bottles 
 were required. As the quality of Stevens' wine passed 
 the sampling process of the dignified judges, his certif- 
 icate was signed and he was duly admitted to the bar. 
 The " subsequent proceedings " consisted of a game of 
 " fiploo " before a crowd of spectators, a game that 
 was new to Stevens and in which he lost a considerable 
 part of the fifty dollars that he had brought with 
 him to court. The minutes of the court recording his 
 admission are as follows : 
 
 " Upon the application of Stevenson Archer, Esq., 
 for the admission of Thaddeus Stevens, Esq., as an 
 attorney of this court, the said Thaddeus Stevens is ad- 
 mitted as an attorney of this court and thereupon takes 
 and signs the several oaths prescribed by law, and re- 
 peats and signs a declaration of his belief in the Chris- 
 tian religion." 
 
 A son of this Stevenson Archer, bearing the same 
 name, entered Congress in March, 1867. After he was 
 sworn in, Stevens came over and shook hands with him 
 and inquired whether he was the son of the Judge 
 Archer, of Maryland, on whose motion Stevens had 
 been admitted to practise law. On learning that such 
 was the case, Stevens indulged in the reminiscences 
 from which this account is substantially drawn. 1 
 
 The day after his admission to the bar, Stevens rode 
 back to Pennsylvania. He narrowly escaped drown- 
 ing while crossing the Susquehanna at McCall's Ferry. 
 He revisited York, but decided not to settle there. He 
 
 1 Hensel, W. U., Thaddeus Stevens as a Country Lawyer, p. 4» 
 
EARLY DAYS n 
 
 went to Lancaster and inspected that flourishing and 
 interesting town, but for some reason unknown he 
 turned aside from its opportunities and went to Gettys- 
 burg, the county seat of Adams County, the town that 
 has given its name to the most famous battle in Amer- 
 ican history. There he settled to begin practise, start- 
 ing " upon his career as a lawyer, without friends, 
 fame, family, or fortune." 1 
 
 For a number of years in Gettysburg he experienced 
 the life of the struggling young lawyer. On a meager 
 budget of income and expenses and while waiting for 
 clients, he spent his leisure hours in intelligent and 
 diligent reading, thus adding to his store of literary and 
 historical knowledge that he was afterward able to 
 draw upon with such effect, j His success at the law 
 seemed at first doubtful even to himself. But it was 
 not long until a case came to him by which he was able 
 to attain to success and reputation. He was called 
 upon to defend a murderer, a defense that no other 
 lawyer seemed willing to assume. Stevens undertook 
 the case and managed it with such ability, adroitness 
 and skill that, while he was not able to secure an ac- 
 quittal for his client, who was notoriously guilty and 
 was hanged for his crime, he attracted attention and 
 favorable comment from the bar and from the com- 
 munity. Stevens put up a plea of insanity for his 
 client, which was not a very usual plea in those days. 
 Stevens himself believed in the plea, since many years 
 later, after he had been the attorney for the defense in 
 more than fifty other murder cases, in all of which he 
 
 1 Hensel, W. U. 
 
12 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 was successful, he asserted that every one of the de- 
 fendants deserved conviction but this one, who, as 
 Stevens averred, was insane. 
 
 It is asserted that Stevens received a fee of fifteen 
 hundred dollars in this case. This has been doubted, 
 as it is thought unlikely that such a fee in those days 
 would be paid to an unknown local lawyer by a mur- 
 derer who was unable to have his case appealed, and 
 who was hanged for his crime. But it is certain that 
 Stevens ever looked upon this case as the beginning of 
 his professional success. 
 
 He soon came to the front of the Adams County 
 bar, with a general and lucrative practise. From 1821 
 to 1830 he appeared in almost every important case 
 at the local bar, and in the various appeals to the Su- 
 preme Court in which Stevens appeared he won in 
 nine out of ten, securing six reversals from the decis- 
 ion of the lower court. He was now the recipient of 
 lucrative fees, he had won local fame as a lawyer and 
 had attained honorable standing and reputation 
 throughout his adopted county. He was ready, well 
 equipped, and the time had come for his entrance into 
 public life. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 
 
 QTEVENS' first appearance in public life was in 
 ^ 1833, when he became a member of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Legislature, from Adams County. 1 He had 
 formerly been in sympathy with the Federalist party, 
 and after the disappearance of that party he took 
 no active part in politics until the appearance of 
 the Anti-Masonic party in 1829. The disappearance 
 and probable murder of Morgan in New York State 
 had caused much agitation against the Free Masons, 
 and a political party arose pledged to oppose the power 
 and influence of this oath-bound secret order whose 
 members, it was asserted, were banded together to con- 
 trol the government and to direct or prevent the admin- 
 istration of the courts and the laws in their own in- 
 terests. Stevens became one of the adherents and 
 leaders of this new party in Pennsylvania. He re- 
 
 1 This, Doctor McCarthy, the historian of the Anti-Masonic 
 party, calls the most significant fact in the history of Anti-Masonry 
 in Pennsylvania. At this time Stevens was described by one of 
 his political opponents as " a lawyer of much cunning and adroit- 
 ness and of considerable celebrity. He was originally an East- 
 ern man, and has been all his life a uniform and undeviating 
 Federalist, a warm friend of John Quincy Adams and a vio- 
 lent opponent of General Jackson. He is now the great lumi- 
 nary of Anti-Masonry in Adams County, within whose orbit all 
 the lesser planets of the new system revolve and reflect the light 
 he dispenses." Pennsylvania Reporter, March 23, 1830, cited in 
 McCarthy's " Anti-Masonic Party," American Historical Associa- 
 tion Reports, 1903, p. 456. 
 
 J 3 
 
14 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 garded Masonry as an imperium in imperio and he did 
 not hesitate to denounce the lodge as " a secret, oath- 
 bound, murderous institution that endangered the con- 
 tinuance of Republican Government." 
 
 In 1829 the Anti-Masonic party in Pennsylvania, 
 with Stevens as one of its leaders, made a campaign 
 for the governorship, running Joseph Ritner as its 
 candidate for Governor. In 1831 this party held a 
 National Convention and nominated William Wirt as 
 its candidate for President. Stevens was one of 
 the prominent figures of this convention, the first in the 
 history of American politics after the pattern of the 
 modern presidential nominating convention. Among 
 other prominent supporters of this strange new party 
 were J. Q. Adams, William H. Seward, John Marshall, 
 Richard Rush, Amasa Walker,. Myron Holly, and 
 William Slade. 
 
 As a member of this first historic nominating con- 
 vention Stevens made a notable speech arraigning the 
 unrepublican spirit of Free Masonry. He com- 
 plained of the unfair and discriminating silence of the 
 press. The papers had made no mention of the con- 
 vention and the people scarcely knew of it. " Not one- 
 fourth part of the people of Philadelphia know that you 
 are in session," and this he regarded as evidence enough 
 that there was " an influence operating higher than 
 human curiosity and higher than the laws of the land." 
 You are here in the presence of grave charges brought 
 against public men and facing important disclosures 
 of vital interest to the public, " yet the papers which 
 surround you are as silent as the grave," while on 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 15 
 
 the other hand, the opposition press " brand the efforts 
 of Anti-Masonry with infamy." 
 
 Stevens proceeded to defend the morality of the 
 men who had disclosed the oaths and secrets of Free 
 Masonry. He denounced the lodge as an improper 
 banding together of men under oath of mutual support, 
 to secure immunity in improper conduct and to pro- 
 mote one another to improper place and power, — to 
 secure power for other than public ends in every place 
 where power is of importance. " Look around : 
 Though but one hundred thousand of the people of the 
 United States are Free Masons, yet almost all the 
 offices of high profit and high honor are filled with 
 gentlemen of that institution. Out of the number of 
 law judges in the State of Pennsylvania, eighteen- 
 twentieths are Masons ; and twenty-two out of twenty- 
 four states of the Union are now governed by Masonic 
 chief magistrates. Although not a twentieth part of 
 the voters of this commonwealth, and of the United 
 States are Masons, yet they have contrived, by con- 
 cert, to put themselves into eighteen out of twenty of 
 the offices of profit and power. I defy contradiction to 
 this statement." 
 
 Since this was so, Stevens wished to know whether 
 it was because the uninitiated were not fit for office 
 or whether the members of the lodge acted secretly 
 upon the malign principles that had been disclosed. 
 He further denounced Masonry as an irreligious and 
 blasphemous institution, and he called upon the people 
 to exclude " with a sorrowful but determined force, 
 from all places of power, those who still belong to the 
 
16 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 institution, and to put them out from all communion 
 with the holy and the good." l 
 
 It was as a member of this party and with firm, con- 
 victions in its cause that Stevens came to the State 
 Legislature of Pennsylvania in 1833. He soon of- 
 fered a resolution proposing to inquire into the ex- 
 pediency of a law making membership in a Masonic 
 lodge sufficient cause of peremptory challenge in court, 
 when one of the parties, and not both, was a Mason, 
 and in all criminal cases if the defendant was a Mason; 
 and that a Masonic judge should be barred from trying 
 a case if one of the parties in the suit was a Mason. 
 This resolution of Stevens was defeated by the narrow 
 margin of eleven votes. 
 
 Stevens believed that Masonry, standing for secrecy, 
 " implied shame and guilt " ; that the members of the 
 order, if called upon to act as witnesses, magistrates, 
 sheriffs, jurors, or legislators, would violate their oaths 
 and their most sacred obligations in these civil rela- 
 tions; that they would spirit away witnesses, perjure 
 themselves in court, and do whatever they found neces- 
 sary to prevent the attainment of judicial justice, in 
 order to shield their fellow-members. Accordingly he 
 and the honest men of his party believed that Masonry 
 threatened the existence of free institutions. 
 
 In 1834 Stevens offered another resolution in the 
 Legislature, instructing the judiciary committee to bring- 
 in a bill for the suppression of Masonry. This also 
 was defeated, but in the following year he secured the 
 appointment of a committee to investigate the evils of 
 Free Masonry and other secret societies. As the com- 
 
 1 Speech, 1831, Christian Cynosure, April 5, 1883. 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 17 
 
 mittee had no power to commit witnesses for contempt, 
 it could not compel the Masons whom it summoned to 
 testify, and consequently its investigations amounted to 
 but little. 
 
 This committee service, however, gave Stevens an 
 opportunity to make a report, and this he couched in 
 characteristic language. It was desirable, he said, that 
 the government and the judges of the courts should be 
 summoned as witnesses. This would enable the public 
 to learn how far Masonry secures political and exec- 
 utive power; whether applications for office have been 
 founded on Masonic merit and claimed on Masonic 
 rights ; whether the " significant symbols " and the 
 " mystic watchword " of Masonry have been used in 
 procuring executive patronage; how many convicted 
 felons who have been pardoned by the present govern- 
 ment are " brethren of the mystic tie " and connected 
 by blood and politics with members of that institution ; 
 and whether, before the judges, " the grand hailing 
 sign had ever been handed, sent, or thrown to them 
 by either of the parties litigant, and if so, what had 
 been the result of the trial." 
 
 One at this day is disposed to have very little sym- 
 pathy with the designs of the Anti-Masons and he 
 reads with some amazement that so many men and so 
 many leading minds were led to become members of 
 this ephemeral party. But if one examines carefully 
 into the motives governing the members of the Anti- 
 Masonic party and of its leaders, like Stevens, he will 
 find that the movement was very largely prompted 
 by an earnest desire to secure freedom and equality 
 among all citizens and to prevent the establishment of 
 
iS THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 orders and ranks that seemed calculated to promote 
 special privileges among men. Here again it was 
 Stevens' democracy and love of free institutions, his 
 love of " equal rights and unshackled republicanism " 
 that controlled him, that led him to become a promoter 
 of the Anti-Masonic Movement. Whatever we may- 
 think of the peculiar tenets of this party it is entitled 
 to respect for its fundamental political doctrine, — the 
 supremacy of the laics. The honest Anti-Masons 
 favored a government of laws, equally, openly, and 
 justly administered, and it was their belief that Free 
 Masonry was opposed to this fundamental principle 
 of our civil institutions. The advocates of Anti- 
 Masonry always and consistently contended that the 
 selection of men for office should ever be subservient 
 to these principles and never should these principles be 
 subservient to the elevation of men. Such was 
 Stevens' political faith. There can be no doubt of 
 Stevens' deep and sincere convictions in the Anti- 
 Masonic cause, and no one of its advocates could set 
 forth that cause with greater ability or a more trenchant 
 eloquence than he. 
 
 In 1835, in response to an invitation extended to him 
 by citizens of Washington County, Maryland, Mr. 
 Stevens attended an Anti-Masonic meeting in Hagers- 
 town and delivered a speech. An extended extract 
 from that speech may not be out of place, since it shows 
 Stevens' youthful fire and illustrates the heated political 
 literature of the Anti-Masonic conflict. Whatever one 
 may think of the merit of his main contention he is 
 bound to acknowledge the invigorating and courageous 
 quality of Stevens' eloquence. Among other things he 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 19 
 
 said : " Wherever the Genius of Liberty has set a 
 people free, the first object of their solicitude should 
 be the destruction of Free Masonry and all other secret 
 societies. Where tyrants rule they are fit engines of 
 despotism, but under free republican government se- 
 cret societies are dangerous and are not to be tolerated. 
 
 " The oaths of Free Masons are inconsistent with 
 pure morals, true religion, and the permanent existence 
 of liberty. . . . They swear to promote one another's 
 political preferment. This vow is not a dead letter. 
 It is acted on throughout the Union. Twenty of the 
 twenty- four states are governed by Masons. They 
 hold two-thirds of the offices. None but a Mason can 
 be President. Henry Clay is Grand Master of Ken- 
 tucky. All this monopoly of power is brought about 
 by a band of men constituting less than one-twentieth 
 of our voters. Surely there is a magic influence in 
 Free Masonry. It corrupts the fountains of justice; 
 stays the arm of the law; stops the regular action of 
 government ; binds the mind in darkness. 
 
 " Two things are indispensable to the continuance 
 of national liberty, — the independence of the public 
 press and the impartial administration of justice. The 
 tyranny of Masonry destroys both. This prostituted 
 harlot has entered the courts of justice and seduced the 
 venerable judges into her foul embrace. They, too, 
 seek to extricate their brothers, whether right or 
 wrong. 
 
 " How can the evil be destroyed ? Undermine its 
 foundation, — the hope of power and place. It is 
 founded on selfishness, love of gain, personal ambition, 
 desire of emolument. Remove these or it will con- 
 
20 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tinue to flourish. Refuse to trust Masons with any 
 office of profit or trust, until they are shorn of their 
 locks and become as other men. Turn their weapons 
 against themselves. Think not to dissolve this insti- 
 tution by appealing to their moral feeling. It would 
 be useless to attempt to touch the feelings of the heart. 
 They would but sneer. It is idle folly to address the 
 sympathies of political partisans. Although they were 
 touched in strains as tender as the mournful music of 
 Orpheus, it would fall unavailingly on listless ears. It 
 would sooner wring compassion from the heart of 
 Cerberus and his infernal attendants. 
 
 " Has this institution outgrown the law, become 
 stronger than the civil power, or the will of a sovereign 
 people? Has this base-born issue of a foreign sire be- 
 come so powerful, that even the Young Lion of Amer- 
 ican Liberty can not crush him? Is this bloody god 
 too strong for us to overcome ? Then let us tremble at 
 his power, fall down, bow ourselves in the dust before 
 him and supplicate his favor. For my single self I 
 would rather be the victim of his fury than the slave of 
 his favor. 
 
 " Some are afraid of being in the minority, — tame 
 souls who delight to dwell on neutral ground, who 
 tremble lest they should mistake the strong side, who 
 hover around the confines of the battle-field ready to 
 throw up their caps and shout hosannas to the victors. 
 Such men we would advise to remain where they are, 
 in dull and useless sloth fulness. Those who are not 
 with us in moral feeling we are better without. We 
 want no hireling forces. Those who address them- 
 selves to this warfare must do it from love of country. 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 21 
 
 Who would not rather be vanquished with honorable 
 associates than triumph with a horde of mercenary 
 traitors? If you must fall you will have the consola- 
 tion to know that you have lived while there was any- 
 thing worth living for. . . . Who would not rather be- 
 come food for worms while the lamp of liberty may yet 
 light him to his grave than to survive its extinguish- 
 ment, to grope through ages of the darkness of despo- 
 tism, a trembling coward slave? Who would not 
 rather sleep with honor in the Spartan's grave side by 
 side with Leonidas and his little band of martyred 
 patriots than to ride triumphant over a prostrate world 
 with the principles and in company of Neroes and 
 Caligulas ? If any such recreant freemen there are, let 
 them turn and flee." 1 
 
 The Gettysburg Republican Compiler published a re- 
 port of this speech in a letter from Hagerstown, and 
 with the report, published some personal reflections 
 upon the speaker, which became the basis of a suit for 
 libel brought by Stevens. The letter described Stevens 
 as " a stout man, about forty years of age, with a bald 
 head, and lame." It charged him with impudence in 
 presuming to instruct the citizens of another state, — 
 no foreign influence should direct or control the course 
 of the citizens of Maryland ; it asserted that the speaker 
 was incapable of feeling aright on any matter and that 
 his speech was " a compound of the vilest slanders, 
 most barefaced falsehoods and pandemoniac malignity 
 against respectable citizens that ever fell from the lips 
 of any man." With a jibe at Stevens' Yankee extrac- 
 
 1 " Free Masonry Unmasked," 1835. Pamphlet of The His- 
 torical Society of Pennsylvania. 
 
22 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tion the writer asserted that " this Anti-Masonry was 
 not born in Pennsylvania, but was imported from that 
 part of our country whose people are proverbial for 
 their tricks and frauds, as the venders of the most 
 worthless and deceptive commodities, — flannel sau- 
 sages, wooden nutmegs, and horn gun-flints." 
 
 This seems strong enough for ordinary political war- 
 fare, but there must have been other parts of the letter 
 that were used in the successful libel suit that Stevens 
 brought against the publisher, as the defendant, Jacob 
 Le fever, was convicted, fined fifty dollars, and sen- 
 tenced to three months' imprisonment. But Governor 
 Wolf, a Mason, as Stevens expressed it, " extricated his 
 brother by pardoning him." 
 
 Because of divisions among the Democrats, the 
 AYhigs and Anti-Masons combined were able to carry 
 Pennsylvania in 1835. They elected Ritner, an Anti- 
 Mason, to the governorship and these united parties 
 controlled the lower house of the Legislature, and, on a 
 joint vote, both houses. Stevens was regarded as one 
 of the confidential advisers of the Governor, a member 
 of his " Yankee Kitchen Cabinet." Some of the dis- 
 senting Democrats who had supported Muhlenberg for 
 Governor against Governor Wolf, the regular nominee 
 of the party, were inclined to vote with the Anti- 
 Masonic-Whig combination. They were dissatisfied 
 because of increased taxation resulting from the free 
 school law and from canal construction. Governor 
 Ritner interpreted this election as a triumph of Anti- 
 Masonry and in his first message he asserted that the 
 supremacy of the laws and the equal rights of the peo- 
 ple should be maintained, " whether assailed by indi- 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 23 
 
 viduals or by secret sworn associations. The people 
 have willed the destruction of secret societies and that 
 will can not be disregarded." 
 
 On December 7, 1835, Stevens introduced into the 
 Legislature a bill to suppress secret societies bound to- 
 gether by unlawful oaths, and on December 19, a com- 
 mittee of five, with Stevens as chairman, was appointed 
 to investigate the evils of Free Masonry, with power 
 to send for persons and papers. Stevens immediately 
 summoned Ex-Governor Wolf and other political op- 
 ponents to appear before the committee, and upon their 
 refusal to take any notice of the summons he offered 
 a resolution in the House " to compel the attendance 
 of these and other delinquent witnesses." It was voted 
 to bring these men before the committee by authority 
 of the House. There was much excitement and an in- 
 terested crowd of spectators came to the sessions of the 
 committee to hear the secrets of Masonry revealed, and 
 Stevens' committee was ridiculed and denounced by his 
 Masonic opponents as " An Old Woman's Curiosity 
 Convention," with Stevens as " Chief Old Woman," or 
 the " Arch Priest of Anti-Masonry." The Masons 
 who were summoned refused to answer the questions 
 that were put to them, and each read a lengthy protest 
 instead. Stevens then arranged to have twenty-five of 
 them arraigned before the House and as " prisoners at 
 the bar to be committed to the charge of the sergeant- 
 at-arms until delivered by due course of law." The 
 House soon tired of its prisoners and ordered their 
 release, the Whig allies of the Anti-Masons failing to 
 give their continued support. 
 
 Stevens' investigation was defeated, but in a speech 
 
24 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of March 5, 1836, he vowed everlasting opposition to 
 the " unholy orders." " Sir," he said, " I will go home 
 again in a minority, and call again and again upon the 
 people and will either succeed in crushing that polluting 
 order, which will sustain itself by trampling over the 
 best interests of the country, or will go down to the 
 grave never faltering in a righteous cause." He be- 
 lieved that the people would soon perceive that there 
 was " no other question than Masonry and Anti- 
 Masonry." x 
 
 As the campaign of 1836 came on, divisions appeared 
 in the ranks of the Pennsylvania Anti-Masons. Some 
 favored the nomination of General Harrison for the 
 presidency ; but Stevens and the more radical members 
 of the party protested. Stevens took it upon himself 
 to submit a series of questions to Harrison. He 
 wished to know whether Harrison believed that oath- 
 bound secret societies were an evil and inconsistent 
 with the genius and safety of republican government 
 and whether he would join his Anti-Masonic fellow- 
 citizens in using " constitutional, fair, and honorable 
 means for their final and effectual suppression." Har- 
 rison answered that the attempt to exercise such au- 
 thority might be conducive of more mischief than the 
 evils it was proposed to remedy. The answer was not 
 satisfactory to Stevens, and he threw the weight of his 
 influence to Webster as the Anti-Jackson candidate. 
 But a state convention of the Anti-Masons in Decem- 
 ber, 1835, refused to send delegates to an Anti-Masonic 
 National Convention, and it proceeded to nominate 
 
 1 McCarthy, "Anti-Masonic Party," American Historical Asso- 
 ciation Papers, 1903, pp. 474-475. 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 25 
 
 Harrison and Granger for President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent, whereupon the radicals led by Stevens protested 
 and withdrew from further participation in the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 The seceding Anti-Masons proposed to hold a Na- 
 tional Convention in May, and appointed delegates 
 to it. Stevens and Amos Ellmaker were among the 
 delegates appointed. The address which they issued 
 throws light upon Stevens' extreme spirit of Anti- 
 Masonry. This address charged that the Masonic- 
 Whig State Convention which had declared for Harri- 
 son had been influenced, if not controlled, by Masons, 
 or "strenuous defenders of the lodge," or by those 
 who were made to believe that the road to patronage 
 and public office led on through support of Harrison. 
 This convention, the address asserted, had sat with 
 closed doors, like a Star Chamber, and had voted down 
 a resolution asking General Harrison to declare him- 
 self for Anti-Masonic principles. Stevens' address 
 called upon every true Anti-Mason in the state to re- 
 fuse to sanction this coalition, but to hold himself 
 bound by the decisions of the National Convention 
 soon to be held. There was to be no repose in defense 
 of equal rights but the armor was to buckled on anew 
 " to meet and again to overthrow the evil monster 
 whose slightest touch is pollution." * 
 
 This appeal was not effective in arousing a popular 
 response; the policy of continuing a political party on 
 the one idea of opposition to Masonry was dying out ; 
 the party was being absorbed into the general Whig- 
 movement, and the Whig National Convention having 
 1 McCarthy, " Anti-Masonic Party," p. 481. 
 
26 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 nominated Harrison, Stevens was compelled by his 
 spirit of opposition to the Jacksonian Democracy to 
 come to Harrison's support, though, no doubt, his sup- 
 port was lukewarm, while many of the radical Anti- 
 Masons refused to vote for Harrison. The elections 
 in the state in 1836 went against the Whigs and the 
 Anti-Masons, and Stevens was not returned to the 
 Legislature. The result is accounted for by the 
 " fiasco of his investigation and by his arbitrary meas- 
 ures in regard to Masonry." * 
 
 But the lack of unity and cohesion in the Anti-Ma- 
 sonic-Whig combination, their party quarrels and 
 schisms, and their divisions on state issues, offer a 
 more probable cause for their defeat. 
 
 One should not be led into the error of supposing 
 from this account that Stevens was so absorbed in this 
 period of his life with the cause of Anti-Masonry that 
 he was indifferent to all other political and public ques- 
 tions of the time. The anti-slavery cause and the 
 cause of free schools, as we shall see, occupied much 
 of his interest and attention. He offered a resolution 
 in the Legislature instructing Pennsylvania's delega- 
 tion in Congress to favor internal improvements by 
 promoting measures for improving the navigation of 
 the Ohio. He proposed a Pennsylvania charter for 
 the second United States Bank, which Jackson was 
 pounding to its death. This showed Stevens' Anti- 
 Jackson temper. Other national and local interests in 
 public affairs required his time and labor. In 1838 
 he became canal commissioner of the state, which gave 
 him control of considerable patronage, and one of his 
 
 1 McCarthy, p. 483. 
 
THE EARLY ANTI-MASON 27 
 
 political opponents and colleagues in Congress asserted 
 in later years that he " inaugurated a system of colon- 
 ization for political effect which politicians have im- 
 proved upon and practised more or less ever since." * 
 When Porter beat Ritner for Governor of Pennsyl- 
 vania in 1838, Stevens made what some of his friendly 
 critics consider to be the capital mistake of his early 
 political life. He and his party managers, believing 
 they had been beaten by fraud, determined to treat the 
 election as if it had not occurred. This brought on 
 the " Buckshot War," which, though it wrought no 
 great revolution in politics, assisted in taking Stevens 
 out of public life for a number of years. The account 
 of that bloodless war it is now in place to give. 
 
 1 Judge Woodward Memorial Address on the Life of Stevens, 
 Congressional Globe, 188, p. 72. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BUCKSHOT WAR 
 
 / "T" V HE " Buckshot War " was the outcome of election 
 ■*■ disputes in Philadelphia County in 1838. The 
 control of the Legislature depended on the Philadelphia 
 contest, and a seat in the United States Senate was at 
 stake. If the Whig candidates were elected from this 
 county that party could control the Legislature; if the 
 Democrat candidates were elected, the Legislature 
 would be Democratic. One set of partisan returning 
 officers made out a return in favor of the Whigs, an- 
 other set made out a return in favor of the Democrats. 
 The Whigs claimed the disputed district of Northern 
 Liberties by one thousand votes, but the judges de- 
 clared that the whole district should be thrown out, and 
 this elected the Democratic ticket. Burrowes, the 
 Whig Secretary of State, who was also chairman of 
 the Whig State Campaign Committee, recognized the 
 Whig returns, which he had received first, in due and 
 legal form. The Democratic return was later and not 
 so regular. Burrowes also declared, in a Whig party 
 address, that the Democratic majority in the state had 
 been secured by fraud, that the Whigs should immedi- 
 ately begin an investigation and proceed as if they had 
 not been defeated in the recent election. 1 
 
 1 This is printed in Niles' Register under the caption, "Ad- 
 dress of the Democratic State Committee to the Friends of 
 
 28 
 
THE BUCKSHOT WAR 29 
 
 The Whig contestants were thus recognized by the 
 constituted authority as having legal certificates of elec- 
 tion. Were they to be allowed to take their seats and 
 vote upon all questions relating to the permanent or- 
 ganization of the House? If so, their party would be 
 able to obtain permanent control. Stevens was the 
 Whig leader. He published an able argument in favor 
 of this plan of procedure. He argued most plausibly 
 that the only way to organize the House was to swear 
 in the members who had been designated in the legal 
 returns. There must be a prima facie decision as to 
 the contested seats. It was absurd to say that this de- 
 cision should be postponed until all the undisputed re- 
 turns were read and to allow only those members whose 
 election was undisputed to decide as to the disputed 
 ones; because, until the House was organized and a 
 Speaker elected, it was not competent to entertain any 
 question, and if there could be no initial decision as to 
 disputed seats and such decisions had to be postponed 
 until the House was organized, officers elected, and 
 committees appointed, it would be very easy to con- 
 test any number or all of the seats, and no one would 
 be left to act as umpires and judges. Until the House 
 was organized no members were competent to vote 
 as to the right of other members to their seats. " They 
 must in every instance be sitting members upon the 
 returns furnished by the secretary of the common- 
 wealth; the only way the sitting members can be un- 
 seated is by a petition presented by the claiming mem- 
 Joseph Ritner." It appears that the name " Democratic " was 
 too popular to allow its being monopolized by the " Van Buren 
 Democrats." 
 
30 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 bers, and that petition referred to a committee selected 
 by lot, according to the act of 1791, whose report is 
 final and conclusive." 
 
 Such was Stevens' argument. It is difficult to see a 
 loophole in it from the standpoint of law and Amer- 
 ican parliamentary procedure. 1 
 
 As the day approached for the organization of the 
 Legislature crowds of party contestants came to the 
 state capitol. Threats of violence were made, and it 
 was asserted that bayonets were to bristle at Harris- 
 burg. The Democrats rallied their forces; commit- 
 tees of safety came from Philadelphia ; leaders were 
 appointed ; armed belligerents filled the town, and when 
 the House met for its first session " the hall was 
 crowded to the door with outsiders." 2 
 
 Stevens' address to his constituents described the 
 situation as follows : " An unusual number of people 
 filled the galleries and lobby. Several of the aisles, 
 and the open space in front of the Speaker's chair, 
 were choked up with rude-looking strangers, and the 
 chairs of several members were surrounded with rough 
 brawny bullies. My seat had the honor of being 
 guarded by eight or ten of the most desperate brawlers 
 of Kensington and Spring Garden, who thrust them- 
 selves determinedly against my chair, and when I left 
 it occasionally, one of them occupied it until my re- 
 turn. Most of them wore coats with outside pockets 
 in which their hands were generally thrust; and it 
 was afterward satisfactorily ascertained that they 
 
 1 See Stevens' address to the citizens of Adams County, Penn- 
 sylvania Telegraph, January 17, 1839. 
 
 2 McCarthy, p. 497. 
 
THE BUCKSHOT WAR 31 
 
 were armed .with double-barreled pistols, bowie knives, 
 and dirks." * 
 
 The result of the attempt to organize the House was 
 that two Houses were organized, two Speakers were 
 elected, and two sets of committees were appointed to 
 inform the Governor and the Senate that the House 
 was organized and ready for business. Stevens, for 
 the Whigs, nominated their Speaker, appointed tellers, 
 put the motion, declared his Speaker elected and con- 
 ducted him to the chair. He took no counsel of 
 timidity ; he w T as not governed in the least by doubt or 
 hesitation. He pursued the means best calculated to 
 reach the end he had in view. 
 
 The two Speakers, Cunningham, the Whig, and Hop- 
 kins, the Democrat, occupied the platform and the two 
 contending factions were known as the " Hopkins 
 House " and the " Stevens Rump." Of course, no 
 business could be transacted. The question was, which 
 of the two Houses would the Senate recognize and thus 
 constitute a Legislature ? 
 
 The Whigs had organized the Senate, greatly to the 
 disgust of the Democratic partisans who had packed 
 the galleries and lobbies. Violent threats were made 
 against Penrose, the President of the Senate, and 
 against Stevens and Burrowes, who had come to the 
 Senate and were sitting as spectators. When one 
 Brown, a Democratic contestant, who had been ex- 
 cluded from the Senate, demanded a hearing, it was at 
 first denied, and a motion made to adjourn. " A scene 
 ensued which baffles description. Apparently a thou- 
 sand voices cried out for Brown! Brown! and with 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Telegraph, January 17, 1839. 
 
32 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the clapping, stamping, and hallooing exceeded in tu- 
 mult and confusion anything ever witnessed. Finally 
 Brown had leave to speak. When he had concluded 
 the spectators rushed into the middle of the chamber 
 and had complete possession of the place." x 
 
 As the Harrisburg Intelligencer expressed it, when 
 the new Senators (the contested Whigs) were sworn 
 in, " A scene of riot ensued beyond all description, 
 which finally obliged the Senate to adjourn, when the 
 mob took possession of the hall." 2 When the dis- 
 order had become so uproarious that the proceedings 
 had to be adjourned, " Mr. Penrose and Mr. Stevens, 
 with a majority of the Senators, left the hall by jump- 
 ing from the windows." 3 
 
 Stevens gives the following account of his escape on 
 this occasion : " Mr. Burrowes and myself were stand- 
 ing in front of them near the fire. We were urged 
 several times to withdraw as the only means of safety, 
 and of preventing the effusion of blood. . . . Private 
 information was conveyed both to Mr. Penrose and 
 myself by persons from the crowd, that the ruffians 
 were arranging to 'stab' or 'knife' us. Mr. Bur- 
 rowes had left the house by a back window, and, as 
 the tumult grew thicker and nearer, after dark Mr. 
 Penrose and myself did the same and were followed 
 by a large number of gentlemen, Senators and mem- 
 bers of the House, as well as others. We had scarcely 
 got behind the Treasury Building when twenty or 
 thirty of the mob broke out of the capitol and ran 
 
 1 Correspondent in the Baltimore American, Niles' Register, 
 Vol. 55. P- 237. 
 
 2 Niles 45, p. 238. 
 
 3 Writer in the Baltimore American, Niles 55, p. 237. 
 
THE BUCKSHOT WAR 3 $ 
 
 round to the window whence we escaped. On seeing it 
 open a person present testifies that they said, ' We are 
 a minute too late/ and inquired for Penrose." 1 
 
 Democratic writers denounced Stevens as the head 
 of a Whig conspiracy, who, with his " supple coadju- 
 tors," was seeking " to consummate the frauds and in- 
 iquities which they have been practising upon our bleed- 
 ing commonwealth during the last three years." 
 " How much longer," it was asked, " are the good, 
 moral, quiet citizens of Pennsylvania to be tormented 
 by this arch conspirator, who has for three years agi- 
 tated the commonwealth without ceasing, — who has 
 been incessantly engaged in endeavoring to overturn 
 our institutions, and who has been the cause of squan- 
 dering millions of the people's money to construct a 
 useless railroad to his iron works — to buy up bullies 
 to intimidate freemen at the polls? " 
 
 The Democratic reporter referred to Stevens as the 
 oracle and the conscience-keeper of Governor Ritner, 
 and it was, therefore, to be expected that his course 
 would be " sinister and hypocritical." This Democratic 
 journalist constantly called the Whigs the " Federal 
 members, or Federal Whigs," or " our corrupt Federal 
 rulers," seeking to identify them with the old unpopu- 
 lar Federalist party, and he commented upon the ease 
 with which Stevens " molded every Federal-Whig- 
 Anti-Masonic member to his views," and " how ser- 
 vilely they followed their leader and basely executed 
 all his reckless commands." 
 
 After the mob had broken up the session of the 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Telegraph, January 17, 1839. Cited by 
 McCarthy, p. 499. 
 
34 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Senate, the city was in the hands of rioters. The Dem- 
 ocrats organized a " provisional government," and 
 Whig officers hardly dared to appear upon the streets, 
 and the threat was made that if they should attempt 
 to organize a Legislature Harrisburg " would be 
 smothered in blood." * 
 
 Stevens, in a letter to his constituents, came back 
 at his opponents, who claimed to be freemen seeking 
 to vindicate the outraged liberties and rights of the 
 people, by the following description of the mob. " The 
 most respectable of them, the ' Captains of tens,' were 
 keepers of disorderly houses in Kensington. Then 
 came journeymen butchers, who were too worthless to 
 find regular employment; next, professional boxers, 
 who practise their pugilistic powers for hire; low gam- 
 blers, who infest the oyster cellars of the suburbs. A 
 portion of them consisted of a class of men whose busi- 
 ness you will hardly understand, — dog-keepers who, 
 in Spring Garden and Southwark, raise and train a 
 ferocious breed of dogs, whom they fight weekly for 
 wages, and for the amusement of the ' indignant peo- 
 ple.' Their troop was flanked by a few professional 
 thieves and discharged convicts. These men, gathered 
 up from the hotels and hovels, were refitted with such 
 cast-off clothes as their employers could command, and 
 hired at fifteen dollars the head and freighted to come 
 to Harrisburg to instruct the Legislature in its duties 
 and protect their rights." 2 
 
 With the mob in possession of the state-house and 
 city, overawing the Senate and not permitting it to 
 
 1 McCarthy, p. 449- 
 
 2 Stevens' Address, Pennsylvania Telegraph, January i~, 1S39. 
 
THE BUCKSHOT WAR 35 
 
 assemble, Governor Ritner issued a proclamation de- 
 scribing this condition of lawlessness, ordering the mi- 
 litia to be in readiness, and calling on all good citizens 
 to aid in the restoration of order. By the Governor's 
 order, General Patterson, in command of a division of 
 the state militia, ordered out a part of his division, 
 " provided with thirteen rounds of buckshot cartridges, 
 and seven rounds of ball cartridges." 1 
 
 The troops proceeded to Harrisburg and quieted 
 the opposing forces. Colonel Pleasanton, of Philadel- 
 phia, afterward testified under oath that McElwee, 
 the Democratic leader, had told him that the Demo- 
 crats were determined to prevent the arrival of these 
 troops at all hazards, on the supposition that they were 
 all Whigs and favorable to the state administration. 
 To this end it was determined to remove some rails at 
 a dangerous part on the railroad, " to form a mine 
 under the most exposed part to be filled with gunpow- 
 der so that in the confusion the mine might be sprung 
 and the zvJwle body of them be blown into the air to- 
 gether" 2 
 
 It is difficult to believe that such bitter and reckless 
 partisanship should exist among a peaceful and sober 
 
 1 From this and from the fact that a negro was caught carry- 
 ing some of this ammunition from the Whig headquarters came 
 the name " Buckshot War." A verse of popular doggerel en- 
 titled Last Days of Governor Ritner, ran as follows: 
 
 " Come up and come down 
 Come from country and town 
 
 And obey the fat Deutschlander's writ, Sir; 
 Come one and come all 
 With buckshot and ball 
 And take care of Governor Ritner." 
 McCarthy, " Anti-Masonic Party," p. 500. 
 
 2 See Niles' Register, Vol. 57, p. 27, cited in Callender, p. 41. 
 
36 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 people, and if one is sometimes displeased at Stevens' 
 extreme partisanship it is well to reflect with what he 
 had to contend and the conditions under which his par- 
 tisanship was begotten. 
 
 The Governor also called on the President for a com- 
 pany of the United States regulars stationed at Carlisle, 
 but his request was refused by President Van Buren. 1 
 
 During the struggle the Democrats, in order to pre- 
 vent the state militia from securing arms, made a dem- 
 onstration on the state arsenal, and some one, claim- 
 ing to represent Stevens and the Governor, agreed with 
 the Democratic leaders that no arms would be issued. 
 Stevens, in a newspaper letter, repudiated this agree- 
 ment, declaring that he had had no communication with 
 the " rebels " and that he would " consider it disgrace- 
 ful to treat with them on any subject/' 2 an attitude 
 that was quite in harmony with the spirit shown by him 
 in the later and larger conflicts of his public life. 
 
 The conflict, as might be supposed while Stevens was 
 leading one of the parties, was to end in no compro- 
 mise. It ended in a defeat for Stevens and his faction. 
 Three of his followers in the House went over to the 
 Democrats, giving them a clear and undisputed major- 
 ity, and thereupon the Senate recognized the Hopkins 
 House, and the bloodless " Buckshot War," in which 
 no shot was fired and no blood was shed, was at an end. 
 So, too, was the Anti-Masonic party in Pennsylvania. 
 
 But Stevens did not surrender. It was not his way. 
 He absented himself from the House from December 
 
 1 See debate in H. of R., 25th Congress, 32c! Session, Decem- 
 ber 19, 1838, cited by McCarthy. 
 
 2 McCall's Stevens, pp. 52, 53. 
 
THE BUCKSHOT WAR 37 
 
 till May as a protest against the outcome, meanwhile 
 publishing vigorous denunciations of the proceedings 
 of the Democratic Legislature. The Democratic ma- 
 jority decided to postpone the admission of Mr. Stev- 
 ens to his seat for the present and to appoint a com- 
 mittee " to inquire whether Thaddeus Stevens, a 
 member elect from the county of Adams, has not for- 
 feited his right to a seat in the House," — on the ground 
 of non-user, mis-user, or contempt of the House. A 
 number of Democratic members protested against this 
 proceeding. 1 
 
 Stevens declined to appear before this committee. 
 He replied to its notification of a readiness to hear 
 him, in a letter defending his right to his seat and at- 
 tacking the committee. He would not agree " to ad- 
 mit the intellectual, moral or habitual competency of 
 Thomas B. McElwee (the mover of the resolution of 
 inquiry), his compeers, coadjutors, and followers, to 
 decide a question of decency and morals." His " only 
 anxiety was that the Constitution may not further be 
 violated and that the people may yet have some ground 
 for hope that Liberty, although deeply wounded, may 
 not expire." 2 
 
 Stevens' seat was declared vacant, whereupon he 
 issued an address to his constituents in Adams County, 
 calling their attention to this violation of the Constitu- 
 tion and to the outrage upon the rights of the people, by 
 which " under a most shallow and hypocritical pre- 
 tense " there was imposed upon his constituents the ex- 
 pense of a new election. " The tyrants," said Stevens, 
 
 1 Niles, 56, p. 229. 
 
 2 Niles' Register, 56, p. 229. 
 
38 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 " who have usurped power have determined to oppress 
 and plunder the people. It is for you to say whether 
 you will be their willing slaves." His inclination and 
 interest both prompted him to retire from public life, 
 but he would not execute that settled intention when it 
 might be construed into cowardice or despondency. 
 " To refuse to be a candidate now," he said, " would 
 be seized upon by my enemies as an evidence that I dis- 
 trust the people and am afraid to intrust to them the 
 redress of their own wrongs. I feel no such fear, no 
 such distrust." He, therefore, without waiting to re- 
 ceive a party nomination from his friends, presented 
 himself as a candidate on a question which, as he said, 
 " would be disgraced by sinking it to the level of a party 
 contest." * 
 
 He was triumphantly reelected and was allowed to 
 take his seat, but as the Legislature soon adjourned 
 he had not much opportunity to get even with his op- 
 ponents on the floor of the House. But he had not long 
 to wait. The " whirligig of time " brings strange 
 changes in politics, and a year later, Mr. McElwee, the 
 Democratic leader who had brought about Stevens' ex- 
 clusion, was himself expelled from the Legislature, be- 
 cause of personally insulting a fellow-member, and he 
 did not venture to present himself for reelection. 2 
 
 This contest will serve to show Stevens' partisan 
 and uncompromising disposition and that he was ever 
 at a keen " fighting edge " whenever the interest of 
 his party or his cause demanded it. This fighting par- 
 tisanship was obviously in harmony with the spirit of 
 
 1 Niles' Register, 56, p. 216. 
 2 Niles 58: p. 96. 
 
THE BUCKSHOT WAR 39 
 
 the time. It is not easy for us to appreciate the inten- 
 sity and bitterness of political feeling in those days. 
 The lines were sharply drawn, and one's political op- 
 ponents were not graciously spoken of as " our friends, 
 the enemy." An enemy in politics was likely to be an 
 enemy in personal relations, a tendency that accentu- 
 ated the state of strife and of unseemly political con- 
 duct. 
 
 Upon Stevens' retirement from the Legislature in 
 1 84 1, in spite of the bitter personal strife in which he 
 had been engaged during the " Buckshot War," the 
 Harrisburg Telegraph paid the following tribute to 
 his character and ability as a legislator: " To judge 
 of the varied powers of Thaddeus Stevens, it is only 
 necessary to review his course during the brief limit 
 of the present session. In this review would be in- 
 cluded his powerful argument on the right of petition; 
 . . . his cogent appeals on the necessity of placing a 
 constitutional limit to the state debt; ... his able 
 and practical remarks on the vital importance of the 
 protective policy to the interests of our nation, showing 
 how the flood of commerce poured into England under 
 the Navigation Act, how Holland, once the commer- 
 cial carrier of the world, was paralyzed under the in- 
 fluence of the free trade doctrines, and how the first 
 principle of legislation demands that home labor should 
 be fostered and protected. Whoever has heard Mr. 
 Stevens at this session or at any other, can not hesitate 
 to accord to him the most commanding abilities and 
 sound constitutional sentiments. Hence it is, stand- 
 ing as he does a giant among his pigmy opponents, 
 that every shaft of malice and invective is hurled at 
 
40 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 him by every puny whipster, who, like the fool of Crete, 
 exposes his waxy softness to the fervid glow of his elo- 
 quent reply. ... It is not so much our wish to eulo- 
 gize Mr. Stevens as to direct the public attention to the 
 position he has attained, and so well maintains. We 
 want the eyes of the commonwealth directed toward 
 him. We want him judged of by his acts, and not 
 through ' the false medium of political vituperation.' " * 
 
 1 Calender's Life of Stevens, pp. 51, 52. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 
 
 TT was during this legislative career of Stevens in 
 ■*• Pennsylvania, in the fourth decade of the nine- 
 teenth century, that he rendered his great and distin- 
 guished service to the cause of free schools. 1 This was 
 a preeminent service. It is not only worthy of a spe- 
 cial chapter in his life from his biographer, but of an 
 historic memorial from the great commonwealth which 
 he served so well. 
 
 \ When Stevens came to the arena of public action, 
 education was offered to the rich at reasonable rates, 
 while only the self-confessed poor were to be schooled 
 for nothing. ] Thus a class distinction existed in the 
 public schools, and the poor but self-respecting parents 
 who could not afford to pay the price named for their 
 children's tuition preferred to keep them at home rather 
 than to subject themselves to the humiliation of having 
 their children put upon the lists as public charges. 
 
 By an act in 1834 the Pennsylvania legislature pro- 
 posed to extend to the whole state the free school sys- 
 tem that had been locally applied in Philadelphia, recog- 
 nizing the great democratic principle of free schools 
 for all on equal terms. Stevens was a warm supporter 
 of this law, and when it was passed the friends of edu- 
 cation and the enlightened advocates of popular gov- 
 
 41 
 
42 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ernment felt that a great advance had been made in the 
 support of an intelligent citizenship and free institu- 
 tions. The new law would, in time, mean great things 
 for Pennsylvania. 
 
 This, of course, meant new taxes, since the schools 
 were to be free in the sense of being supported from 
 the public treasury. A year later there was reaction, 
 and a legislature was elected that was expected to re- 
 peal the law. The thrifty and charitable taxpayers of 
 Pennsylvania were ready to pay, if necessary, to edu- 
 cate pauper children, but the rich and the well-to-do 
 who had no children did not propose to support schools 
 for the children of others who could afford to pay. 
 Others said that those who had no children should not 
 be made to pay to educate the children of other peo- 
 ple. If the poor man could not afford to school his 
 children let him say so, and the charitable taxpayers 
 would dole out the necessary funds. 
 
 In the following legislature the State Senate voted 
 for summary repeal of the free school law, by passing 
 a substitute bill bearing the title, " An act making pro- 
 vision for the education of the poor gratis." This 
 passed the Senate by a vote of two to one with only 
 eight dissenting votes. Thirteen Senators voted for 
 it who had voted for the free school act of the pre- 
 vious session. It appeared certain that the cause of 
 free schools would also be lost in the House. Many 
 members who had voted for the cause in the previous 
 session had been retired to private life. A committee 
 favorable to free schools found a " deplorably large " 
 petition containing thirty-two thousand names praying 
 for repeal, while only twenty-five hundred were peti- 
 
DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 43 
 
 tioning for the retention of the law. The Democratic 
 legislative caucus warned the Democratic Governor, a 
 friend of free education, against opposing repeal by his 
 veto, as that would be sure to defeat him for reelection. 
 In this desperate situation one stout obstacle stood 
 in the path of repeal. It was Thaddeus Stevens, the 
 commoner, the democrat, the friend of the poor, the 
 man who believed with his whole soul in popular edu- 
 cation and republican government. He stood ready 
 to resist the pride and prejudice of a class, the selfish- 
 ness of the rich, or the popular passion of the multi- 
 tude, and to speak for what he considered a noble and 
 righteous cause. He had been returned to the legisla- 
 ture by a small majority under instructions to vote for 
 the repeal of the law, but instead of obeying his in- 
 structions he stood by his convictions and became the 
 chief defender of free schools. 1 
 
 r 
 
 " The people might reject him, but so long as he was 
 
 their representative he would follow his convictions of duty. 
 He braved the storm when it was at its fiercest pitch and 
 boldly moved to strike out all the Senate bill and to substi- 
 tute for it a bill strengthening the law which it proposed to 
 repeal." - 
 
 On that motion Stevens made one of the noblest 
 speeches of his life, a speech, says Mr. McCall, that 
 "produced an effect second to no speech ever uttered 
 in an American legislative assembly." 3 The speech 
 reveals the high and fearless public spirit of the man 
 and the liberal democratic principle that governed him 
 throughout his long life. 
 
 1 Callender's Stevens, p. 32. 
 
 2 McCall's Stevens, p. 38. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 38. 
 
44 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 He undertook to show that the free school law was 
 salutary and useful and that instead of being oppres- 
 sive to the people it would " lighten their burdens and 
 elevate them in the scale of human intellect." 1 He 
 assumed the necessity of education in a free govern- 
 ment ; it would be humiliating to be under the necessity 
 of proving it. In an elective republic expected to en- 
 dure, the electors must have information, to direct 
 wisely their legislatures and executives; some agency 
 in governing will fall to every freeman. Government, 
 then, must see that the means of information be dif- 
 fused to every citizen. " This is a sufficient answer to 
 those who deem education a pivot and not a public 
 duty, — who argue that they are willing to educate their 
 own children, but not their neighbors' children." 
 While few were so ignorant and shameless as to deny 
 the advantages of general education, many were 
 alarmed at its burdens. He proceeded to show that 
 the free schools would be less burdensome than the 
 "present disgraceful plan." With good "male teach- 
 ers " to be had at eighteen dollars a month and board 
 themselves, and " females " at nine dollars, he was able 
 to show a saving of half to the average township of 
 two hundred children where two dollars a quarter for 
 each child was paid in tuition. Thus on the half mil- 
 lion children of the state more than one million dollars 
 would be saved. 
 
 " The repealing act is, in my opinion," said Stevens, " of 
 a most hateful and degrading character. It is a reenact- 
 ment of the pauper law of 1809. It proposes that the 
 
 1 My review of the speech is based on a reprint published at 
 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1865. 
 
DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 45 
 
 assessors shall take a census and make a record of the poor. 
 This shall be revised and a new record made by the county 
 commissioners, so that the names of those who have the 
 misfortune to be poor men's children shall be forever pre- 
 served, as a distinct class, in the archives of the county. 
 The teacher, too, is to keep in his school a pauper book and 
 register the names and attendance of poor scholars; thus 
 pointing out and recording their poverty in the midst of 
 their companions. Sir, hereditary distinctions of rank are 
 sufficiently odious; but that which is founded on poverty is 
 infinitely more so. Such a law should be entitled, ' An act 
 for branding and marking the poor, so that they may be 
 known from the rich and proud.' Many complain of this 
 tax, not so much on account of its amount, as because it is 
 for the benefit of others and not themselves. This is a 
 mistake ; it is for their own benefit, inasmuch as it perpetu- 
 ates the government and insures the due administration of 
 the laws under which they live, and by which their lives 
 and property are protected. Why do they not urge the same 
 objection against all their taxes? The industrious, thrifty, 
 rich farmer pays a heavy county tax to support criminal 
 courts, build jails, and pay sheriffs and jail keepers, and 
 yet probably he never has, and never will have, any direct 
 personal use of either. He never gets the worth of his 
 money by being tried for a crime before the court, or being 
 allowed the privilege of the jail on conviction, or by re- 
 ceiving an equivalent from the sheriff or his hangman 
 officers ! He cheerfully pays the tax which is necessary to 
 support and punish convicts, but loudly complains of that 
 which goes to prevent his fellow-being from becoming a 
 criminal, and to obviate the necessity of those humiliat- 
 ing institutions." 
 
 Stevens' plea was against the establishment of castes 
 and grades, and against the cultivation of an aris- 
 tocracy of wealth and pride. The tax was said to 
 be unjust because the industrious money-making man 
 
46 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 would find constant employment for his children, while 
 the idle man, finding little employment for his family, 
 would constantly send his children to school at the ex- 
 pense of others. 
 
 " I know," said he, " that there are some men whose whole 
 souls are so completely absorbed in the accumulation of 
 wealth, and whose avarice so increases with success, that 
 they look upon their very children in no other light than as 
 instruments of gain — that they, as well as the ox and the 
 ass within their gates, are valuable only in proportion to 
 their annual earnings. According to the present system the 
 children of such men are reduced almost to an intellectual 
 level with their co-laborers of the brute creation. This 
 law will be of vast advantage to the offspring of such 
 misers. If they are compelled to pay their taxes to sup- 
 port schools, their very meanness will induce them to send 
 their children to them to get the worth of their money. 
 Thus it will extract good out of the very penuriousness of 
 the miser." 
 
 He referred to " the languishing and sickly condi- 
 tion " of the colleges of Pennsylvania. She, with all 
 her fertile riches, had " scarcely one-third as many 
 collegiate students as cold barren New England." The 
 reason was obvious. She had no free schools. 
 
 " In New England free schools plant the seed and the 
 desire of knowledge in every mind, without regard to the 
 wealth of the parent or the texture of the pupil's garments. 
 When the seed, thus universally sown, happens to fall on 
 fertile soil, it springs up and is fostered by a generous public 
 until it produces its glorious fruit. . . . Not to mention 
 any of the living, it is well known that that architect of an 
 immortal name, who ' plucked the lightning from heaven 
 and the scepter from tyrants ' was the child of free schools. 
 Why should Pennsylvania now repudiate a system which is 
 
DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 47 
 
 calculated to elevate her to that rank in the intellectual, 
 which by the blessing of Providence she holds in her natu- 
 ral world ? . . . Sir, when I reflect how apt hereditary- 
 wealth, hereditary influence, and perhaps, as a consequence, 
 hereditary pride are to close the avenues and steel the heart 
 against the wants and rights of the poor, I am induced to 
 thank my Creator for having from early life, bestowed upon 
 me the blessing of poverty. Sir, it is a blessing, for if 
 there be any human sensation more eternal and divine than 
 all others, it is that which feelingly sympathizes with mis- 
 fortune." 
 
 Much of the unpopularity of this law Stevens 
 charged upon " the vile arts of unprincipled demo- 
 gogues." 
 
 " Instead of attempting to remove the honest misappre- 
 hensions of the people, they cater to their prejudices, and 
 take advantage of them, to gain low, dirty, temporary local 
 triumphs. I do not charge this on any particular party. 
 Unfortunately almost the only spot on which all parties 
 meet in union is this ground of common infamy ! " 
 
 He then proceeded to defend the Democratic Gov- 
 ernor, who had been assailed as the father of the law. 
 Stevens had opposed Governor Wolf stoutly and with 
 all the bitterness common to those early party contests. 
 Though the Governor had been guilty, as Stevens 
 thought, " of many deep political sins, yet he deserves 
 the undying gratitude of the people for the steady un- 
 tiring zeal, which he has manifested in favor of com- 
 mon schools." These exertions had atoned for many 
 of his errors, in Stevens' opinion. 
 
 " I trust that the people of this state will never be 
 called upon to choose between a supporter and an opposer 
 
48 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of free schools. But if it should come to that; if that should 
 be made the turning point on which we are to cast our suf- 
 frages ; if the opponent of education were my most inti- 
 mate personal and political friend, and the free school 
 candidate my most obnoxious enemy, I should deem it my 
 duty as a patriot, at this moment of our intellectual crisis, 
 to forget all other considerations, and I should place myself 
 unhesitatingly and cordially in the ranks of him whose 
 banners stream in light. I would not foster nor natter 
 ignorance to gain political victories, which, however they 
 might profit individuals, must prove disastrous to our 
 country. 
 
 " Those who have failed of reelection on this issue have 
 been passed by only for the moment. They had earned the 
 approbation of all good and intelligent men more effectually 
 by their retirement than they could ever have done by re- 
 taining popular favor at the expense of self-humiliation. 
 They have fallen between the powers of light and darkness ; 
 but they fell, as every Roman mother wished her sons to 
 fall, facing the enemy with all their wounds in front. . . . 
 Instead of flattering the people and prophesying smooth 
 things, it is the duty of faithful legislators to create and 
 sustain such laws and institutions as shall teach us our 
 wants, foster our cravings after knowledge, and urge us 
 forward in the march of intellect." 
 
 Stevens closed this great speech with a stirring plea 
 for political courage as the basis of a true popularity. 
 Then, as ever after, he stood ready to rebuke the time- 
 servers of his party. Some weak-kneed members were 
 voting to maintain a temporary popularity in " the ten 
 miles square of their ambition." Stevens pleaded for 
 a popularity that would outlive its possessor, that would 
 " not be buried in the same grave which covers his mor- 
 tal remains," and for the fame that comes from uncon- 
 
DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 49 
 
 querable courage devoted to the uplift of the poor 
 and the welfare of mankind. " In giving this law to 
 posterity you act the part of the philanthropist, by be- 
 stowing upon the poor as well as the rich the greatest 
 earthly boon which they are capable of receiving . . . 
 for what earthly glory is there equal in luster and dura- 
 tion to that conferred by education? ... I trust," 
 said Stevens, in conclusion, " that when we come to act 
 on this question we shall take lofty ground, look beyond 
 the narrow space which now circumscribes our vision, 
 beyond the passing, fleeting point of time on which 
 we stand; and so cast our votes that the blessing of 
 education shall be conferred on every son of Pennsyl- 
 vania — shall be carried home to the poorest child of 
 the poorest inhabitant of the meanest hut of your moun- 
 tains, so that even he may be prepared to act well his 
 part in this land of freemen and lay on earth a broad 
 and a solid foundation for that enduring knowledge 
 which goes on increasing through increasing eternity." 
 To this speech of Stevens has been attributed the 
 saving of Pennsylvania's " free school system from 
 ignominious defeat." The vote was taken immediately 
 after Stevens sat down and the victory so confidently 
 anticipated by the friends of repeal was suddenly turned 
 into defeat and Stevens' motion was carried by a nearly 
 two-thirds majority. " Most remarkable of all, the 
 Senate, whose members were listening to the House dis- 
 cussion, and who but a short time before had so de- 
 cisively voted for repeal, returned to its chamber 
 thrilled and delighted with the great effort, converted 
 as no Senate had ever been converted before, and im- 
 
50 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 mediately concurred with a few unimportant amend- 
 ments in the House substitute bill." * 
 
 " Never will the writer of these lines forget," wrote 
 Colonel John W. Forney after the death of Stevens in 
 1868, " the effect of that surpassing effort pronounced 
 by the undaunted opponent of the Democratic party, 
 and of the great Masonic brotherhood. 2 All the bar- 
 riers of prejudice broke down before it. It reached 
 men's hearts like the voice of inspiration. Those who 
 were almost ready to take the life of Thaddeus Stevens 
 a few weeks before were instantly converted into his 
 admirers and friends. During its delivery in the hall 
 of the House at Harrisburg, the scene was one of dra- 
 matic interest and intensity. Thaddeus Stevens was 
 then forty-three years of age and in the prime of life, 
 and his classic countenance, noble voice, and cultivated 
 style, added to the fact that he was speaking the holiest 
 truths, and for the noblest of all human causes, created 
 such a feeling among his fellow-members that for once, 
 at least, our State Legislature rose above all selfish feel- 
 ings and responded to the instincts of a higher na- 
 ture." 3 Forney is also authority for the story that 
 immediately after Mr. Stevens concluded this great 
 speech he received a message from Governor Wolf, 
 a Mason, a political opponent of Stevens, but also an 
 earnest and sincere friend of education. When Stev- 
 ens, in answer to the Governor's message, entered the 
 executive chamber, Wolf threw his arms about his 
 neck and with tearful eyes and broken voice thanked 
 
 1 McCall's Life of Stevens, p. 40. 
 
 2 Forney himself was a Democrat and a political opponent of 
 Stevens in those days. 
 
 3 Philadelpliia Press, August 12, 1868. 
 
DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 51 
 
 him for the great service he had rendered to their com- 
 mon humanity. Stevens was ever afterward delighted 
 to relate this incident, and it was Forney's regret that 
 he could not relate it to his readers in Stevens' own 
 inimitable and sympathetic manner. 1 A great man had 
 grappled with a fierce prejudice of the hour and had 
 risked everything for a great object. 2 
 
 Stevens himself styled this effort as the crowning 
 utility of his life, and he afterward said that he would 
 feel abundantly rewarded for all his efforts in behalf 
 of universal education " if a single child, educated by 
 the commonwealth, should drop a tear of gratitude on 
 his grave." 3 
 
 Stevens' bold and noble attitude on all questions re- 
 lating to public education was illustrated repeatedly 
 on subsequent occasions. He was ever a valiant sup- 
 porter of Pennsylvania College, and although he was 
 by nature a strong partisan he never allowed politics 
 nor the interest of his party to stand in the way when 
 he had an opportunity to render service to the cause 
 of public and higher education. He looked to higher 
 education by the state as the essence and foundation 
 for an enduring democracy. When he was told by a 
 party friend, who was anxious that Stevens should 
 continue to be the candidate of his party, that his sup- 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 2 The Pennsylvania Reporter of April 15, 1835, sa id °f this 
 speech of Stevens, — which will be recognized as high praise, com- 
 ing as it did from a warm political opponent of the time, " The 
 acknowledged talents of this gentleman were never exerted in 
 a nobler cause or with greater effect than on this occasion, and 
 we feel assured that a more powerful effort of oratory was 
 never listened to within the walls of this or any other legislative 
 hall." McCarthy's Anti-Masonic Party, p. 466. 
 
 3 Callender, p. 32. 
 
'§2 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 port of the state college would injure his political 
 party and lose him support at home, Stevens wrote : 
 " However I may sacrifice myself, I do not assume the 
 right to sacrifice you. But that could only happen upon 
 the supposition that I become unpopular and still con- 
 tinue to be your candidate. That I will never do. I 
 have already resolved that the weight of my name 
 shall never again burden your ticket. I will withdraw 
 from any active part in your political discussions. And 
 if it be necessary to the well-being of our country, dear 
 to me as are all my friends and constituents, I will 
 withdraw from your county to some place where the 
 advocates of Anti-Masonry may be also the advocates 
 of knowledge." * 
 
 The second notable speech of Stevens in the cause 
 of education was made, March 10, 1838, on a bill " to 
 establish a school of Arts in the City of Philadelphia, 
 and to endow the colleges and academies of Pennsyl- 
 vania." He made a strong plea against that spirit of 
 parsimony which had usually governed State Legisla- 
 tures in their allowances for higher institutions of 
 learning. He wished, above all things, to see Pennsyl- 
 vania stand erect in intellectual preeminence, and he 
 appealed to her sons, who were in the enjoyment of 
 such material prosperity, to stand for a liberal policy 
 in higher education that was so calculated to save the 
 state from misery and infamy and promote her true 
 happiness and glory. A passage will illustrate the 
 force of his direct and trenchant eloquence : 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Telegraph, January 25, 1834, cited by McCarthy, 
 Anti-Masonic Party, p. 466. 
 
DEFENDER OF FREE SCHOOLS 53 
 
 " Never was there a grosser or more injurious error than 
 to suppose that learning begets pride. Ignorance is the 
 parent of pride and disgusting vanity ; he only has censur- 
 able pride who has too little knowledge to know that he is 
 himself a fool. But he who has long and arduously labored 
 up the hill of science and there found himself but standing 
 upon the threshold of her temple — who, after a toilsome, 
 and perhaps successful examination of the works of nature 
 and art, discovers that he has scarcely yet entered upon 
 the confines of the inimitable works of an omniscient artist, 
 will surely find nothing in his own weak blind insignifi- 
 cance to flatter pride or foster vanity. It is the illiterate, 
 ignorant, senseless, witless coxcomb that struts and fumes, 
 proud perhaps of his ignorance, himself, his baubles, and his 
 folly ! " 
 
 Only a year before Stevens' death, at a time when 
 he was the unchallenged leader of his party in the na- 
 tional councils, after he had for years enjoyed a fame 
 that was nation-wide ; while he was still standing as he 
 had been for nearly a decade in the forefront of the bat- 
 tle in the greatest civic and political struggle of the cen- 
 tury and had thus been the target of attack and the 
 object of abuse for all the force of a violent opposition, 
 — in these closing years of his life, Henry Ward 
 Beecher said of him in a sermon in Plymouth church, 
 Brooklyn: "When Thaddeus Stevens shall die his 
 virtues will be better appreciated and his name will 
 be more highly honored than now; for he is one of 
 those men who are very inconvenient when alive and 
 very valuable when dead. It will be remembered that 
 in the dark hours of his country's history when other 
 men were afraid to speak, he was not afraid to speak, 
 and when other men were afraid to be unpopular he 
 
54 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 was not afraid to be unpopular and did not count his 
 life dear. But I think that if I were he I would rather 
 have written on my gravestone, ' Father of the Com- 
 mon Schools of Pennsylvania,' than any other inscrip- 
 tion that could be put there. It might justly be written 
 there. And from the grave no purer light could 
 stream, so far as humanity is concerned, than the in- 
 scription to him as his life-work, the founding of a 
 system of common schools which has disenthralled that 
 state from its ignorance and is bringing it by knowl- 
 edge to the stature and power of a gigantic common- 
 wealth." x 
 
 This great service of Stevens to the state of his 
 adoption has now come to be recognized, and it is 
 but just and seemly that an appreciative and grateful 
 people in that commonwealth should erect a noble and 
 suitable memorial to the greatest man, save one, 2 who 
 ever lived within her borders. That memorial fittingly 
 represents Stevens as the founder and defender of the 
 free school, standing by the temple of learning to 
 which with benevolent leading he is directing the chil- 
 dren of the humble poor. 
 
 From this noble service for the education of all the 
 children of the state, he was soon to be called to an- 
 other, the struggle for free soil and for the freedom 
 of the slave, to which he devoted all of his remarkable 
 talents and almost all the remaining years of his life. 
 
 1 Stevens' Papers, Library of Congress. 
 
 2 Benjamin Franklin. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 
 
 ANOTHER cause than Anti-Masonry elicited 
 Stevens' early and deeper interest. This was the 
 anti-slavery cause. Hatred of slavery and the disposi- 
 tion to oppose it seemed ingrained in his nature. This 
 anti-slavery spirit came to him from his antecedents, 
 his training, his childhood convictions, — it was the 
 innate bent of his mind. It was a part of his de- 
 mocracy. He was never converted to the anti-slavery 
 cause. That cause was a part of his being, — he could 
 not do otherwise than speak and boldly fight for its 
 promotion and success. He had no argument with 
 himself about it. To oppose slavery and to use all 
 means at hand to uproot it seemed to him a course so 
 obviously right that argument in the case was uncalled 
 for. 
 
 He had settled for his life's work upon the border 
 line, as it were, between the Slave and the Free States. 
 Here the forces met in conflict that represented the 
 antagonistic labor systems, the slave labor system and 
 the free. Here opinion was not unevenly divided, 
 and one found ample apology in conservative minds 
 and easy consciences for the slave system that existed 
 just across the border. But Stevens' mind was not 
 conservative, and it mattered little to him what the 
 custom was or what majority of opinion sustained 
 
 55 
 
g6 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the established order. If, in his judgment, the social 
 status violated justice, if it led to oppression, to legal 
 impositions and inequalities, he would cry against it 
 and spare not. 
 
 The little he had seen of slavery confirmed his op- 
 position to it. Godlove S. Orth, of Indiana, is quoted 
 as authority for an anti-slavery story in Stevens' early 
 life. Orth grew up in Pennsylvania, was educated 
 at Gettysburg, and could probably have verified the 
 story. The story was that once while going to Balti- 
 more to buy books for his law library, Stevens stopped 
 for the night at a hotel in Maryland, kept by a man 
 with whom he was well acquainted. His attention was 
 aroused by a commotion among the servants of the 
 hotel. .When he inquired the cause of the trouble a 
 woman approached him in tears and implored him to 
 do what he could to prevent the contemplated 'sale of 
 her husband, who was a slave. On inquiring who and 
 where her husband was, she replied, " Why, Massa 
 Stevens, he is the ' boy ' who took your horse to the 
 stable." Stevens knew the " boy "-and he at once went 
 to the owner and remonstrated with him in reference 
 to the contemplated sale. He offered the owner one 
 hundred and fifty dollars, half the sale price, if he 
 would give the slave his liberty. But the owner was 
 inexorable and Stevens, knowing the relation that 
 existed between the slave and his master, replied, 
 
 " Mr. , are you not ashamed to sell your own flesh 
 
 and blood?" This cutting inquiry brought only the 
 response that the master must have money and his slave 
 boy was cheap at three hundred dollars. Stevens' 
 generous nature responded to the situation. He paid 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 57 
 
 three hundred dollars and set the young slave free, the 
 sacrifice requiring his return to Gettysburg and the 
 postponing of his replenishing his law library until a 
 more convenient season. 1 
 
 There was a strong tendency among" Anti-Masons, 
 especially among the Pennsylvania Quakers, to become 
 anti-slavery men, and they urged in the Pennsylvania 
 Legislature, though without success, a bill providing a 
 jury trial for fugitive slaves. It was a common rumor 
 concerning Stevens in his early struggling years as a 
 young lawyer and while he was active in Anti-Masonic 
 politics, that no fugitive slave who reached a court 
 where he practised was ever taken back into bondage. 
 In such a cause he despised a fee and entertained no 
 hope of reward. 
 
 In the year that Governor Ritner was elected in 
 Pennsylvania, Jonathan Blanchard came into the state 
 to speak for the anti-slavery cause, as an agent of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society. Blanchard was an 
 abolitionist, but the people were so mad against aboli- 
 tionism that he had found no hospitable welcome in the 
 old Keystone State, but he had to face, instead, villi- 
 fication, contumely, and violence. He reported that 
 the ministers of the gospel in private would bid him 
 Godspeed but in public on the subject of slavery, they 
 were as silent as the tomb. Blanchard was a stern 
 Puritan, and during a long life devoted to the Chris- 
 tian ministry and to public efforts in moral reforms, he 
 exemplified a deep intensity of faith in the Christian 
 religion and manifested in his life the spirit of a de- 
 
 1 Congressional Memorial Reminiscent Addresses on Stevens, 
 cited by W. U. Hensel in " Stevens as a Lawyer," pp. 7, 8. 
 
58 ,THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 voted servant and martyr for his cause. As he re- 
 flected on the intense pro-slavery character of the 
 churches, Blanchard found some reason why Stevens 
 as a man of the world looked upon the churches with 
 contempt. Stevens despised both bigotry and hypoc- 
 risy. But while Blanchard found a culpable silence 
 upon the evils of slavery among the churches and its 
 ministers he did not find Stevens silent. Blanchard 
 said to Stevens : " Mr. Stevens, if you can turn your 
 Anti-Masons into abolitionists, you will have a party 
 whose politics will not bleach out. The slaveholders 
 will not ' possum ' like Free Masons, but will die 
 game." Stevens took out his pocketbook, handed 
 Blanchard ninety dollars in bank bills and said : 
 " Take that and go down into Adams County and 
 lecture, and if they Morganize you, we'll make a 
 party out of it." Upon Blanchard's reluctance to take 
 the money Stevens said, " Never mind, I am twenty- 
 one in such things and I know they can not be done 
 without money." 
 
 Blanchard went to Gettysburg, as Stevens advised, 
 but a mob, encouraged by one Judge McLean, an elder 
 in an orthordox church, broke up his meeting. This 
 aroused Stevens' anger. He came down from Harris- 
 burg, called a meeting in the court-house which " was 
 crowded to a jam," and, continues Blanchard in his 
 description of the meeting nearly fifty years after, " I 
 never listened to such speaking from human lips. 
 Every sentence was argument, eloquence, and invec- 
 tive, combined and condensed. Giving his words as a 
 report of his speech, without his overwhelming, crush- 
 ing looks and intonations, seems like pointing to a 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 59 
 
 shivered tree as a description of a thunder-storm." 
 Elder McLean had said, " We have no slaves here, why- 
 come here to disturb our borough with a discussion of 
 slavery ? " " Indeed ! " exclaimed Stevens, " so, then, 
 human liberty is become a local question, is it ? To be 
 discussed only in particular localities? A Universal- 
 is! comes here preaching universal salvation and deny- 
 ing the faith of the orthodox, and you hear him quietly 
 and allow him to pass on. But if a man comes to 
 speak for universal liberty, you answer him with vio- 
 lence and rotten eggs ! Shame ! Shame ! ! Shame ! ! ! 
 What freeman does not feel himself covered all over 
 with burning blushes to find himself surrounded with 
 such freemen ? " 
 
 Blanchard reports that poor old Judge McLean 
 broke through the crowd and fled from the court- 
 house and that there were no more pro-slavery mobs in 
 Gettysburg. 1 
 
 Whenever any of the Anti-Masons, like Stevens, 
 gave expression to their anti-slavery sentiments their 
 Democratic opponents charged them with a readiness 
 " to mount the abolition hobby." This, they said, was 
 now to be the leading policy of those "who formerly 
 ranged themselves under the equally prescriptive but 
 less bloody banner of Anti-Masonry." 
 
 In the fall of 1836 a convention was elected to re- 
 vise the constitution of the state of Pennsylvania. 
 Stevens was chosen as a delegate from Adams County. 
 The convention was a partisan body; the majority of 
 its members were Democrats, and it may safely be 
 concluded that Stevens did nothing to allay its 
 
 1 Reminiscences, Christian Cynosure, April 5, 1883. 
 
6o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 partisan spirit. The political opponents of Stevens 
 sought to break him down and destroy his influence 
 before the work of the convention began. They 
 wished to identify him with abolitionism and to make 
 use of the hot sentiment of the people against these 
 meddlesome and pestiferous agitators who were 
 thought to be threatening the very foundations of the 
 Union. These Democratic enemies of Stevens, led by 
 one McGriffin, issued a call for a " convention of the 
 friends of the integrity of the Union," and they 
 planned to have their convention meet just the day 
 before the assembly of the Constitutional Convention. 
 These " friends of the integrity of the Union " wished 
 to rebuke the abolitionists and to do what they could 
 to restrain the anti-slavery agitation. The idea, with 
 a little clever spontaneous cultivation from a few self- 
 seeking leaders, seemed to be overwhelmingly popular. 
 Over seven hundred delegates were elected to the 
 " Union," or Anti-Abolition, Convention. Not many 
 seemed ready to raise their voices on behalf of the 
 slave. A constable in Chambersburg had lately re- 
 ceived one thousand dollars for catching and return- 
 ing fugitive slaves. A military major had lately 
 seized and sold a free woman and five children out of 
 the same county, pretending that they were slaves, and 
 with the thirty or more pieces of silver that he had 
 received in reward for his deed he had bought his 
 uniform. 
 
 It was such mercenary " Union " patriots who were 
 arousing mobs of irresponsible men to break up the 
 meetings of the zealous abolitionists in order to close 
 their mouths. At this juncture Jonathan Blanchard, 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 61 
 
 fighting as it were with his back to the wall in a 
 desperate effort to influence public sentiment, wrote to 
 Stevens, who was at his home in Gettysburg, to have 
 Charles B. Penrose, of Carlisle, appointed to the " In- 
 tegrity-of-the-Union " Convention. Blanchard's idea 
 was to get some one into the convention who would 
 force that body to commit itself for or against slavery. 
 "If they oppose slavery the South will oppose them. 
 If they go for slavery we can lead the people who 
 really hate slavery, to oppose them." He wished some 
 brave man to step in to force the fight into the open 
 and to get a direct issue on the merits of slavery. 
 What was Blanchard's astonishment and delight when 
 he learned that Stevens had secured his own appoint- 
 ment to the Union Convention instead of sending 
 Penrose. Doctor Blanchard's description of Stevens 
 in that convention is worthy of preservation. 
 
 " The day came. I managed to squeeze into the 
 densely packed old court-house in Harrisburg. I 
 stood behind a pillar, and sketched, and afterward 
 wrote out a report of that remarkable melee. The re- 
 port was published and I was told that Mr. Dunlap 
 and others at the state-house next day were so over- 
 whelmed with Stevens' truth, patriotism, justice and 
 eloquence, blended with wit, satire and sarcasm, that 
 reading the report they rolled on the carpet and shook 
 their sides with laughter. . . . Stevens had come in 
 late and his coming was greeted by the dense crowd 
 with looks of fear, hatred, and wrath. An old Whig, 
 Judge Beard, was in the chair. A preacher from Pitts- 
 burgh rose and on some motion said : ' Born, sir, in 
 Tennessee, raised in Kentuckv, I am an exile from 
 
62 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 my native state on account of slavery; yet I have come 
 to this convention ready to peril my all in the cause 
 of our national Union.' Stevens, as soon as the man 
 had done, sprang to his feet. In an instant every spit- 
 box was kicked and rattled. Hundreds hissed and 
 the mouths that did not hiss groaned and howled. It 
 was bedlam uncapped. For a moment I was stunned, 
 till I looked at Mr. Stevens. He turned with calm 
 haughtiness around and looked that storm of howls 
 and hisses in the face! Then, turning with an em- 
 phasis utterly indescribable above the uproar, he said : 
 ' Mr. President ; we are not slaves here in Pennsyl- 
 vania! And' (with slow and solemn emphasis) 'if 
 the attempt is made to make us such there are some of 
 us in this court-house who will make resistance enough 
 to let Pennsylvanians outside know the doom that 
 awaits them ! ' The house was now so still that you 
 could hear the clock tick. He then turned toward the 
 preacher and imitating his drawl, said : 
 
 " ' Sir, I deeply sympathize with my respected friend 
 over the way in all that he has done and suffered in 
 the cause of our glorious Union which we have now 
 first met to promote! Indeed, sir, so moved am I at 
 beholding him, an exile from his native state, driven 
 out by slavery, that I am ready to join this convention 
 in a vote of reprobation of that foul institution which 
 drives white men from their homes to wander as exiles 
 in distant states.' 
 
 " There was an uproar of applause, some of it com- 
 ing from men who had hissed him but a few moments 
 before. Stevens continued to expose the hypocritical 
 patriotism of the preacher, who had been circulating a 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 63 
 
 subscription paper and soliciting funds. Imitating the 
 preacher's voice and manner, with mock commisera- 
 tion for his suffering, with keen satire on the pro- 
 slavery leaders of the crowd who, he assumed, were 
 all anti-slavery as he was, Stevens by his drollery, wit 
 and shafts of truth and fearless justice, finally won 
 entire control of the convention. When the resolu- 
 tions were offered Stevens would move to amend by 
 adding words in favor of liberty from the Pennsyl- 
 vania Constitution and Bill of Rights, which the con- 
 vention dared not vote down, with the result that the 
 proceedings were turned into a farce and broke up 
 in laughter. Stevens had shown himself such a force 
 as was not to be answered nor suppressed." * 
 
 Another account relates that Stevens in one of the 
 discussions so completely demonstrated the absurdity 
 of a proposed resolution that a spineless doughface 
 member declared that, while he " abhorred abolition- 
 ism, he could never endorse such a doctrine." There- 
 upon a clergyman — it may have been the same pious 
 martyr from Pittsburgh — aroused by the headway 
 Stevens was obviously making in the convention, 
 took the floor and accused Stevens of " coming to 
 the convention while holding to the abominable doc- 
 trines of the abolitionists, to sit in sheep's clothing 
 among the friends of the Union, while in his heart he 
 is wishing to throw his firebrands to consume it." 
 Stevens immediately rebuked the clergyman for in- 
 dulging in personalities. " I meant no one in par- 
 ticular," replied the clergyman. " Indeed," said 
 
 1 " Reminiscences on Stevens," by Jonathan Blanchard in the 
 Christian Cynosure, April 5, 1883. 
 
64 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Stevens, " I certainly understood the gentleman to 
 insinuate that my friend yonder," — the colleague 
 whom he had just forced to disclaim the pro-slavery 
 resolution, and whose hair was a fiery red, — " that my 
 friend yonder looked very much like a firebrand ! " x 
 
 While Stevens was possessed with a consuming ha- 
 tred of the slave system, yet at no time throughout his 
 life did he propose to attack it by any process that 
 was beyond the Constitution and the laws. During 
 his legislative career in Pennsylvania in the winter of 
 1836-7 he offered a resolution relating to slavery, to 
 the effect that " slaveholding states alone have the 
 right to regulate and control domestic slavery within 
 their limits," but that " Congress possesses the consti- 
 tutional power, and it is expedient, to abolish slavery 
 and the slave trade within the District of Columbia." 
 This indicates that he stood from the beginning on 
 the Free-soil and Republican ground in reference to 
 the great sectional question with which he had so much 
 to do in his later life. 
 
 Stevens served in the Constitutional Convention with 
 some of the ablest men of Pennsylvania, including John 
 Sargent, James C. Biddle, Thomas Earle, Joseph H. 
 Hopkinson and Charles J. Ingersoll, all of Philadelphia, 
 and with James Merrill, of Union County, " the in- 
 defatigable and laborious searcher after facts," who 
 had preceded Stevens as a teacher in York County. 
 Stevens bore his full share of the convention's burdens 
 and debates. The most notable aspect of his record 
 was his protest in the convention, which he urged with 
 all his might, against the fatal folly of inserting the 
 
 1 McCall, p. 50. 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 65 
 
 word white into the clause of the Constitution, defining 
 the qualifications for voters. Stevens felt that it was 
 a mean and unjustifiable discrimination. It violated 
 his innate instinct in favor of democratic equality, and 
 when it was done he lost interest in the proceedings, 
 and was so offended and disgusted by the act that 
 he refused to attach his name to the Constitution. He 
 believed that the unjust discrimination had been per- 
 petrated through the influence of slaveholders and 
 doughfaces " who had been excited by the abolition 
 agitation. In the heated and protracted debate on the 
 subject Stevens' invective came into play, and then, 
 as ever after, he refused to yield an iota in the demo- 
 cratic cause to which he had dedicated his life, — the 
 cause of the equal rights of all before the law, regard- 
 less of race, color, religion, or nationality. 
 
 Stevens was active in promoting the nomination and 
 election of Harrison to the presidency in 1840. He 
 was opposed to Clay, and it is said that Clay's open 
 opposition to Stevens' appointment to the Harrison 
 cabinet led to the disappointment of Stevens, who had 
 been promised the position of postmaster-general. 1 
 
 1 Harris, Biographical History of Lancaster County, p. 582, 
 cited by McCall, p. 57, and Harris' Political Conflict, p. 91. 
 
 Colonel A. K. McClure is sponsor for a Stevens story touch- 
 ing his agency in the nomination of Harrison by the Whigs in 
 1840. The Virginia delegation was hesitating between Harrison 
 and Scott. Stevens, the leader of the Pennsylvania delegation, 
 turned the Virginians from Scott to Harrison by a questionable 
 political trick. Scott had written a letter to Francis Granger, of 
 New York, seeking to conciliate the anti-slavery sentiment of 
 that state. It was a private letter, but Granger gave it to 
 Stevens. Stevens called at the headquarters of the Virginia 
 delegation and inadvertently (?) dropped the letter to the floor, 
 and its contents became known to the Virginians. They turned 
 from Scott to Harrison. Either could have been elected. 
 " My authority for this," says McClure, " is Stevens himself. He 
 
'66 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 In 1 84 1, after his defeat in the Buckshot War, Stev- 
 ens was once more elected to the Pennsylvania Legis- 
 lature. At this session he spoke vigorously in favor 
 of the rights of petition, in favor of limiting the state 
 debt and in opposition to those who, as he thought, 
 were recklessly attacking sound banking institutions 
 and systems of banking. He was Anti-Jackson and 
 Anti-Democratic and whatever the advocates of the 
 Jackson party favored he would be likely to antagonize. 
 
 Stevens removed from Gettysburg to Lancaster in 
 1842. He now retired from politics for a period of 
 eight years, a retirement made necessary because of 
 the entangled condition of his private affairs, and be- 
 cause he did not stand in favor with the dominant 
 and more conservative faction of the Whig party in 
 Lancaster county. He wrote to a friend who urged 
 him to embark actively into the anti-slavery cause for 
 the sake of his country and humanity, that he would 
 do so but for the failure of his partner whom he had 
 trusted with the entire charge of his business. " I 
 have failed for ninety thousand dollars," he wrote, 
 and " I know of no way out of such things but to pay 
 the uttermost farthing. I have moved up to this rich 
 country to earn the means to pay my honest debts." * 
 
 disliked Scott for his vanity, but his strong reason for support- 
 ing Harrison was a letter from Harrison assuring Stevens of a 
 place in his cabinet. After the election Stevens made no effort 
 for the place, feeling secure; while Josiah Randall (father of 
 Samuel J. Randall) and Charles B. Penrose (grandfather of 
 Boise B. Penrose) entered aggressively as candidates. Stevens 
 was dumfounded when he saw that his name was omitted from 
 the cabinet list. He never forgave Webster, who, as Stevens 
 believed to the day of his death, had prevented his appointment." 
 Our Presidents and How He Make Them, p. 68. 
 
 1 Correspondence with Jonathan Blanchard. Alexander Hood 
 is authority for the statement that Stevens' debts in 1843 
 amounted to $217,000. History of Lancaster County. 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 67 
 
 He soon paid the last dollar of this enormous debt, 
 which he was able to do because of a growing and 
 lucrative practise. Stevens was competent in busi- 
 ness, though he was open-hearted and open-handed 
 with his means. 
 
 Though the Lancaster bar was a very able one and 
 the old lawyers were somewhat jealous of the new- 
 comer, Stevens' practise grew so rapidly that he soon 
 took a front rank among his colleagues, with a practise 
 that brought him an income of from twelve thousand 
 to fifteen thousand dollars a year. Within six months 
 after his arrival no member of that able bar dared to 
 dispute Stevens' " intellectual and legal kingship." * 
 He appeared in most of the cases coming to the Su- 
 preme Court from Lancaster County. When, after a 
 few years, his debts had been reduced to thirty thou- 
 sand dollars, he began to look forward again to activity 
 in politics, for which he had a strong liking and a 
 natural bent. 
 
 During this period of his retirement in 1842, 
 Stevens received a letter from Salmon P. Chase, writ- 
 ten from Cincinnati, by which Chase sought to in- 
 terest Stevens in the cause of the Liberty party. The 
 two men were strangers to each other, but Chase had 
 noticed Stevens' career and he wrote to him frankly 
 on behalf of a cause in which both men felt a deep 
 interest. Chase enclosed an " address " of the Liberty 
 party published by a convention at Columbus, Ohio, 
 in December, 1841. This address, obviously written 
 by Chase, drew a distinction between abolitionism 
 and the Liberty party. The one sought to abolish 
 
 1 Harris, Political Conflict, p. 87. 
 
68 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 slavery everywhere, the means being only of a moral 
 nature, as by argument, reason, and persuasion. The 
 Liberty party, on the other hand, sought only to 
 abolish slavery wherever it exists within reach of the 
 constitutional action of Congress, to restrict slavery 
 within the Slave States, and to deliver the government 
 from the control of the slave power. Chase made a 
 strong plea for freedom of speech and of the press; 
 he sought to draw Stevens' attention to this cause and 
 he invited an expression of his views. " What I hear 
 of your character," wrote Chase, " leads me to think 
 you will take it in good part. Can not you take ground 
 with us? Can not you bring the old Anti-Masonic 
 party of Pennsylvania on to the Liberty platform? 
 Could Seward, of New York, or Judge McLean, of 
 Ohio, be obtained to lead, or shall we retain Birney? " 
 Stevens' former friend, Jonathan Blanchard, was 
 then a Presbyterian minister in Cincinnati. He also 
 wrote to Stevens for the Liberty cause. He spoke 
 of Samuel Lewis — " a lawyer, a Methodist preacher 
 and an honest man, three extremes which rarely meet 
 in the composition of man " — and of Doctor Aydelotte, 
 "the highly esteemed President of Woodward Col- 
 lege," as being interested with Chase in a proposed 
 anti-slavery meeting in Cincinnati, and if the meeting 
 was held Blanchard was anxious to have Stevens pres- 
 ent. " You know," he wrote, " that I am very anxious 
 to have you become a Christian for the salvation of 
 your own soul. Next to this I am anxious to have 
 you employ your extraordinary powers with which 
 God has endowed you for the furtherance of right- 
 eousness and justice in this wretched earth. You are 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 69 
 
 utterly unfit to make speeches on the common miser- 
 able topics of political strife. Another thing I want 
 is that you should help Chase to displace the name of 
 Birney and substitute that of Seward or J. Q. Adams 
 as the anti-slavery candidate for President, and in 
 such a way as to prevent a break between eastern and 
 western abolitionists. ... I meddle but little with 
 politics, seeking only to vote as near right as I can. 
 But I remember you with gratitude. I have an almost 
 superstitious belief in your talents and I do not think 
 you understand their extent." 1 
 
 Stevens delayed his answer to these urgent letters, 
 being undetermined what answer to give. He then 
 wrote to Blanchard : 2 "I need not say how entirely 
 my views and wishes accord with your own in the 
 object you have in view. The only question is as to the 
 means most likely to accomplish it. I have believed 
 that could best be done by declining as yet to organize 
 a distinct political party. I am aware how often we 
 have been cheated by the men of other parties, — how 
 few of them prove faithful after being elected. And 
 yet I think the cause of liberty has gained and is gain- 
 ing more friends by the tyranny of slaveholders and 
 their abetters than could have been done in the same 
 time by the most strenuous associated party effort by 
 us. 
 
 " In thinking of the next President, I know that be- 
 fore Harrison's nomination Gerrit Smith was in favor 
 of General Scott and I suppose he would not have 
 been so without good reason. I have corresponded 
 
 1 Letters and Papers of Stevens, April 9, 1842. 
 
 2 Under date of May 24, 1842. 
 
yo THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 with the general lately and find him in favor of the 
 right of petition in its largest sense and a firm and fear- 
 less condemner of the proceedings against Mr. Gid- 
 dings. 1 This is a good deal in these times, enough to 
 make slaveholders and their adherents hate him. Be- 
 lieving that he can be elected and will not deceive us, 
 and will do more for our cause elected than can be 
 done by suffering defeat with a still more thorough 
 anti-slavery man, I have come to the conclusion to sup- 
 port him for the presidency." 
 
 Stevens then expressed his admiration for the ad- 
 dress of the Liberty Convention and for its author, 
 who, as he said, " possesses a cool head and deep knowl- 
 edge of mankind as well as a right heart." 
 
 The Liberty address, which we would now call 
 a platform, justified the formation of a new party be- 
 cause of the ascendancy of slaveholding influence in 
 all departments of the national government. There 
 was no manly and resolute resistance to slaveholding 
 pretensions; no firm and successful vindication of the 
 claims of free labor; no bold and energetic assertion of 
 the great principles of constitutional liberty nor can 
 any be expected from the two old parties. The right 
 of petition is denied at the violent dictation of slavery. 
 The address denounced the slaveholders as a " priv- 
 ileged order," whose representatives have always 
 acted in solid phalanx whenever the interests of slave 
 labor were in question, and they made the protection 
 and advancement of those interests the price of their 
 political influence in the scales of parties. This power 
 
 1 This refers to the expulsion of Giddings from the House of 
 Representatives in 1842, on account of the Creole Resolutions. 
 
THE EARLY FREE-SOILER 71 
 
 controlled the country, upholding slavery in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia and territories, creating new slave 
 states and it has again and again prostrated free labor 
 in the dust. " It has interfered with the domestic 
 legislation of the Free States, stifled freedom of speech 
 and debate, set at naught the right of petition, promoted 
 mob violence within our own border by sending its 
 enemies among us to delude and inflame the ignorant 
 and the vile, and in a neighboring state has stained the 
 soil with blood, — the blood of an upright citizen ob- 
 noxious only as a fearless asserter of human rights." 1 
 
 In conclusion, the address demanded the absolute 
 and unqualified divorce of the government from 
 slavery and it " gave to the breeze the banner of Con- 
 stitutional Liberty on whose folds were inscribed, 
 Liberty, Equal Rights, Protection to Free Labor, Gen- 
 eral Education and Public Economy ! " 
 
 This voiced fully and forcibly Stevens' sentiments 
 on slavery and the times. He was, however, an astute 
 politician who was playing the game within the Whig 
 party for the control of that organization. He was 
 looking not only to agitation and education, but to 
 success in carrying elections. His dislike of Clay was 
 prompted partly by his distrust of that great leader on 
 the slavery question and partly by Clay's Masonic at- 
 tachments. He anticipated Clay's nomination in 1844, 
 and while he did not break with the Whig party and 
 while he nominally supported its candidate, he was 
 known not to be disappointed greatly in Clay's defeat. 
 Publicly he supported Clay, but he was accused of 
 secretly conniving at his defeat by privately advising 
 
 1 Referring to the death of Lovejoy in Illinois. 
 
-J2 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 and encouraging anti-slavery Whigs to go off to Birney 
 or to abstain from voting. Stevens had written to 
 General Scott in February, 1842 : " The Clay men are 
 taking courage again. They soon forget their de- 
 feats. It is best to let them have undisturbed sway 
 until after the next election so that they can not deny 
 that that is a test of their power. They, of course, 
 will be annihilated everywhere, but whether that will 
 teach them wisdom remains to be seen. Our true 
 course seems to me to be to remain on the turf and 
 await events." 1 
 
 After the election of 1844, Stevens gave his atten- 
 tion, as far as he was in politics, to leading his wing 
 of the Whig party into dominance and control in 
 Lancaster County. He remained " on the turf " and in 
 the running. He maintained his party regularity, and 
 after another four years had rolled round, his leader- 
 ship was recognized in his new location and he stepped 
 forth again into public life, this time as a Whig candi- 
 date for Congress. 
 
 1 Stevens' Papers, Library of Congress, February 15, 1842. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN" CONGRESS BEFORE THE WAR; ANTI-SLAVERY 
 PHILIPPICS 
 
 TN 1848 Stevens received the Whig nomination for 
 •*■ Congress in the Lancaster district. He had 
 triumphed over the " machine " of his party, and 
 was elected by the voters of the district by more than 
 four thousand majority over his Democratic opponent. 
 The Thirty-first Congress of which he became a 
 member was a notable one in American history. It 
 met at a time when the country was in the throes of a 
 renewed agitation on the slavery question, an agitation 
 that threatened the continuance of the Union. Texas 
 had been annexed in spite of anti-slavery opposition. 
 The Mexican War had followed and had just been 
 brought to a successful conclusion. As one of the re- 
 sults of that war, the United States had received from 
 Mexico a large accession of new territory. California 
 had been taken possession of by right of conquest dur- 
 ing the war, and in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 
 closing the war, Mexico acknowledged the south- 
 western boundary that Texas had claimed, and ceded 
 to the United States, in addition to California, large 
 areas in the Southwest, including New Mexico and 
 Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and 
 Wyoming. 
 
 73 
 
74 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The question immediately arose, what shall be the 
 status of this new territory as to slavery? Shall 
 slavery be permitted there ? Or, shall it be excluded 
 by congressional power ? 
 
 This question which arrayed the two sections of the 
 country against each other and became the political 
 issue of the hour, was associated with a number of 
 other sore and exciting questions relating to slavery. 
 A summary of all these controverted questions that 
 were pending before Congress and the country at the 
 opening of the Thirty-first Congress in December, 
 1849, is essential to an understanding of the political 
 situation. 
 
 The first and most important of all w T as the ques- 
 tion of slavery in the new territories, to which we 
 have referred. Shall slave property be recognized and 
 permitted in the Mexican cessions under national law 
 or shall it be prohibited? The Mexican War had 
 hardly begun when, in anticipation that Mexico would 
 be forced to cede territory to the United States, an ap- 
 propriation bill was offered granting money to the 
 President to provide for the negotiation, with a view 
 to the purchase of territory. To this " three million 
 bill," David Wilmot, a Democratic Representative of 
 Pennsylvania, moved his celebrated " Wilmot 
 Proviso," to the effect that " neither slavery nor in- 
 voluntary servitude, except in punishment of crime 
 whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," shall 
 ever exist in any part of any Mexican territory that 
 might be obtained. It was this proposition particularly 
 that threw Congress and the country into an excit- 
 ing agitation. The " Proviso " did not pass with the 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 75 
 
 original appropriation bill in connection with which it 
 was proposed; but the proposal remained before the 
 country and there was a grim anti-slavery determina- 
 tion in the North to apply the principle of the Wilmot 
 Proviso to the Mexican cessions, and exclude slavery 
 from the new possessions. 
 
 This proposition was very offensive to the South. 
 The Mexican War had been especially promoted and 
 supported by the people of that section. If, now, the 
 fruits of the war were to be denied them and their 
 " peculiar institution " were to be denied legitimate 
 recognition and protection in the new possessions 
 which had come to the United States by the expendi- 
 ture of Southern blood and treasure, there would be 
 reason enough, according to Southern opinion, for a 
 dissolution of the Union. The Virginia Legislature 
 asserted that the passage of the Wilmot Proviso 
 would be an " outrage," and that the Southern States 
 should never submit to it; such a denial to the South 
 of " equal rights in the territories " would be in itself 
 equivalent to a dissolution of the Union. Calhoun and 
 Rhett, of South Carolina, Berrien, Toombs, and Steph- 
 ens, of Georgia, and other able statesmen of the South, 
 defended the rights of the Southern people to carry 
 their slave property into the new territory and have it 
 protected there by national power, and they gave notice, 
 substantially, that if this equal protection to their slave 
 property were denied, the Union would be of no further 
 use to them. 
 
 On the other hand, the public sentiment of the North 
 was just as decidedly opposed to the further extension 
 of slavery; and while both of the leading political par- 
 
y6 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ties refused to insert the principle of the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso in their campaign platforms in 1848 for fear of 
 losing their Southern supporters, the rank and file of 
 both the Whigs and the Democrats in the Northern 
 States were stoutly opposed to the extension of slavery. 
 So positive was this sentiment that when the parties 
 refused to come out openly for the policy of the Wil- 
 mot Proviso, the more radical and pronounced anti- 
 slavery men in both parties came out of their parties 
 and united in the new Free-soil party whose pri- 
 mary purpose was to exclude slavery from the terri- 
 tories. This new party declared for " free soil for a 
 free people " and asserted that, with " free men, free 
 labor, free press and free soil " inscribed upon its 
 banners it would fight on and fight ever until a triumph- 
 ant victory had crowned its efforts. This party stood 
 for uncompromising opposition to slave extension. It 
 polled 292,000 votes for President in 1848, for Martin 
 Van Buren, a Democratic leader of former days, and 
 this vote represented also the sentiment of many voters 
 who, for reasons of expendiency and party loyalty, 
 refused to come out of their old parties. Thousands 
 of Democrats and Whigs who refused to leave their 
 parties, believed in the fundamental principle of the 
 new party — the principle of the Wilmot Proviso. 
 They continued to hope that the object in view could 
 be obtained without the sacrifice of their party interests 
 and ties. 
 
 When Congress met in December, 1849, tne question 
 as to whether the Wilmot Proviso should be applied 
 to the Mexican cessions was still pending. ' The Free- 
 soilers had elected a handful of Congressmen, thir- 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 77 
 
 teen in number, who would be governed in their public 
 conduct primarily with reference to the slavery issue 
 alone, and it was evident that a sharp contest was 
 pending. 
 
 Another prominent question was whether California 
 should be admitted as a Free State. Gold was dis- 
 covered in California in January, 1848, a few days 
 before the peace treaty was made with Mexico. Im- 
 migrants from the Eastern States and from all parts of 
 the world began to flow into California, across the 
 plains, by way of the isthmus, around the Horn. These 
 " forty-niners " were mostly Americans, but there 
 were among them all sorts and conditions of men. 
 Vigilance committees and lynch law were at first their 
 only means of government. But within a year and a 
 half, a time that seems almost incredible for such a 
 work, a state of more than 100,000 people had been 
 organized in this new land. By the fall of 1849 a 
 Constitutional Convention had been held under the 
 direction of the Military Governor; a state constitution 
 was adopted by which slavery was excluded from the 
 state by an almost unanimous vote of the convention, 
 and when Congress met in December, 1849, California 
 presented herself at the portals of the Union asking 
 admission as a Free State. 
 
 The slaveholders of the South saw that the admis- 
 sion of California would break the " balance of 
 power " in the Senate, between the Slave States and the 
 Free. Iowa had offset Texas and Wisconsin had off- 
 set Florida. There was no other slave state ready 
 to come in to offset California, and there was no 
 prospect of any. The Southern leaders therefore ob- 
 
78 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 jected to the admission of California. They said she 
 was not ready for statehood, that her organization had 
 been irregular and disorderly and without the au- 
 thorization of Congress ; that she should be remanded 
 to the territorial status and come in when ready by 
 the usual " enabling act " of Congress. On the other 
 hand, the anti-slavery men insisted that California 
 should be immediately admitted with her free-state con- 
 stitution. 
 
 Another aspect of the slavery question that had been 
 before Congress for a number of years, through the 
 persistent and pestiferous petitions and activities of 
 the abolitionists of the North, was that of abolishing 
 slavery in the District of Columbia. Petitions to bring 
 this about continued to come to Congress. The anti- 
 slavery men of the North who wished to relieve them- 
 selves of all responsibility for Southern slavery, felt 
 that as long as slavery existed at the national capital 
 they were partly responsible for it. They wished slav- 
 ery abolished, or prevented, wherever the national au- 
 thority extended or wherever it might be held that 
 the national authority was responsible for it. That 
 authority was supreme in the District of Columbia, as 
 well as in the territories, and the anti-slavery agitators 
 were determined that the detestable system of slavery 
 should no longer continue under the dome of the na- 
 tional capital. 
 
 On the other hand, Southern leaders contended that 
 to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia would 
 be a violation of good faith toward the people of 
 Maryland and Virginia, who had ceded this territory 
 to the federal government as slave territory; that 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 79 
 
 abolition should not be permitted in the District so 
 long as slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia, and 
 not at all except by the consent of the people of the 
 District and with due compensation for the eman- 
 cipated slaves. This was a sore question which had 
 been for nearly twenty years a cause of dispute and 
 alienation between the Southern defenders of slavery 
 and the Northern abolitionists, and one rash Souther- 
 ner went so far as to say in Congress that if slavery 
 were abolished in the District of Columbia, Maryland 
 should reassert her jurisdiction over that territory and 
 enforce her slave code in Washington. This question 
 was pending when the Thirty-first Congress met. 
 
 Further, the Southern slaveholders were insisting 
 upon a more stringent fugitive slave law. The public 
 sentiment of the North against slavery, the " Personal 
 Liberty Bills " in many of the states, the decision of 
 the Supreme Court in the case of Prigg vs. Pennsyl- 
 vania, by which it was decided that state officers and 
 agencies could not be required for use in enforcing the 
 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, — these influences made it 
 very difficult for the Southerners to recover their run- 
 away slaves in the Northern States. They demanded 
 that their right to the recovery of this property, so 
 clearly recognized in the Constitution, should be made 
 secure by the exercise of national authority, and they 
 came to the Thirty-first Congress with an earnest and 
 determined demand that the Northern States should 
 be required to live up to their constitutional compact 
 obligations in this regard. 
 
 This demand, as might be expected, met resistance 
 among representatives of strong anti-slavery constitu- 
 
80 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 encies. They asserted it to be their duty to protect 
 their free colored inhabitants from being kidnaped 
 and carried into slavery, and that the freedom and 
 safety of a single one of these free negroes was a more 
 important matter than the escape of many fugitives 
 from bondage. The " slave catcher " was hateful to 
 Northern communities, and while the politicians and 
 thousands of others in the North who were indifferent 
 to the cause of the slave were willing that the obligation 
 to return the slave should be lived up to, there were yet 
 thousands of anti-slavery men who were determined 
 that, law or no law, the fugitive should not be re- 
 turned. This was a constant source of irritation and 
 quarrel. 
 
 Further, Northern men were insisting, as a means 
 of crippling slavery, that the interstate slave trade 
 should be prohibited, — which, of course, would be an 
 offense to the South ; while Southern men were stand- 
 ing up for the full recognition of the extensive claims 
 of Texas to the Rio Grande as her southwestern boun- 
 dary, a claim that was denounced as extravagant and 
 absurd even by some men from the Slave States, and 
 which, if allowed, would materially extend slave juris- 
 diction; while the more ardent friends of Texas were 
 threatening to " light the fires of civil war from the 
 Potomac to the Rio Grande " if the claim were not 
 allowed. 
 
 Never before had Congress met in such trying times. 
 These questions had all been hotly discussed by the 
 press and on the hustings in both sections of the 
 Union. A temper had been aroused on both sides of 
 the great slavery controversy that was disposed to per- 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 81 
 
 mit of no further yielding. Moderate men believed 
 that unless this contentious and antagonistic spirit 
 could be curbed and the spirit of conciliation and com- 
 promise be substituted for it, the Union was in serious 
 danger. If the preservation of the American Union 
 was to be regarded as the paramount consideration of 
 the hour and as the most precious object of American 
 statesmanship, then a public character like that of 
 Henry Clay, and not like that of Thaddeus Stevens, 
 was the kind of a man the times called for. Clay 
 was the man who was needed to adjust matters, to fix 
 up difficulties, to put restraints upon men's purposes 
 and desires for the sake of peace. 
 
 The opening days of the Thirty-first Congress illus- 
 trate the sharp divisions between the sections. The 
 Congress was organized amid passion and strife, after 
 a sharp and protracted struggle over the election of a 
 Speaker, and for the first time in the history of Con- 
 gress a Speaker was elected by only a plurality of votes. 
 There were nine Free-soil members of the House 
 who w r ould give their votes to neither party, unless 
 pledges were made favorable to the Free-soil cause, 
 and there were several other members who, it seems, 
 voted independently of their party caucus nominations. 
 The more positive anti-slavery men were dissatisfied 
 with the course of Robert C. .Wmthrop, the Whig 
 Speaker of the former House, and they now stoutly 
 refused to vote for his reelection; nor would they 
 vote for the Democratic candidate, Mr. Flowell Cobb, 
 of Georgia. The consequence was, neither party could 
 muster a majority of the House. The struggle was 
 over the committees. The Free-soilers were anxious 
 
82 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 that the committees on the territories, the judiciary, 
 and the District of Columbia, should be made up in a 
 way that would be satisfactory to them, and they 
 would vote for no one for Speaker who would not give 
 satisfactory pledges on that score. They wished their 
 cause to have a fair and open hearing and that all 
 projects in opposition to slavery should not be 
 smothered in committee, but that the public sentiment 
 of the North might have a chance to be heard on " the 
 great question that now agitated the country." l 
 
 On one ballot five of these Free-soilers voted for 
 William J. Brown, a Democratic member from Indiana, 
 who had been put forward by the Democrats after re- 
 peated trials for Cobb, in the hope of uniting enough 
 votes to elect. Brown came within two votes of be- 
 ing elected, Wilmot and other Free-soilers aiding him, 
 because Brown had written to Wilmot saying that he 
 (Brown) being a representative of a Free State had 
 " always been opposed to the extension of slavery," 
 and that he would " constitute the committees on the 
 District of Columbia, the territories, and the judiciary 
 in such a manner as shall be satisfactory to yourself 
 and friends." When it was noticed that Free-soilers 
 were voting for the Democratic candidate, suspicion 
 was aroused and when the fact was brought out that 
 Brown had made pledges to one of the Free-soil lead- 
 ers, he was, as might be expected, abandoned and de- 
 nounced by the Southern Democrats. 
 
 While Wilmot was explaining the uncovered " bar- 
 gain " between Brown and the Free-soilers, Stevens 
 sought to bring out by a question whether or not Wil- 
 
 1 Globe, December 12, 1849, p. 21. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 83 
 
 mot had reason to believe, from Brown's pledges, that 
 the committees would be composed of members who 
 were in favor of free soil. Wilmot replied that he had 
 reason to believe that " the majority of the committees 
 would be composed of fair Northern men," at which 
 there was " great laughter over the hall " and applause 
 in some parts with several voices inquiring, " Where 
 are the three aces ? " Wilmot explained that by " fair 
 Northern men " he meant " men who would not give 
 their aid to stifle the expression of the sentiments of 
 the people of the North," — namely, that slavery should 
 go no further, which Wilmot believed to be the senti- 
 ment of two-thirds of the Northern people. Stevens, 
 by another question to Wilmot, called the attention of 
 the House and country to the fact that his Free-soil cor- 
 respondence with Brown merely showed the same state 
 of thing's as that which took place two years before 
 between certain gentlemen and Mr. Winthrop previous 
 to Winthrop 1 s election as Speaker of the preceding 
 Congress. Pledges had appeared to be necessary then, 
 and the committees had been subsequently organized 
 in a way calculated to suppress anti-slavery discus- 
 sion, presumably in accordance with Winthrop's agree- 
 ment. The anti-slavery men complained that in spite 
 of pressure and petitions from the North, these im- 
 portant committees would not act, and that the com- 
 mittees had been " fixed " by agreement to secure this 
 masterly inactivity. They would have no more such 
 committees, nor a Speaker who would so use his 
 power to frustrate and defeat the anti-slavery cause. 
 
 This little band of Free-soilers, led by David Wil- 
 mot, of Pennsylvania, Joshua R. Giddings and Joseph 
 
84 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 M. Root, of Ohio, George W. Julian, of Indiana, Pres- 
 ton King, of New York, and Charles Allen and Horace 
 Mann, of Massachusetts, here gave formal and pub- 
 lic notice that they were ready to subordinate all 
 other causes to that of resisting the further spread 
 of slavery; that they would resist any further national 
 protection, or patronage, to the slavery interest; and 
 that they proposed to use all the political power and 
 influence at their command in organizing the House, 
 and in all other ways to arouse the latent sentiment 
 among the old parties in the North to assert itself 
 against what they deemed the aggressions of slavery. 
 
 This policy met with fierce resentment on the part 
 of Southern leaders. They, also, proposed to resist 
 " aggression." They considered all opposition to 
 slavery as " aggression on the rights of the South," 
 and they gave peremptory notice that they would not 
 yield to anti-slavery influences, the control of the im- 
 portant committees having Southern interests in charge. 
 They were ready to sink their former political and 
 party differences in order to defeat the Free-soil pro- 
 gram. Meade, of Virginia, expressed his willingness 
 to take a Speaker from either party, provided he were 
 known to be opposed to the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia and its prohibition in the terri- 
 tories. " If slavery," he said, " is to be abolished in 
 the District or prohibited in the territories, I trust in 
 God that my eyes have rested upon the last Speaker 
 of the House of Representatives." 1 
 
 Meade admitted that the delay in organizing the 
 House came from the fear that certain anti-slavery 
 1 Dec. 13, 1849, Globe, p. 26. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 85 
 
 bills would be introduced, reported favorably and 
 passed, — referring to the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia, and its prohibition in the terri- 
 tories. If this were done, he said, it would "either 
 destroy the Confederacy or enslave a large portion of 
 it," and he called upon the conservative elements of 
 both parties to unite, to " crush the demon of dis- 
 cord " by opposing these anti-slavery measures. 
 Meade said that he was but expressing the one de- 
 termination of the South, — " one solemn resolve to de- 
 fend their homes and maintain their honor, contending, 
 as they were, for their firesides, against the robbers who 
 are seeking to despoil them of their rights and degrade 
 them before the world." 
 
 Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, whose mien and words 
 were adapted to " firing the Southern heart," spoke 
 even more threateningly. He did not propose to be re- 
 strained by eulogies upon the Union, and he was de- 
 termined to make the slavery interests of his con- 
 stituents the basis of his political action. " I do not 
 hesitate," he said, " to avow before this House and 
 the country, and in the presence of the living God, 
 that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the 
 territories of California and New Mexico, purchased 
 by the common blood and treasure of the whole peo- 
 ple, and to abolish slavery in this District, thereby at- 
 tempting to fix a national degradation upon half the 
 states of this Confederacy, / am for disunion: and if 
 my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of 
 my convictions of right and duty, I will devote all I 
 am and all I have on earth to its consummation." 
 Toombs demanded securities that the organization of 
 
86 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the House should not be used to the injury of his slave- 
 holding constituents. If these were given there would 
 be cooperation and tranquillity : if not, then, so far as 
 he was concerned, " Let discord reign forever." * 
 
 Alexander H. Stephens, a colleague of Toombs from 
 Georgia, explicitly endorsed what Toombs had said. 
 " The day in which aggression is consummated," he 
 said, " the Union is dissolved. We do not intend to 
 submit to aggressions on our rights." The Reverend 
 Mr. Hilliard, a Methodist preacher, who represented 
 one of the Alabama districts, in a prepared speech de- 
 livered soon after the organization of the House, spoke 
 with the same spirit of defiance and boldness. Hill- 
 iard, like Toombs, was one of the more violent of the 
 Southern " fire-eaters " and was among the most in- 
 sistent defenders of slavery. He was charged by 
 Stanly, a Whig-Unionist of North Carolina, with ap- 
 pealing to the spirit of revolution and disunionism. 2 
 Hilliard asserted that the passage of the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso would drive the Southern States to resistance. He 
 did not propose to discuss slavery as a moral question ; 
 it was entirely political ; but he gave notice to the North 
 that " the declaration of your fixed purpose to bind 
 down the slaveholding states within their present 
 limits, has aroused a spirit which you will find it no 
 easy task to subdue." He asserted that " one feeling, 
 one purpose, one spirit, moves the entire mass of 
 awakened and indignant freemen ; it is their solemn 
 purpose not only to resist your threatened encroach- 
 
 1 Globe, Dec. 13, 1849, p. 28. 
 
 2 See the controversy between Hilliard and Stanly in the 
 Globe, March 6, 7, 1850. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 87 
 
 ments, but to demand guarantees for their future 
 safety. If you mean to deny us participation in the 
 territories, then the time is come when the Southern 
 States must decide a grave question, — either to submit 
 to gradual but perfectly certain change in their organic 
 structure or resist the threatened encroachment on their 
 rights at every hazard." x 
 
 It was in this spirit of positive and radical resistance 
 to the anti-slavery cause that most of the Southern 
 members of both parties came to the Thirty-first Con- 
 gress. There were ominous signs of discord and dis- 
 union. Southern States had expressed open defiance 
 of the Northern purpose to restrict slavery, and a deter- 
 mination had been expressed to resist restriction at all 
 hazards. The Virginia Legislature had requested the 
 Governor to call an extra session of that body if Con- 
 gress should pass the Wilmot Proviso, and other of- 
 ficial expressions had been taken looking toward a 
 Southern Disunion Convention in that event. There 
 was no mistaking the Southern temper on the question 
 of slavery. 
 
 There were very few men in Congress from the 
 North who were prepared to meet this Southern bold- 
 ness of spirit with a like attitude of defiance and re- 
 sistance. The Free-soilers were among these few and 
 they were there with the purpose, and with the courage, 
 to press their cause even in the face of these threats 
 of disunion. Joseph M. Root, of Ohio, ridiculed 
 Meade's threat of dissolution, saying that if the Union 
 must be dissolved he hoped it would come before the 
 House were organized, for " then it would not be 
 1 Globe, Feb. 14, 1850, p. 360. 
 
88 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 binding and might be restored." But if it should come 
 upon a report of a bill for the abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia, — " why, then, would come 
 the time for a fight in defense of wife and little ones, 
 the household gods and all the other household furni- 
 ture." Root, in good-natured satire, expressed assur- 
 ance that nothing would allay discord more than such 
 calm and moderate speeches as the one just made by 
 Southern gentlemen! The Wilmot Proviso had been 
 denounced as " humbug and tomfoolery," but Root 
 ventured to assert that " nine out of ten Whig repre- 
 sentatives of the North would not, and the others dare 
 not," say such a thing to their constitutents. " Let 
 them do so and there would be in his section of the 
 country political graves as thickly spread as the graves 
 of the victims of the cholera in those villages over which 
 the pestilence had swept, whose fields would be so full 
 of graves as to make them look like stone-quarries, 
 where there would not be turf enough for a man to 
 wipe his feet on." 
 
 The Free-soilers believed that the principle of the 
 Wilmot Proviso was a deep immovable sentiment fixed 
 in the hearts of the Northern people, who expected 
 their representatives to speak out on all proper occa- 
 sions, and that the sole policy of the old parties was to 
 - dodge this question and to shirk responsibility. The 
 5 Free-soilers were determined that, if they could pre- 
 i-, vent it, there should be no dodging, but that the men 
 from the North in the old parties should go upon 
 ^ record on this " most absorbing and exciting question 
 stf of public policy that was then overriding all others." 
 v~ When it was proposed to elect the Speaker by ballot, or 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 89 
 
 to deprive him of the power to appoint the committees, 
 Root denounced both processes. One plan, he said, 
 would enable men to skulk under the secret ballot ; 
 while, under the other, the House would find it as hard 
 to name the committees as to name the Speaker, and 
 in the attempt, the same old question would arise, and 
 the same terrible " demon of discord would have its 
 horns up." It would not answer for a good dodge. If 
 it were intended to open a hole for tender-footed Free- 
 soil Democrats to escape by, it would not answer the 
 purpose. They could not get out of it. No; they 
 must face the music, — God help them! If the gen- 
 tlemen got through such a loophole they would find 
 worse troubles beyond. There must be marching 
 boldly up and taking the bull by the horns." 
 
 Root denied that it was the fault of the " impracti- 
 cable Free-soilers " that the House had not been or- 
 ganized. If the majority wished to carry out the 
 policy of Southern gentlemen and put a gag upon a 
 sentiment that was firmly established in the North, let 
 them do it; they have the votes. But they should do 
 it boldly, openly, manfully; there should be no loop- 
 holes. He did not quarrel with Southern men for 
 speaking out and acting upon their honest convictions, 
 a right which the Free-soilers claimed for themselves. 
 "But I would to God," said Root, "that Northern 
 men representing Northern constituencies would stand 
 up with the same manliness in defense of their rights as 
 Southern representatives do and always have done 
 since I have been a member of this House. Let North- 
 ern men meet this question boldly and not try to 
 dodge. Let them represent the will of their constitu- 
 
90 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ents, if they can conscientiously; if not, let them back 
 out and leave the people free to send other representa- 
 tives here who will fairly represent their views and 
 feelings on this subject." 1 
 
 Finally, on December 22nd, after three weeks of 
 wrangling, a resolution was passed declaring that a 
 plurality vote should elect a Speaker, and Mr. Howell 
 Cobb, of Georgia, a pro-slavery Democrat, was chosen 
 to the position. During the days of balloting, as 
 many as twenty-four members of the House voted for 
 Stevens for Speaker, among them being a number of 
 Free-soilers, including Giddings, Root and Horace 
 Mann. Giddings expressed the opinion that the Free- 
 soilers were ready to accept Stevens on the strength 
 of his known opinions and record on the subject of 
 slavery. Stevens was not a Free-soiler; that is, he 
 had not left the Whig party to join a new one, to 
 act in politics primarily with reference to the slavery 
 issue; and in the struggle over the speakership he 
 supported the caucus action of his party and voted for 
 Winthrop. But he had strong anti-slavery convic- 
 tions ; he believed in the principle and policy for which 
 the Free-soilers were standing; and he was the kind 
 of a Northern representative that Root had prayed 
 for, — he would stand up boldly and declare his con- 
 victions about slavery extension; he was not disposed 
 to compromise, nor sneak into some loophole of 
 escape from responsibility, and he would not be cowed 
 by Southern threats of discord and disunion. 
 
 Stevens soon found opportunity to show his ag- 
 gressive and unyielding spirit. He believed that 
 
 1 Globe, Dec. 14, 1849, pp. 32, 33. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 91 
 
 Northern representatives were shrinking too timidly 
 before the angry menaces and threats from the South. 
 He was not alarmed by these threats of disunion, 
 which, as it appeared to him, were leading many 
 Northern men to disavow their solemnly declared 
 opinions and to prove recreant to the interest of the 
 nation by withdrawing opposition to the spread of 
 slavery. That the Union-saving propensities of the 
 Northern Whigs were leading them to abandon their 
 former anti-slavery purposes was seen in the fact that 
 Root's resolution prohibiting slavery in the newly ac- 
 quired territory was, on February 4, 1850, laid on the 
 table by a vote of one hundred and five to seventy-five. 
 Five weeks before this motion had been rejected, and 
 it appeared that a majority were going to stand out 
 stoutly against slavery extension. But now thirty 
 Northern members, eighteen Democrats and fourteen 
 Whigs, voted against the principle of the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso and Congress refused to promote the policy of 
 keeping slavery from the territories. 
 
 To Stevens this seemed like yielding to Southern dic- 
 tation and like an unworthy surrender of anti-slavery 
 convictions. On February 29th, while the House was 
 in the committee of the whole on the state of the 
 Union, he obtained the floor and spoke for an hour 
 on the slavery question. He assumed an attitude like 
 that of a bold and honest Southerner, as defiant as 
 Toombs, — quite different from what Southern gen- 
 tlemen were used to in their Northern colleagues. 
 They were accustomed to pleas for peace, and to 
 honeyed speeches about the Union and the glorious 
 sacrifices of the sisterhood of states in the Revolution. 
 
92 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Stevens showed them another tone, a tone that was 
 quite different from that of the " doughfaces " from 
 the North that the advocates of slavery were used to 
 dealing with, and it was, perhaps, a tone that the fiery- 
 spirits from the South stood in need of. 
 
 Stevens' apology for speaking and consuming the 
 time of the House in a general discussion, was that 
 he saw no prospect of any practical legislation; the 
 time, as he thought, was being occupied by speeches on 
 the subject of slavery, mostly by Southern men with 
 a well-defined object, partly to intimidate Congress, 
 partly to kill time, so that no legislation could be ma- 
 tured obnoxious to Southern gentlemen. Indeed, on 
 that point the House was not left to conjecture, since 
 Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, who had " been 
 selected to open the debate in behalf of human bond- 
 age, distinctly notified us that unless Congress sub- 
 mitted to settle the slavery question according to 
 Southern demands, there should be no legislation, even 
 to the passage of the appropriation bills necessary to 
 sustain the government." Stevens denounced this pur- 
 pose as a well-defined and palpable conspiracy of 
 Southern members to st#p the supplies and disorganize 
 and dissolve the government, — if any anti-slavery 
 legislation were attempted. " We can say anything 
 within these walls or beyond them with impunity, 
 unless it be to agitate in favor of human liberty — 
 that is aggression! " 
 
 What was the grave offense that was held to justify 
 the threat of disunion ? The refusal to extend an evil, 
 an unmitigated wrong, — the apprehension that the 
 Congress of this free republic would not propagate, 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 93 
 
 nor permit to be propagated, the institution of human 
 slavery into her vast territories now free. This thing 
 sought to be forced upon the territories at the risk of 
 treason and rebellion, Stevens described as " a gigantic 
 evil that ought to be interdicted and opposed by states- 
 men, philanthropists and moralists," notwithstanding 
 the bold position taken by the gentlemen from the 
 South. 
 
 While thus announcing his unchangeable hostility to 
 slavery in every form and in every place, Stevens 
 avowed his determination to stand by all the compro- 
 mises of the Constitution and carry them into effect. 
 Some of these compromises he very much disliked, but 
 they were in the Constitution and he would not disturb 
 them. Under these compromises he recognized, with 
 regret, that Congress had no power over slavery in 
 the states. But wherever that institution was within 
 the control of Congress he would go, regardless of all 
 threats, for its certain and final extinction. 
 
 " I know of no one who claims the right, or desires 
 to touch it within the states. But when we come to 
 form governments for territories acquired long since 
 the formation of the Constitution, and to admit new 
 states whose only claim for admission depends on the 
 will of Congress, we are bound to discharge that duty 
 as shall best contribute to the prosperity, the power, 
 the permanency and the glory of the nation." 
 
 Stevens then brought into review the merits of 
 slavery, to determine whether in any respect it tended 
 to contribute to the national welfare. He first de- 
 nounced the system of slave labor from an economic 
 point of view. Slavery absorbed the land for the 
 
 O 
 
94 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 few, preventing its being settled by freemen. Its la- 
 borers, " having no ambition to gratify, no love of 
 gain to stimulate them, no parental feelings to impel 
 them to action, are idle and wasteful. When the lash 
 is the only stimulant, the spirit of man revolts from 
 labor. Despotism may be powerful and long sustained 
 by a mixed population of serfs and nobles; but free 
 representative republics that rely upon the voluntary 
 action of the people never can. Under such govern- 
 ments those who defend and support the country must 
 have a stake in the soil ; must have interests to protect 
 and rights to defend. Slave countries can never have 
 such a yeomanry. 
 
 " There is no sound connecting link between the 
 aristocrat and the slave. True, there is a class of 
 human beings between them; but they are the most 
 worthless and miserable of mankind. The poor white 
 laborer is the scorn of the slave himself. For slavery 
 always degrades labor. The white people who work 
 with their hands are ranked with the other laborers, — 
 the slaves. They feel that they are degraded and 
 despised and their minds and conduct generally con- 
 form to their condition." 
 
 Slavery, besides degrading the laboring population, 
 tends to exhaust and waste the land. Sloth, negli- 
 gence, improvidence are its consequences. Stevens 
 proceeded to compare Virginia very unfavorably with 
 her sister states in the North. The richest, most 
 populous, most powerful state at the time of the 
 adoption of the Constitution, what is Virginia now? 
 With a climate and natural resources unsurpassed, 
 Virginia has fallen behind. Now New York will 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 95 
 
 treble her in population. While towns and thriving 
 cities are springing up in the North, in Virginia there 
 is scarcely a new town within her borders, and " her 
 ancient villages wear the appearance of mournful decay. 
 Her minerals and timber are unwrought. Her noble 
 water power is but partially occupied. Her fine har- 
 bors are without ships, except from other ports; and 
 her seaport towns are without commerce and falling 
 into decay. Ask yourself the cause, sir, and I will 
 abide the answer." 
 
 Slavery prevents the diffusion of education. Under 
 that system education is a privilege only for the rich. 
 "The poor white laborer's children could never be 
 permitted to mingle in the same schools and sit upon 
 the same benches with the rich men's sons. That 
 would be offensive." 
 
 In referring to the " blood and treasure and gallantry 
 of the South," of which much had been said, Stevens 
 admitted that the South had furnished " most of the 
 men who have borne the official burdens of the govern- 
 ment both in the civil and the military list." " The 
 South has always furnished officers for our armies; 
 Presidents for the republic; most of our foreign am- 
 bassadors; heads of departments; chiefs of bureaus; 
 and, sometimes, in her proud humility, has consented 
 that the younger sons of her dilapidated houses should 
 monopolize the places of clerks and messengers to the 
 government. But whence are drawn the common 
 soldiery, the men who peril their lives and win victories 
 for your glory ? Almost entirely from the Free States. 
 . . . Our Northern freemen have always filled the 
 ranks of the regular army. The South has lent us 
 
96 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the gentlemen to wear the epaulettes and the sword ; to 
 take command of our troops and lead them to southern 
 and western climates to fight the frontier battles and 
 whiten your fields with their bones." 
 
 Stevens opposed the diffusion of slavery because 
 confining it " within its present limits would bring 
 the states themselves to its gradual abolition." 
 " Let the disease spread, and although it will render 
 the whole body leprous and loathsome, yet it will long 
 survive. Confine it, and like the cancer that is tending 
 to the heart, it must be eradicated or it will eat out 
 the vitals." 
 
 This result, the gradual abolition of slavery, which 
 according to the admission of Southern men them- 
 selves would follow its restriction, was to Stevens' 
 mind the most agreeable consequence of that policy. 
 " Confine this malady within its present limits. Sur- 
 round it by a cordon of freemen that it can not spread, 
 and in less than twenty-five years every slaveholding 
 state in this Union will have on its statute books a 
 law for the gradual and final extinction of slavery. 
 Then will have been consummated the fondest wishes 
 of every patriot's heart. Then will our fair country 
 be glorious indeed, and be to posterity a bright example 
 of the true principles of government — of universal 
 freedom." 
 
 Referring to the claim set forth by Meade, of Vir- 
 ginia, that the value of Virginia's half million of 
 slave population was chiefly dependent on Southern 
 demand, Stevens asked what meaning attached to such 
 a humiliating confession. " In plain English, what 
 does it mean? That Virginia is now only fit to be 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 97 
 
 the breeder, not the employer of slaves. That she 
 is reduced to the condition that her proud chivalry 
 are compelled to turn slave-traders for a livelihood! 
 Instead of attempting to renovate the soil, and by 
 their own honest labor compelling the earth to yield 
 her abundance; instead of seeking for the best breed 
 of cattle and horses to feed on her hills and valleys 
 and fertilize the land, the sons of that great state 
 must devote their time to selecting and grooming the 
 most lusty sires and the most fruitful wenches to 
 supply the slave barracoons of the South! And the 
 gentleman pathetically laments that the profits of this 
 genteel traffic will be greatly lessened by the circum- 
 scription of slavery. This is his picture, not mine." 
 He denounced the government, both state and na- 
 tional, as a despotism to the extent of government's 
 support of slavery. That government is despotic 
 where the rulers govern subjects by their own mere 
 will. " In this government the free white citizens 
 are the rulers, — the sovereigns, as we delight to call 
 them. All others are subjects. In this government 
 the subject has no rights, social, political or personal. 
 He has no voice in the laws which govern him. He 
 can hold no property. His very wife and children 
 are not his. His labor is another's. He and all that 
 pertains to him are the absolute property of his rulers. 
 He is governed, bought, sold, punished, executed, by 
 laws to which he never gave his assent, and by rulers 
 whom he never chose. He is not a serf merely, with 
 half the rights of men, like the subjects of despotic 
 Russia; but a naked slave, stripped of every right 
 which God and nature gave him, and which the high 
 
 O 
 
98 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 spirit of our revolution declared inalienable — which 
 he himself could not surrender, and which man could 
 not take from him. Is he not then the subject of 
 despotic sway? 
 
 "But we are told that it is none of our business; 
 that Southern slavery is a matter between the slave- 
 holder and his own conscience. I trust it may be 
 so decided by impartial history and the unerring 
 Judge; that we may not be branded with that great 
 stigma and that grievous burden may not weigh upon 
 our souls. But could we hope for that justification, if 
 now, when we have the power to prevent it, we should 
 permit this evil to spread over thousands of square 
 leagues now free and settle upon unborn millions? 
 Sir, for myself, I should look upon any Northern 
 man, enlightened by a Northern education, who would, 
 directly or indirectly, by omission or commission, by 
 basely voting or cowardly skulking, permit it to spread 
 over one rood of God's free earth, as a traitor to 
 liberty and a recreant to God! " 
 
 Stevens again quoted Meade to the effect that though 
 the South had been " in a numerical minority in the 
 Union for fifty years yet during the greater part of 
 that period we have managed to control the destinies 
 of the Union." Stevens regarded this statement as 
 both candid and true, and he did not complain of it. 
 " But," he said, " I can not listen to the recital without 
 feeling the burning blush on my countenance that the 
 North, with her overshadowing millions of freemen, 
 has, for half a century, been tame and servile enough 
 to submit to this arrogant rule." He denounced the 
 arrogance, the insults, and insolent threats of Southern 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 99 
 
 men. Congress had been intimidated and the North 
 had been frightened from its proper course. " Dough- 
 faces " had been found in plenty to act as the servile 
 tools of the slave-driver. He hoped that the race of 
 the "doughface" had become extinct. They were 
 an unmanly unvirile race; the old ones were in deep 
 political graves and it was hoped that they had left 
 no descendants. " For them I am sure there is no 
 resurrection, for they were soulless. Now, when the 
 whole civilized world is denouncing slavery as a curse, 
 a shame and a crime, I trust that when the great battle 
 between liberty and slavery comes to be fought on this 
 floor, there will none be found hiding among the 
 stuff, no fraudulent concealments, not one accursed 
 Achan in this whole camp of the Representatives of 
 freemen." 1 
 
 Stevens closed his speech with an appeal to the ac- 
 complished gentleman from Alabama (Reverend Mr. 
 Hilliard) who might, he said, " with fervid piety and 
 eloquence more thrilling than that which made Felix 
 tremble, warn his illustrious friend, the President, of 
 the awful, the inexorable doom — 'Accursed is the 
 man-stealer ' " ; and he asked the House spokesman of 
 the lowly Nazarene to inquire of his own conscience, 
 as he contemplated " the thronging thousands travel- 
 ing to the great dread tribunal, summoned to give 
 evidence of deeds done in the body, who was most 
 likely to meet a hearty welcome there, — he whose cause 
 was advocated by the supplicating voices of thousands 
 with whom he had dealt justly on earth and made 
 free indeed, or he whose admission should be with- 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 20, 1850, Append. Vol. 22, Part 1, pp. 141-143. 
 
ioo THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 stood by myriads of crushed and lacerated souls, show- 
 ing their chains, their stripes and their wounds to 
 their Father and to his Father; to their God and to 
 his Judge." * 
 
 As was to be expected, this speech did not go down 
 very well with Southern members. It was made with 
 a purpose, not of arousing, but of opposing the fiery 
 Southern spirit, by setting forth something of the 
 same bold and fighting temper that Southern repre- 
 sentatives had been manifesting. Such a speech was 
 most irritating to the ardent defenders of slavery. A 
 few days later Millson, of Virginia, reflected this irri- 
 tation. He took special umbrage at Stevens' refer- 
 ence to the " degradation of Virginia," the land of 
 Washington, Jefferson, Mason, Marshall, the Ran- 
 dolphs and the Lees. He referred to the " gross and 
 offensive allusions," the " feeling of loathing and in- 
 dignation " excited by language that " was so gross 
 as not to bear repetition." 2 
 
 Williams, of Tennessee, said that the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania had " grossly slandered the South, 
 forcing the conviction that he had at some period of 
 his life been a political bankrupt; that he was here 
 by accident; that he had made a desperate, reckless, 
 daredevil move to obtain a forward position in Penn- 
 sylvania on a popular hobby." 3 
 
 Stanton, of Kentucky, resented Stevens' description 
 of the free white population of the South. He him- 
 self had sprung from that class : ly denounced. 
 
 1 Globe, Appen., Feb. 20, 1850, pp. 
 
 2 Globe, Feb. 21 and 26. 
 
 3 Appendix, Globe, p. 292, March 1 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 101 
 
 He pronounced Stevens' charges as " base unmiti- 
 gated slanders," and he affirmed that the free laborers 
 of his state were as "moral, intelligent, high-minded 
 and patriotic a class of men as could be found in 
 any state of the Union." "If the gentleman with 
 his dispostion to vilify and slander persons of whom 
 he knows nothing, should come among us there is not 
 a respectable negro who would deem him a fit asso- 
 ciate. Let the gentleman look at the poverty of the 
 North and the wretched condition of the free laborers 
 there." * 
 
 Stanly, of North Carolina, denounced Stevens for 
 uttering " sentiments clothed in language that a South- 
 ern gentleman would not use to a respectable negro." 
 He referred to Stevens as an old " Anti-Mason," from 
 whom idtraism was to be expected. " And since Anti- 
 Masonry will no longer serve for a hobby-horse, the 
 gentleman must preach against the horrors and despot- 
 ism of slavery. I hope his next speech will be fit to 
 read in the families of Pennsylvania farmers," and that 
 f the gentleman will find some other Morgan to 
 frighten the grandmothers and children of Pennsyl- 
 vania with. I ask him to let us alone." 
 
 It is doubtless true that if the Southern slave- 
 holders had been " let alone " in their purpose and 
 desire to retain and extend human slavery there would 
 have been no quarrel, no antagonism, no friction. 
 But if any one attempted, without mincing his words, 
 to lay bare the evils of slavery; if he sought boldly 
 to restrict its ar and to use the power of the national 
 government to weaken and restrain it and to put it in 
 1 Globe, March n, 1850. 
 
102 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the course of ultimate extinction, then he was " an 
 enemy to the South," he was "vilifying the Southern 
 people," and he was " fomenting dangerous agitation, 
 sectionalism and disunion." In the bitter hostility 
 that was visited upon him for his course in this mat- 
 ter, Stevens was no exception. Horace Mann, edu- 
 cator, philanthropist, and friend of humanity, shared 
 with Stevens and all other radical anti-slavery men, 
 the denunciation of Southern representatives. Mann 
 had asserted that the term " Free-soiler," which ap- 
 plied to him, was constantly used upon the floor of 
 Congress as " a term of ignominy and reproach." 
 When he spoke out in defense of the cause for which 
 the Free-soiler stood, i. e., the exclusion of slavery 
 from the territories, and the purpose " to stand upon 
 the frontier to keep the sin of slavery from crossing 
 its borders," Mann was denounced for making a speech 
 that was " offensive to every Southern man in the 
 house, as if he delighted to wound Southern feel- 
 ing " ; he was represented as " fanning the flames of 
 fanaticism " and " outraging the feeling of his fellow- 
 members," whose speech was " unworthy of being 
 spoken of in respectful terms." 1 
 
 Mann had drawn a forcible picture of the dark and 
 dread conditions under civil war and disunion which, 
 he said, rash spirits from the South were threatening. 
 They were proposing such a hazard, not that they 
 " might defend the rights of man but in order to 
 subjugate a realm to slavery." But with all the hor- 
 rors of disunion and civil war before him Mann said 
 he would accept such a war rather than an extension of 
 1 Stanly, of North Carolina, March 6, 1850. Append., p. 341. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 103 
 
 slavery, — " better anything that God in His providence 
 shall send than an extension of the boundaries of 
 slavery." 1 
 
 If Mann, gentle, refined and scholarly, who uttered 
 his severe truths without any spirit of retaliation or 
 crimination, could be so denounced for his noble speech 
 — noble both in its content and its purpose — ■ how 
 much more might it be expected that Southern wrath 
 would descend upon the head of Stevens, who had less 
 regard for the tender feelings of his opponents, and 
 who had no scruple against fighting a foe with his 
 own words and weapons. No outspoken opponent 
 of slavery could expect to escape Southern wrath. 
 The sum total of anti-slavery sinning was in the fail- 
 ure to keep silence. But if sharp and bitter words, 
 if anger and indignation and hot-tempered denuncia- 
 tion were to be a part of the legislative warfare upon 
 which the slaveholders had entered, they were to find 
 in Stevens an opponent who was also past master in 
 that art. He was more than a match for any of 
 them in that kind of fighting. He anticipated exactly 
 the spirit that he had aroused. It is not improbable 
 that he took a wee bit of pleasure in irritating the 
 Southern leaders and provoking them to excessive 
 speech. And when they exposed themselves by de- 
 fending a social system so indefensible as was Amer- 
 ican slavery, they gave him the cue for his stinging 
 shafts. He was unmoved by their angry denuncia- 
 tion. At any rate, he did not propose to be deterred 
 from expressing on the floor of the American Con- 
 gress and in the face of slaveholders, if need be, his 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 15, 1850, Append., pp. 218-224. 
 
104 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 abhorrence of slavery and his belief in its criminal- 
 ity. 
 
 Later in the session, on June 10, 1850, while dis- 
 cussing the California question, he improved the op- 
 portunity again to discuss the evils of slavery, and 
 this second attack was even fiercer than the first. 
 As to California and the territories, he first laid down 
 the sound constitutional doctrine — a doctrine since 
 affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Insular cases — 
 that the Constitution does not of itself extend over 
 new territory. No territorial officer holds by a con- 
 stitutional tenure. No law of the United States was 
 ever supposed to be extended to any of the terri- 
 tories by mere force of the Constitution. The Fugi- 
 tive Slave Clause does not, and a slave escaping to 
 New Mexico or California would be instantly free. 
 A special act of Congress would be necessary to make 
 the law apply. Such was Stevens' argument. 
 
 He held that Congress could abolish or prevent 
 slavery in the territories, but could establish it no- 
 where, since to do so would be inconsistent with the 
 fundamental principles of the government set forth 
 in the Declaration of Independence. Whenever those 
 principles are not altered or overruled by the Consti- 
 tution they control the action of the government. 
 
 Then, since slavery had been constantly defended 
 upon the floor as a blessing and a divine institution, 
 he thought it proper to examine again into its char- 
 acter. He had expected to be assailed by the de- 
 fenders of slavery and, now, his renewed effort would, 
 of course, bring down upon him all its venom. He 
 found consolation in the career of John Ouincy 
 

 ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 10$ 
 
 Adams who, because of his defending human rights 
 and denouncing slavery in that hall, had been made 
 the object of the bitterest personal abuse in the House. 
 " No motives were too foul to impute to him ; no 
 crimes too atrocious to charge upon him." Stevens 
 disclaimed the vanity of expecting " to be touched by 
 any of the rays of that glory which will forever sur- 
 round his (Adams') name on account of the calumnies, 
 the insults, and the persecutions, which he endured in 
 this high and holy cause." 
 
 Stevens complained that the attention of the South- 
 ern members had been directed, not to his speech, but 
 to him personally. No one had attempted to deny 
 his facts or refute his arguments. They had merely 
 applied personal vituperation and the filth and slime 
 of " Billingsgate "; that he would leave to fish-women 
 and to their coadjutors, these gentlemen from the 
 South. 
 
 Stevens then turned his attention to the defense 
 that had been made of slavery, that it was a blessing, 
 moral, political, personal; that the slaves were better 
 off than the laboring freemen in the North; that, in 
 many instances, having tried freedom, the slaves had 
 voluntarily returned to bondage. " Well," said Ste- 
 vens, " if this be so, let us give all a chance to enjoy 
 this blessing. Let the slaves who choose, go free; 
 and the free who choose, become slaves. If these 
 gentlemen believe there is a word of truth in what 
 they preach, the slaveholders need be under no ap- 
 prehension that they will ever lack bondsmen. Their 
 slaves would remain and many freemen would seek 
 admission to this happy condition. If these Southern 
 
106 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 gentlemen and their Northern sycophants are sincere 
 and correct, they have just cause of complaint, the 
 only aggression the North has ever inflicted upon them, 
 because for two centuries the North has contributed 
 to secure to a particular race the whole advantage of 
 this blissful condition of slavery, imposing on the 
 white race the cares, the troubles, the lean anxieties 
 of freedom. This inconsistent monopoly should be 
 corrected. If it will save the Union, let these gen- 
 tlemen introduce a ' compromise,' by which these 
 races may change conditions; by which the oppressed 
 master may slide into that happy state where he can 
 stretch his sleek limbs on the sunny ground without 
 fear of deranging his toilet, and with no care for 
 to-morrow, when another will be bound to find him 
 meat and drink, food and raiment, and provide for 
 the infirmities and helplessness of old age. 
 
 " A few short years of apprenticeship would fit the 
 white man for slavery. True, in becoming a slave 
 he would lose half the man; in fact, all manhood 
 might be expunged, except the faint glimmerings of 
 an immortal soul. But let the white man not be 
 discouraged. He may attain that blissful state of 
 slavery if he will go courageously to the swamp, spade 
 and mattock in hand, and uncovered and half- naked, 
 toil beneath the broiling sun. If he will go to his 
 hut at night and sleep on the bare ground and go forth 
 in the morning unwashed to his daily labor, a few 
 short years, or a generation or two, at most, will give 
 him a color that will pass muster in the most fastidious 
 and pious slave market in Christendom. His shape, 
 through parched and swollen lips and with his feet 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 107 
 
 unconfined by shoes, will also gradually conform to 
 his condition; and the mind, cut off from all ambitious 
 aspirations, will soon lose all foolish and perplexing 
 desires for freedom, and the whole man will be sunk 
 into slavery's most happy and contented indifference." 
 Stevens vigorously condemned the Southern clergy- 
 men who were using their talents and office to praise 
 the comforts and advantages of slavery. He would 
 not answer their " absurd and blasphemous position," 
 but this he would say, that " these reverend parasites 
 do more to make infidels than all the writings of 
 Hume, Voltaire and Paine. If it were once shown 
 that the Bible authorized, sanctioned, and enjoined 
 slavery, no good man would be a Christian. It con- 
 tains no such horrible doctrine. But if it did, it 
 would be conclusive evidence, to my mind, that it is 
 a spurious imposition, and not the word of the God who 
 is the Father of all men and no respecter of persons. 
 He indeed must have a callous heart who can speak 
 of the benevolence of slavery." Comparing slavery to 
 Dante's Inferno, where those in the innermost circle, 
 Lucifer and Judas Iscariot, suffered the greatest torture 
 while those in the outer circles suffered less, he hoped 
 that in the next edition there would be added another 
 inner circle for the Traitors to Liberty; and he main- 
 tained that, notwithstanding the difference in degrees 
 of suffering in slavery, the whole system was one 
 cruel, desolate, horrible hell. " These reverend per- 
 verters of scripture might devote their subtlety to 
 locating the exact spot where the most comfort might 
 be enjoyed, — the coolest corner in the lake that burns 
 with fire and brimstone." 
 
108 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 He resented the charge of fanaticism. " There can 
 be no fanatics in the cause of genuine liberty. Fanati- 
 cism is excessive seal. There may be fanatics in false 
 religion, in superstition. But there can be no fanati- 
 cism, however high the enthusiasm, however warm the 
 zeal, in true religion, or in the cause of national, uni- 
 versal liberty." 
 
 He noticed the claim that those who were preaching 
 freedom were the slaves' worst enemies, that they were 
 merely causing their burdens to be made heavier. It 
 had been so with tyrants in every age. Moses and 
 Aaron, those " fanatical abolitionists," when they agi- 
 tated " for freedom in Egypt," found it so. " The 
 nearer the oppressed is to freedom, the more hopeful 
 the struggle, the more friends that are raised up for 
 him, the tighter the master rivets his chains. Pha- 
 raoh had hardened his heart. But did the Lord regard 
 Moses as the worst enemy of those in bondage and 
 command him to desist? No, he was commanded to 
 agitate again ; and the plagues came, though the great 
 slaveholder did not relax his grasp on his victims 
 until there was wailing throughout the land over the 
 first born slain in every household." So, he feared, 
 it would be in this land of wicked slavery. He warned 
 the Southern people to write Justice on their door- 
 posts, " that when the destroying Angel goes forth, as 
 go forth he will, he may pass you by." 
 
 He would never consent to the admission of another 
 Slave State, nor to the increase of slave representation. 
 He considered it an outrage on every representative 
 principle that there should be " twenty-five representa- 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 109 
 
 tives in Congress who were virtually the representa- 
 tives of slaves alone." 
 
 He expressed his abhorrence of the word " compro- 
 mise " when applied to human rights. It was known 
 that when Congress assembled, a large majority were 
 in favor of prohibiting slavery from the territories 
 and against admitting new Slave States. But terror, 
 treason, and threats had been used to compel that 
 majority to yield to a turbulent minority. He referred 
 to the compromise bill as a " monster," and he looked 
 for an opportunity of " knocking it in the head." He 
 denounced the " ten million bribe to Texas " and the 
 proposal to appropriate two hundred millions in order 
 to exile, by colonization in Africa, Virginia's free 
 black population. When asked if New England had 
 not sold and imported slaves, he replied that she had ; 
 "she was very wicked; she has long since repented. 
 Go, ye, and do likewise." 
 
 Stevens disclaimed a desire to make personal re- 
 proaches and all ill-will toward any human being. 
 " Least of all would I reproach the South. I honor 
 her courage and fidelity. Even in a bad, a wicked 
 cause, she shows a united front. All her sons are 
 faithful to the cause of human bondage, because it is 
 their cause. But the North — the poor, timid, mer- 
 cenary, driveling North — has no such united defenders 
 of her cause, although it is the cause of human liberty. 
 Even her own great men have turned her accusers. She 
 is the victim of low ambition — an ambition which pre- 
 fers self to country, personal aggrandizement to the 
 high cause of human liberty." 
 
no THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Stevens denounced as odious the Fugitive Slave 
 Law of 1793, which, he said, should be repealed. He 
 would have the remedy for fleeing slaves left where 
 the Constitution left it, without any legislation what- 
 ever. He adduced harsh and abusive court judgments 
 under the Act of 1793, whereby worthy citizens of 
 Pennsylvania had been heavily fined " for no greater 
 offense than giving a cup of water and a crust of bread 
 to a famishing man whom they knew to be fleeing 
 from bondage." The new law now proposed, in 1850, 
 doubled these penalties and, what was more obnoxious, 
 it recognized slavery in the territories. He denounced 
 in unsparing terms these new provisions for the re- 
 covery of escaping slaves. A black man might prove 
 that he was born free and had resided in a Free State 
 all his life, but he would not be permitted to do it; 
 the conclusive evidence in the case was to be the record 
 or affidavit, made up, it might be, a thousand miles 
 from the party whose safety was involved in it. His 
 " learned judges, these tide waiters and country 
 postmasters, who make no pretensions to legal learn- 
 ing, — are compelled not to judge, but to decide with- 
 out judging, that the affidavit of a distant soul-dealer 
 is evidence of slavery which can not be gainsaid. Be- 
 hold what a court and jury are to pass on human lib- 
 erty! An overseer, with a power of attorney; the 
 affidavit of a professional slave-trader; an itinerant 
 postmaster from Virginia signing judgment in a bar- 
 room; the defendant a handcuffed negro, without 
 counsel, witness, or judge! Verily a second Daniel 
 has come to judgment ! 
 
 "The distinguished Senator from Kentucky (Mr. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS nil 
 
 Clay) wishes further to make it the duty of all by- 
 standers to aid in the capture of fugitives ; to join 
 the chase and run down the party. This is asking 
 more than my constituents will ever grant. They will 
 strictly abide by the Constitution. The slaveholder 
 may pursue his slave among them with his own for- 
 eign myrmidons, unmolested, except by their frowning 
 scorn. But no law that tyranny can pass will ever 
 induce them to join the hue and cry after the trembling 
 wretch who has escaped from unjust bondage. Their 
 fair land shall never become the hunting-ground 
 on which the bloodhounds of slavery shall course their 
 prey and command them to join the hunt." 
 
 Stevens said that he was aware of the temerity of 
 his remarks, of how little effect they would have, com- 
 ing from " so obscure a quarter." He believed the 
 " compromise " bill was winning favor with the people, 
 most of whom had never read it, because it was ad- 
 vocated by great names in whom they were accustomed 
 to confide. These great overshadowing names have a 
 fictitious force given to their views and are leading 
 captive the public mind, and the people are not left 
 free to decide these questions on their intrinsic merits. 
 Thus it is that the errors of the great are fatal, while 
 the errors of the small may do but little harm. " The 
 errors of obscure men die with them and cast no shame 
 on their posterity. How different with the great ! 
 
 " In this crisis of the fate of liberty, if any of the 
 renowned men of this nation should betray her cause, 
 it were better that they had been unknown to fame. 
 It need not be hoped that the brightness of their past 
 glory will dazzle the eyes of posterity, or illumine the 
 
H2 THE LIFE OE JHADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 pages of impartial history. A few of its rays may 
 still linger on a fading sky ; but they will soon be over- 
 whelmed in the blackness of darkness. For, unless 
 progressive civilization and the increasing love of free- 
 dom throughout the Christian and civilized world are 
 fallacious, the Sun of Liberty, of universal liberty, is 
 already above the horizon, and fast coursing to his 
 meridian 'splendor, when no apologist of slavery can 
 look upon his face and live." l 
 
 These speeches show Stevens' deep-seated and in- 
 tense hatred of slavery. His attitude was uncom- 
 promising, his speech unsparing. His policy was to 
 bring not peace but the sword. For the spirit of 
 strife and turbulence that existed he believed that 
 slavery and its defenders were responsible, and that the 
 extension of slavery, which the Southern leaders an- 
 nounced themselves to be ready to stand for at the 
 hazard of disunion, should be firmly resisted with 
 the same spirit of hazard; and he was firmly of the 
 conviction that slave extension could not be pre- 
 vented by the soft words that turneth away wrath. He 
 had no desire to maintain peace with slavery. Slavery 
 extension and the national welfare were at war, and if 
 the slave system asserted its right to the national do- 
 main, Stevens would prosecute war against that claim 
 with all the force he could command. He would let 
 the Northern doughfaces prate about " the dove-like 
 
 1 Globe, June 10, 1850, Append., pp. 765-769. Stevens ap- 
 pended a foot-note to this speech, in which he criticized the 
 Reverend Moses Stuart, professor in the Andover Theological 
 Seminary, for his defense of the "blessings and comforts" of 
 slavery, in a work that " contains," as Stevens said, " a very 
 glowing eulogy on the Honorable Daniel Webster and rather a 
 faint one on the Bible." 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 1113 
 
 messengers that will bring peace, happiness and pros- 
 perity to our devoted and glorious confederacy." As 
 for himself he would not yield to the pro-slavery de- 
 mands in the vain hope of thereby securing peace. 
 Although the great leaders of his Whig party, Clay 
 and Webster, sought peace at the expense of allaying 
 all opposition to slavery, he would not follow them. 
 
 It was Clay, especially, who undertook, as his cus- 
 tom was, the office of the peacemaker. The primary 
 object of Clay's political career was to promote and 
 preserve the American Union. He did not share 
 Stevens' convictions and feelings about the evils of 
 slavery. He had a keener appreciation of the danger 
 to the Union, and to him the first duty of the hour was 
 to remove that danger. Clay, perhaps, knew better 
 than Stevens the purpose and temper of the pro-slavery 
 leaders, and therefore he was ready to make conces- 
 sions for the sake of peace and conciliation. In his 
 " compromises " he proposed a series of measures cov- 
 ering the whole field in dispute, — the admission of 
 California as a Free State; a more effective fugitive 
 slave law; the abolition of the slave trade, though not 
 of slavery, in the District of Columbia; the organiza- 
 tion of territorial governments in New Mexico and 
 Utah without the Wilmot Proviso; immunity for the 
 interstate slave trade; and a payment to Texas of 
 $10,000,000 for her claim to New Mexico. This com- 
 bination of measures made concessions to both sides; 
 it also aroused opposition from both sides. As a com- 
 bination in what was called the " omnibus bill " the 
 measures were defeated, but separated into five distinct 
 bills they went through Congress one by one. Stevens 
 
 i 
 
ii4 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 voted to the last against organizing the territories with- 
 out the Wilmot Proviso and against the new fugitive 
 slave law. The compromisers joined with the anti- 
 slavery men to pass the anti-slavery features of Clay's 
 proposals, and they joined the pro-slavery men to pass 
 the pro-slavery features, and thus, all five of Clay's 
 measures were passed and the " five gaping wounds " 
 from which the country was suffering were healed for a 
 time. 
 
 Stevens was reelected to Congress in 1850. Again, 
 when the House was being organized in the Thirty- 
 second Congress, he received support for the speaker- 
 ship, among the sixteen voting for him being Joshua 
 R. Giddings and Horace Mann. The compromise 
 measures were looked upon as being a " finality " ; 
 there was to be no more legislation or agitation on the 
 subject of slavery. There was a cessation of hostili- 
 ties on that subject during most of the Thirty-second 
 Congress, and Stevens had but little occasion to speak 
 on the vexed question. 
 
 On June 11, 1852, he made an extended speech on 
 the " Public Lands and the Tariff," — chiefly on the 
 tariff. Stevens was a consistent and constant pro- 
 tectionist, a true Pennsylvanian in this regard, and 
 his speech set forth, with his decisive effectiveness, 
 the usual protectionist arguments. He asserted that 
 the doctrine of free trade had never been reduced to 
 practise except among barbarian tribes; that every 
 highly cultivated nation has made the protection of 
 domestic industry the special care of government ; that 
 twenty centuries of history had shown this to be the 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 115 
 
 wise policy of nations, — the protection of domestic in- 
 dustries by discriminating duties. 
 
 Stevens illustrated his protective contention by ex- 
 amples in history, — of Tyre, Holland, and Great 
 Britain. England, when Holland had an immense 
 start in capital and skill, could not afford to apply the 
 free trade doctrine. That doctrine would have exactly 
 suited Holland ; that would have left her forever with- 
 out a rival. For the nation which is far above all 
 others in knowledge and means, that system which will 
 keep other nations from starting at all is the true one. 
 Just so surely it is the wrong one for those who are 
 behind. " The statesmen of England were deluded by 
 no such folly as free trade. They excluded the 
 manufactures of other nations and gave the home 
 market exclusively to their own artisans, so as to in- 
 duce them to invest their time, capital and talents in 
 the creation of domestic fabrics. She admitted free the 
 raw material which she could not produce, prohibited 
 the importation of many articles, and laid heavy dis- 
 criminating duties on others." He cited the highly 
 protective features of the English Navigation Acts. 
 Her manufactures and commercial marine have in- 
 creased until she has become " the most manufacturing, 
 commercial, rich, and powerful nation the world ever 
 saw." This position she acquired through protection, 
 — and now she is preaching free trade to young na- 
 tions ! 
 
 Stevens denied that the protective tariff was for the 
 benefit of the rich. It was mainly for the benefit of 
 the laborer. It helped capital because it helped labor, 
 
n6 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 as it was impossible to benefit one without the other. 
 Labor is the chief factor in the manufactured product ; 
 therefore to labor comes the chief benefit of protection. 
 
 No class receives greater benefit from the policy of 
 protection than the farmers. The farmer's wealth is 
 in his surplus products, whose value depends upon a 
 ready, handy, constant market. The nearer to his 
 farm you bring that market, the better for him. If 
 his products are sold in a foreign market he must de- 
 duct from his profits the cost of freight. To create 
 that market at home it is necessary to build up manu- 
 facturing villages, towns and cities in your own land. 
 Your consumers are now three thousand miles distant. 
 iWe should build flourishing cities, — Birminghams, 
 Sheffields and Glasgows, — within our own borders, 
 on the Great Lakes and on the waters that feed the 
 Mississippi. If the whole West were to be given up 
 to agriculture, and its produce were to go to the Atlan- 
 tic cities for a market, the effect would be to depress 
 and destroy the farming interests of the Middle and 
 Eastern States, and reduce real estate to half its value. 
 
 Stevens charged upon the Democratic party that un- 
 der its lead and administration, British interests were 
 being protected to the detriment of American inter- 
 ests. He asserted that the Walker tariff of 1846 was 
 a British tariff; that during its progress there was a 
 British agent here, with rooms assigned at the capital, 
 to watch over its progress and facilitate its advent ; and 
 now, Her Majesty has in this country vigilant friends 
 guarding its safety. Under the operation of this 
 British tariff the iron masters of the United States 
 are not only doing a losing business, but utter and 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 117 
 
 inevitable ruin stares them in the face without speedy 
 relief from Congress. 
 
 There are two ways, his argument continued, by 
 which our manufacturers may compete with those of 
 Europe. The one is to lay a duty on foreign im- 
 portations equal to the difference between the cost 
 of producing the article in Europe and the cost of pro- 
 ducing it here. The other is to reduce the price of 
 labor in America to the average price of labor in 
 Europe. The Whig policy was to impose a duty equal 
 to the difference in the cost of labor in the two coun- 
 tries. The Democratic policy was to reduce the price 
 paid to the laborer. He described the poor fare and 
 the mean living of the laborer abroad where women in 
 collieries were harnessed to cars to draw their heavy 
 loads. There, the laborers can only grow up in igno- 
 rance, and remain hewers of wood and drawers of 
 water. Those who wish to degrade labor will pursue 
 this Democratic policy ; for his part, he preferred the 
 protective policy which gives to laborers the dignity 
 and feelings of independent freemen. England's re- 
 peal of her corn laws only gave additional protection 
 to her manufacturers, as it enabled them to feed their 
 laboring population cheaper, and thus they could re- 
 duce the price of her goods. He urged the West to 
 stand for protection, make her own goods, build up a 
 market for agricultural products close at hand and be- 
 come independent of New England and Pennsylvania. 
 
 It will be seen that these familiar arguments, which 
 Stevens set forth with so much force, had an appli- 
 cation to the tariff controversy in the generation 
 that followed, as well as in that which preceded, the 
 
n8 THE, LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 time in which Stevens spoke. It may be doubted 
 whether any of the advocates of protection ever pre- 
 sented the cause with greater clearness and force. 
 
 Later in the session, on August 12, 1852, while the 
 House was in the committee of the whole on the state 
 of the Union considering an army appropriation bill, 
 — and while the members were taking advantage of 
 the opportunity to discuss in a very general way, with 
 wide latitude, party platforms, presidential candidates 
 and political issues, — Stevens made a speech on the 
 " Presidential Question." 
 
 He discussed the relation of the Whig party to 
 slavery, and in doing so, he could not restrain himself 
 from making his usual vigorous assaults upon the " pe- 
 culiar institution " and its promoters. He defined 
 Whig principles as consisting of obedience to the Con- 
 stitution and the laws, a protective tariff, an equal 
 participation in the public lands, river and harbor im- 
 provements, a sound currency, and a well regulated 
 commerce. In all other things, Stevens said, Whigs 
 were permitted to differ without forfeiting allegiance 
 to their party. Being a national party, Whigs were 
 permitted to differ upon slavery. That question was 
 not incorporated into any party creed. Emancipa- 
 tionists and slaveholders were in both parties. On that 
 subject opinion in the North was by no means uniform. 
 \ Some " who were naturally inclined to domination 
 sincerely believed that a portion of the human race 
 were created for no other purpose than to be the serv- 
 ants of others ; that a part of mortal clay was of finer 
 texture and nobler mold than the rest. This class 
 was more numerous in large commercial cities where 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 119 
 
 men are more mercenary, and where princely fortunes 
 beget kingly appetites." To avoid making this a party 
 issue, which " could lead to nothing but mere sectional 
 strife has been the honest, sincere and constant aim 
 of all that portion of the Whig party that favored 
 freedom." Whether this effort succeeds depends on 
 the ensuing election. Slavery, being local, was not suf- 
 fered to disturb national parties, for it was impossible 
 to incorporate into a uni form creed for any party what 
 three-fourths of the people abhorred and one-fourth 
 loved. But now that slavery has grown stronger and 
 its advocates have determined to extend its boundaries 
 and change the whole current of public thought and 
 action in regard to it, it may turn out that a combined 
 South, with a modicum of Northern parasites, may be 
 sufficient to bend the proudest ambition and sternest 
 will of our statesmen. It has been tried in more than 
 one campaign for the presidency, and it is to be seen 
 whether the national will can be bent to their ends. 
 That was the reason for the furor and clamor raised 
 in this hall three years ago, — as if the republic were 
 in flame. It was all factitious and unreal. Not for a 
 moment was the Union in danger. The object of all 
 the disgraceful turmoil and false clamor, of all the 
 national disturbance, was to compel both parties to put 
 into their party creeds a defense and propagation of 
 slavery. 
 
 Southern gentlemen are announcing that the subject 
 of slavery is to be paramount to all others ; all questions 
 of commerce, agriculture, manufactures, are to be re- 
 jected and slavery is to become the idol of our political 
 adoration. 
 
120 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The Whig resolutions of '52 did not, in Stevens' 
 opinion, contain very good Whig doctrine. They are 
 very faint on internal improvements, and they entirely 
 fritter away and reduce to the standard of Loco Foco 
 folly the question of a protective tariff, reducing it 
 to a mere incidental, or accidental, protection, depend- 
 ing entirely upon the accident of the amount of revenue 
 required. The compromise resolutions are creatures of 
 modern birth, not the legitimate children of Whiggery. 
 
 Stevens arraigned Toombs, a Southern Whig, for 
 abandoning all the ancient Whig doctrines — a protec- 
 tive tariff, river and harbor improvements, and an equal 
 participation in the public domain, — Tand for mounting 
 the Democratic platform merely because it is ultra for 
 the protection of slavery. For that purpose Toombs 
 was preferring Pierce to Scott, as slavery would be 
 safer in Pierce's hands. As to Pierce, no word or act 
 of his life, as he had said of himself, was ever in con- 
 flict with the pro-slavery Democratic platform of '52. 
 If ever he " fell into the path of rectitude on slavery, it 
 was momentary and accidental for which he was not 
 to be held responsible, for all his votes and acts pro- 
 claim him the champion of slavery." 
 
 Pro-slavery Whigs were objecting to Scott because 
 he had not declared that he would interpose his execu- 
 tive veto to prevent the repeal of certain laws that were 
 held to be final and irrepcalablc. They demanded that 
 he declare his intention of using the whole power and 
 patronage of his office to prevent discussion on the 
 subject of slavery. Stevens denounced this attitude 
 as a demand for " unmitigated tyranny." He de- 
 nounced the attempt to enforce the doctrine of finality 
 
 i 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 121 
 
 " as arbitrary and despotic." It was in harmony with 
 efforts lately made to paralyze the free action of Con- 
 gress and to overawe and intimidate public opinion. 
 " Whenever any executive or any statesman shall com- 
 mand the people not to think, or to utter their thoughts, 
 and it does not cost him his political life, I shall tremble 
 for the liberties of the nation. Whenever a political 
 party attempts it, it deserves to die. Whoever attempts 
 to enforce such principles is a detestable tyrant. Sir, 
 this atrocious attempt must fail in this country." Thus 
 he announced his disapproval of the fashionable doc- 
 trine of the hour, the doctrine of ■ finality," in refer- 
 ence to the compromises of 1850. 
 
 Because General Scott had said, in a letter of 1843, 
 that he believed it to be the duty of slaveholding states 
 to abolish slavery, voluntarily and gradually, for this, 
 said Stevens, " he is opposed by the bigots of slavery. 
 I thank God that he has such a cause of opposition." 
 
 Stevens charged upon the Southern slaveholders 
 that they were forcing a sectional issue upon the coun- 
 try. If for these reasons Scott should be defeated, 
 how could they expect to avoid the sectional issue in 
 the coming elections ? " Do you believe that the 
 North, tame as she is, when so often trod upon will 
 never turn? And if the issue shall be made, the result 
 can not be doubtful." 
 
 He warned the South of the dangers of attempting 
 a separate confederacy. They would be in constant 
 collisions with surrounding nations; no state would 
 extradite their fugitives from slavery; the sympathies 
 of the world would be against them ; the dangers of 
 San Domingo confronted them; and some modern 
 
122 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Sparticus might arise and inflict some terrible retribu- 
 tion upon his former masters. " May the sound sense 
 and true patriotism of the American people arrest the 
 headlong career of reckless men! " 
 
 With March 4, 1853, Stevens' second term in Con- 
 gress came to an end. He retired with the expecta- 
 tion of never again holding office. 1 
 
 In the last days of the Thirty-second Congress, on 
 March 3, 1853, while a naval appropriation bill was 
 pending, Stevens protested against the measure, charg- 
 ing that it carried money for corrupt purposes. It 
 was not the time nor the hour, he said, " in the expiring 
 moments of Congress, in the confusion and noise, and 
 surrounded by outside pressure, to vote away your mil- 
 lions," and he expressed his determination to vote 
 against the bill. 
 
 In the fall of 1851, during the recess of Congress, 
 Stevens was engaged for the defense of Castner Han- 
 way in the celebrated Gorsuch case, a case arising in 
 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, under the operation 
 of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, an act that was 
 odious to Stevens and which he had given his best 
 endeavors to defeat. Now, after the lapse of but a 
 few months, he found opportunity to defend a fellow- 
 citizen of his home county who had refused to help 
 execute that act. Gorsuch and his son, citizens of 
 Maryland, came to Lancaster County in search of two 
 fugitive slaves who had escaped three years before. 
 
 1 In a personal explanation made in the last hours of the ses- 
 sion, while disclaiming any intention of disparaging the personal 
 conduct of a colleague, Stevens said : " It is more than prob- 
 able that hereafter I shall never meet any member here or else- 
 where officially, and I desire to part with no unfriendly feeling 
 toward any of them." Globe, March 3, 1853, p. 1164. 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY PHILIPPICS 123 
 
 They secured from the United States Commissioner in 
 Philadelphia the proper warrants for the arrest of the 
 fugitives, and, with the United States Deputy Marshal, 
 proceeded to break into the houses where the negroes, 
 with some of their colored supporters, were concealed. 
 The fugitives said they would die rather than return 
 to slavery, and that if one of them were taken it would 
 be only over the dead bodies of the others. Barricaded 
 in the upper part of the house, the fugitives refused 
 to surrender upon the demand of the officer. Instead, 
 a horn was sounded as a signal to other negroes in 
 the neighborhood to come to the assistance of their 
 friends. /The result was that in a very short time a 
 band of from fifty to one hundred negroes had 
 gathered, armed with guns, clubs, axes, and corn- 
 cutters, and it became obvious that it would be a dan- 
 gerous proceeding for the slave-catchers to insist upon 
 an arrest. Castner Hanway, a Quaker from the 
 neighborhood, and another white man appeared upon 
 the scene, and the officer summoned these men to as- 
 sist in the arrest. They indignantly refused to do so, 
 and Hanway said that " the negroes had a right to 
 defend themselves." Hanway warned Gorsuch that it 
 would be madness to insist upon the arrest, saying, 
 "The sooner you leave the better, if you would pre- 
 vent bloodshed." An angry parley followed, resulting 
 in a fight. Gorsuch was killed, his son was severely 
 wounded, while the others of the capturing party made 
 off as best they could. 1 
 
 This affair caused much excitement throughout the 
 
 1 Rhodes, Hist, of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 222-223. Harris, The 
 Political Conflict in America, pp. 146-150. 
 
124 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 country. In the South, there was exasperation, and 
 the affair was cited as an illustration of the Northern 
 anti-slavery resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act that 
 might be expected. In Pennsylvania, some excused 
 the negro rioters on the plea that a man, guilty of no 
 crime, had a right to defend his liberty, Jwhile others 
 demanded that the " outraged laws of the common- 
 wealth should be vindicated." Hanway was indicted 
 and tried for treason. The trial lasted for fifteen days 
 and from the point of view of the public interest 
 aroused, it was one of the most notable cases in that 
 decade. Stevens was the brain of the defense in this 
 trial, yet for prudential reasons, because of Stevens' 
 well-known anti-slavery sentiments, John M. Read, a 
 very able lawyer and afterward the Chief Justice of the 
 State, became the manager for the defense. Justice 
 Grier, the presiding judge in the United States Court, 
 instructed the jury that the transaction did not rise 
 to the dignity of treason or of levying war, and that 
 there was no evidence of previous conspiracy to re- 
 sist the law. Within ten minutes after the case went 
 to the jury a verdict of " not guilty " was returned. 
 
 There was a respectable body of public opinion in 
 the North opposed to the enforcement of the Fugitive 
 Slave Law, and while the majority would not advise 
 forcible resistance to the act, the Gorsuch case, with 
 others, illustrated the great difficulty of securing its 
 peaceful and successful operation. Stevens was ever 
 ready to use his talents and legal ability to prevent 
 escaping slaves and, above all, any free negroes, from 
 becoming the victims of the act. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ON" THE EVE OF WAR 
 
 AT the expiration of the Thirty-second Congress in 
 March, 1853, Stevens returned to his law practise 
 in Lancaster. His practise extended not only to his 
 own but also to adjacent counties, and he was regarded 
 by his contemporaries, who were the most competent 
 to judge, as " the most accomplished all round lawyer 
 in the state." 
 
 At the opening of the Supreme Court in Pennsyl- 
 vania, in 1853, Stevens gave an admirable expression 
 of appreciation of a worthy judiciary. The occasion 
 was his formal announcement to the court, " in brief 
 and exquisite terms," as Judge Woodward afterward 
 said, of the death of Chief Justice John B. Gibson. 
 Gibson was for years the Nestor of the Pennsylvania 
 bench and one of the great legal luminaries of his 
 time. Stevens spoke of the ability, learning and im- 
 partiality of this noble justice, who in 1838, in times 
 of the highest and bitterest party excitement, was re- 
 appointed as Chief Justice of his State by Governor 
 Ritner. To make the appointment the Governor had 
 to subordinate his personal and party feelings, and 
 Stevens, partisan through and through, had been the 
 head and front of the Governor's party. But Stev- 
 ens had readily recognized the supreme propriety of 
 this appointment. " It taught in significant language," 
 
 125 
 
126 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 said Stevens in announcing the death of Gibson, " that 
 however proper it may be to fill the gubernatorial chair 
 and other executive offices with politicians, none but 
 able, learned and upright jurists are fit to be indued 
 with judicial robes. It was an example which will be 
 creditable and useful to the people and their rulers 
 whenever they shall occupy a like elevated position. 
 Those who believe, as all should believe, that the judi- 
 ciary is the most important department of the govern- 
 ment, and that great, wise and pure judges are the 
 chief bulwark and protection of the lives, liberty, and 
 rights of the people, will deeply and sincerely regret 
 the loss of Judge Gibson." 1 
 
 In this period of his retirement from public life 
 Stevens' anti-slavery zeal was not abated. He was 
 ready to help on in the agitation against the dominance 
 of the country by the slave power. Oliver Johnson, 
 a Peacham boy who knew Stevens' people in Vermont, 
 the coadjutor and biographer of Garrison, wrote to 
 him from the anti-slavery office in New York to 
 invite him to give an anti-slavery lecture in that city 
 in a course opened by Charles Sumner and followed 
 by Joshua R. Giddings, Cassius M. Clay, Henry Ward 
 Beecher, Horace Greeley and R. W. Emerson. He 
 was in distinguished and honorable company, and for 
 his address he was to receive twenty-five dollars and his 
 expenses. Evidently, the anti-slavery cause of those 
 days was promoted without much money reward or the 
 hope of it. 
 
 1 Harris' Pennsylvania State Reports, Vol. XIX, p. 10. An 
 interesting portrait of Gibson in a group of Pennsylvania jus- 
 tices of 1852 may be seen in the Cornell University Law Library. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 127 
 
 The tendency of the Whig party to compromise with 
 slavery had been displeasing to Stevens, and he left 
 public life, after the defeat of Scott, with but little 
 disposition to take part in politics. But the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise by the Kansas-Nebraska Act 
 of 1854, bringing the threat of the extension of slavery 
 to new regions in the West, aroused Stevens, as it 
 did Lincoln and other anti-slavery Whigs in the North, 
 to renewed interest and activity in the political struggles 
 of the time. 
 
 The movement for a new party, committed to the 
 policy of resisting the further spread of slavery while 
 holding in abeyance all previous political differences, 
 was more progressive in the West than in the East. 
 This new Republican party was getting well under way 
 in Wisconsin, AficirrganT-^limors^andr Indkna_i» -the 
 summer and fall of 1854. It was made up of the 
 more pronounced anti-slavery Whigs, the Anti-Ne- 
 braska Democrats, and the former Free-soilers who 
 had already severed their party ties in order to resist 
 the extension of slavery. But even in 1855 the more 
 conservative spirits in the East were still holding back. 
 A mass meeting was held in Lancaster in 1855 for 
 the purpose of organizing the new Republican party in 
 that county. The movement received but little en- 
 couragement, Old-Line Whiggery and Know-Noth- 
 ingism being the controlling factors in political circles 
 that were not Democratic. Fewer than twenty persons 
 attended this initial meeting, 1 but Stevens was one of 
 these. The party was organized, and the next year p-v 
 Stevens was chosen as a delegate to the first Republican 
 
 1 McCall, pp. 93-94- 
 
128 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 National Convention, which met at Philadelphia, June 
 17, 1856. In that convention he earnestly supported 
 Justice McLean in preference to General Fremont as 
 a candidate for the presidency, thus showing his po- 
 litical sense and acumen. He did not anticipate success 
 in the election even with McLean, but with any one 
 else he thought it impossible. Of his impassioned ap- 
 peal to his- fellow-delegates from Pennsylvania, E. B. 
 Washburne said that he had " never heard a man speak 
 with more feeling or in more persuasive accents." * 
 As a member of this new party, pledged to a positive 
 and aggressive stand against slavery extension, Stev- /J 
 ens reentered politics, and w r as again elected to the 
 House of Representatives in 1858. 
 
 Now at the age of sixty-eight, an age when most 
 men are content to retire from the active and onerous 
 burdens of life, Stevens was just entering upon the 
 great work of his life. He was just coming to be an 
 active participant in a Congress that was destined to 
 confront the greatest issues that were ever presented 
 to the American people, the issues of secession, dis- 
 union, and civil war. .''Here was a man who was de- 
 stined more than any other single man to bear the 
 brunt of legislative burdens for the next ten years, and' 
 that, too, in an era of great change and revolution, 
 and of the fiercest combat, in which men put forth their 
 greatest efforts to carry their ends. Was he con- 
 scious of the paralysis of age or the impairment of 
 his energies, calculated to disqualify him for the tur- 
 bulent and boisterous arena of public life in which he 
 was to play so important a part? Speaking at this 
 
 1 Rhodes II, p. 183. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 129 
 
 time upon the death of John Sch warts, an aged col- 
 league from Pennsylvania, he said, " It were perhaps 
 more graceful for those who are conscious that age 
 or infirmity has impaired their mental or physical 
 powers, who find by repeated trials that they can no 
 longer bend the bow of Ulysses, to retire, and lay 
 down the discus which they have not the strength to 
 hurl." * There were but few in the House who could 
 appreciate with Stevens the full force of this sugges- 
 tion. But events were not far distant that were to 
 give him occasion to prove that his vision was un- 
 dimmed and his natural force unabated. 
 
 It is not likely that a man at such an age, when rest 
 and peace are a man's chiefest desire, would care to 
 endure such strife and labor as were destined to fall 
 to the lot of Stevens unless he were nerved to it by 
 sincere purposes and convictions, and by the desire to 
 serve what he considered a great and noble cause. 
 
 When Stevens came to Washington to take his seat 
 in the House in December, 1859, he encountered a 
 situation very similar to that which he had faced ten 
 years before. Again the House was unable to or- 
 ganize and elect a Speaker and for eight weeks there 
 were strife, wrangling, and heated controversy. The 
 party situation was even more complicated than that of 
 ten years before and the party and sectional antago- 
 nism was more bitter. There were four parties in the 
 House. First, there were Republicans, with a plurality 
 of the members, about one hundred and nine in all, 
 with a few others of Republican leanings. Second in 
 numbers, came the Democrats, whose leaders and the 
 1 June 2i, i860, Globe, p. 3223. 
 
1 3 o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 bulk of whose House members were mostly from the 
 South, mustering altogether about ninety votes. 
 Third, the " South Americans," or the " Southern 
 Opposition," made up the next group. These were 
 former " Know-Nothings " and Whigs who were op- 
 posed to the Buchanan administration. There were 
 from twenty-three to twenty-six of these. Lastly, 
 there were the Anti-Lecompton Democrats from the 
 North, — ten or twelve men who were followers of 
 Douglas in opposing the Buchanan administration in 
 its policy of forcing the Lecompton pro-slavery consti- 
 tution on Kansas. These refused to be bound by the 
 caucus action of the Democratic party. They may 
 properly be called Democratic " insurgents " of the 
 time. Prominent among these were Hickman, of 
 Pennsylvania, and Horace F. Clark, of New York, 
 who, like most of their Anti-Lecompton colleagues, 
 had been elected by the aid of Republican votes. The 
 great body of the Douglas Democrats in the North 
 and West like George H. Pendleton and Samuel S. 
 Cox, of Ohio, John A. McClernand, of Illinois, and 
 Niblack and Holman, of Indiana, supported the caucus 
 nominee of the Democratic party. 
 
 On the first day of the session, Mr. Bocock, of Vir- 
 ginia, was put forward as the Democratic nominee for 
 Speaker. Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, nominated John Sher- 
 man, of that state, while Thaddeus Stevens named 
 Galusha A. Crow, of Pennsylvania. Thus, at first, 
 two Republican candidates were put forward, while 
 the minor parties also had their candidates. The bal- 
 lot showed no choice, whereupon Mr. Clark, of Mis- 
 souri, offered a resolution to the effect that, whereas 
 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 131 
 
 certain members of the House now in nomination for 
 the speakership had endorsed a certain book called 
 The Impending Crisis of the South by one Hinton 
 R. Helper, whose " doctrines are insurrectionary and 
 hostile to the domestic peace and tranquillity of the 
 country," therefore resolved that no member who had 
 endorsed this book was " fit to be Speaker of the 
 House." 
 
 On the following day, Clark read the circular letter 
 recommending Helper's book, with the names of more 
 than sixty Republicans who had signed the letter, 
 among them being Sherman and Crow, the Republican 
 candidates for Speaker. He inserted in the record, 
 also, long extracts from the objectionable book, con- 
 taining what he regarded as revolutionary appeals to 
 Southern non-slaveholders, and setting forth a program 
 for them to follow. This program, as announced by 
 Helper, recommended independent political action; no 
 more voting for slaveholders ; no fellowship with them 
 in politics, religion, or society; no patronage to pro- 
 slavery merchants, lawyers, physicians, hotels, or news- 
 papers ; in short, a union of non-slaveholders in a de- 
 termined class war to the bitter end on the slaveholders 
 and their system. In a speech of considerable length 
 Clark sought to show that the election to the speaker- 
 ship of a man who had recommended such a book 
 would be but the precursor of disunion. If such senti- 
 ments were to be endorsed and the endorser elevated 
 to power, how, he asked, could man hope to see the 
 Union continue? 
 
 Mr. Gilmer, of North Carolina, a former Whig, now 
 a " South American," moved a substitute for the Clark 
 
132 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 resolution. This recited the facts that a great com- 
 promise had been brought about in 1850; that leading 
 members of Congress had recommended this com- 
 promise as a " finality " and that no one should be voted 
 for for President, Vice-President, Senator, Representa- 
 tive or state officer, who would seek to unsettle that 
 agreement; that both political parties had endorsed 
 that compromise ; and therefore let it be resolved, that 
 " fully endorsing these national sentiments, it is the 
 duty of every good citizen of this Union to resist all 
 attempts at renewing in Congress or out of it the 
 slavery agitation, under whatever shape or color the 
 attempt may be made." 
 
 Later, Gilmer modified this so as to assert that no 
 member should be elected Speaker whose political 
 opinions were not known to conform to these senti- 
 ments. 
 
 In the guise of these resolutions offered by " mod- 
 erate " men from Slave States, men who professed 
 greatly to deplore " sectionalism " and " ultraism," the 
 negro was thrust into the deliberations of the Thirty- 
 sixth Congress in the very first days of its session. 
 For eight weeks, while the House was unable to elect a 
 Speaker, Congress became an arena for controversy 
 and debate about slavery, abolitionism, and disunion. 
 The speaking was indulged in chiefly by the South- 
 ern Democrats who sought to arouse sentiment against 
 the " slavery agitation " of the Republican party, and 
 who were anxious to unite all parties in opposition to 
 prevent the election of a Republican Speaker. On the 
 first day of the session, before the flow of oratory be- 
 gan, Stevens raised the point of order that there were 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 133 
 
 but two things in order, — namely, to ballot for Speaker 
 or to adjourn. But recent events, including John 
 Brown's raid and the publication of Helper's book, and 
 the tense political situation of the country, made it im- 
 possible to restrain members from entering upon a 
 heated party debate. Helper, John Brown, Seward's 
 " irrepressible conflict " speech, were all made the texts 
 of many speeches, delivered for the purpose of excoria- 
 ting the " Black Republicans " and showing how noth- 
 ing but disaster and disunion could come from 
 elevating a representative of that party to the speaker- 
 ship, especially if he be a " Black Republican" who 
 had endorsed the infamous Helper. The Southern- 
 ers wished a vote directly condemning as unfit for 
 Speaker any member who had endorsed " incendiary 
 sentiments calculated to stir up servile insurrection." 
 They did not fancy Gilmer's substitute, which was 
 calculated to divert the House from that expression. 
 Millson, of Virginia, speaking for the offended honor 
 and interests of the South, assumed that the Republi- 
 cans should be coming forward with apologies and dis- 
 claimers on account of Helper and the John Brown 
 raid. He spoke with much heat, saying that the publi- 
 cation and distribution of inflammatory and seditious 
 writings, tending to incite the negro population of the 
 Southern States to insurrection, involved very grave 
 responsibilities, and that " one who had consciously, 
 deliberately, and of purpose, lent his name and in- 
 fluence to the propagation of such writings is not only 
 not fit to be Speaker but is not fit to live." x 
 
 Mr. Sherman who had signed the Helper circular, 
 1 Globe, Dec. 6, 1859, p. 21. 
 
 
134 THE LIFE OF. THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 and who was now made the target of these impas- 
 sioned attacks, asserted that he had not read Helper's 
 book ; and having been called upon as " the abolition 
 candidate for Speaker " to say whether he was opposed 
 to any interference with the subject of slavery, inside 
 or outside of Congress, Sherman asserted that he was 
 " opposed to any interference whatever by the people of 
 the Free States with the relations of master and slave in 
 the Slave States." Other Republicans disavowed and 
 condemned anything like an attempt on the part of the 
 North to interfere with the relation between master 
 and slave in the Slave States, or any effort to stir up 
 insurrection and bloodshed in the South. 
 
 But the public mind of the South was excited and 
 restless and many Southern members believed that the 
 North was in sympathy with, if not responsible for, 
 John Brown's raid, and that the new Republican party 
 had entered upon an " irrepressible conflict " to ex- 
 tirpate slavery in the South, peaceably, if they could, 
 but forcibly, if they must. 
 
 These disclaimers, therefore, did not pacify Southern 
 members. Keitt, of South Carolina, lashing the Re- 
 publicans and charging upon them again responsibility 
 for Helper and Brown, said that the South asked noth- 
 ing but its rights, " but as God is my judge, I would 
 shatter this republic from turret to foundation stone 
 before I would take one tittle less," — at which sally 
 there was enthusiastic applause in the gallery. 
 
 After Keitt's fiery speech, Stevens rose to urge his 
 point of order that the House should either vote for 
 Speaker or adjourn; but before taking his seat, he 
 begged to say that he did not blame the gentlemen 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 135 
 
 from the South for the language of intimidation, for 
 using " this threat of rending God's creation from the 
 turret to the foundation. [Laughter.] All this is 
 right in them, for they have tried it fifty times and 
 fifty times they have found weak and recreant tremblers 
 in the North who have been affected by it and who 
 have acted from those intimidations. [Applause.] 
 They are right, and I give them credit for repeating 
 with grave countenances that which they have so often 
 found to be effective when operating upon timid men." 
 
 This was very provoking, but instead of leading to 
 a vote and allaying the disposition to speak, it tended 
 further to arouse Southern ire and threatening speech, 
 as it was, perhaps, intended to do. Crawford, from 
 Georgia, demanded to know whether the Black Repub- 
 lican party intended to try to deceive the South by pre- 
 tended friendship and by Union meetings in the North, 
 and thenjwhen apprehension was removed, to renew 
 their warfare on slavery. If the Northern people 
 were for abolition of slavery, the South wanted no 
 flinching, no lowering of the flag for the sake of policy ; 
 if they would but sail under their true colors, it might 
 be seen whether the South were in earnest or not. 
 " All we want is a square and manly avowal of your 
 sentiments that our people may not be deceived. Do 
 this and my life upon it, you will see no cowardly 
 shrinking upon our part from the maintenance of every 
 constitutional right to which our people are entitled." 
 
 " That is right," said Stevens, " that is the way they 
 frightened us before. Now you see exactly what it is, 
 and what it has always been." 
 
 During this colloquy, members from the benches 
 
136 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 crowded into the area, the Clerk could not maintain 
 order, and there was for a time, great confusion and 
 excitement in the hall. When order was restored, 
 Stevens remarked, " This was but a momentary breeze, 
 sir, nothing else," and insisting that no business be 
 considered till the House was organized, he moved to 
 adjourn. 1 
 
 Of this incident, Morris, of Illinois, a Douglas Dem- 
 ocrat, said the next day in the House, " A few more 
 such scenes and we will hear the crack of the revolver 
 and see the gleam of the brandished blade." He ap- 
 pealed for a more conservative tone and temper. But 
 Lucius O. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, later one of the 
 most honored of Southern leaders, followed Morris in 
 a fiery and reckless speech. He referred to the speech 
 in which Millson had said that an endorser of Helper 
 " was not fit to live " as an " able and solemn appeal," 
 and he arraigned the Republicans for their " contemptu- 
 ous silence," their " guffaws, and their uncourteous and 
 indecent laughter." He charged that the Republicans 
 were not " guiltless of the blood of John Brown and 
 his co-conspirators and the innocent men, the victims 
 of his ruthless vengeance," since Brown " had but 
 crystallized the Republican idea into action." He 
 charged Senator Seward with responsibility for the 
 Brown raid, " the object of which was to place the 
 South, a bleeding mangled victim, at the foot of North- 
 ern power." He asserted that the " fathers had put 
 the negro into the Constitution as an institution of 
 property, of society, and of government," and when 
 that Constitution is violated " I war upon your gov- 
 
 iDec. 6, 1859, Globe. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 137 
 
 eminent; I am against it. I raise the banner of seces- 
 sion, and I will fight under it as long as the blood flows 
 and ebbs in my veins." * 
 
 In this speech, Lamar referred to Stevens as fol- 
 lows : " I almost tremble for the South when I rec- 
 ollect that the opposing forces will be led by the dis- 
 tinguished hero of the Buckshot War. f [Great 
 laughter.] However gloomy the catastropne, his 
 saltatory accomplishments will enable him to leap out 
 of any difficulties in which he may be involved. I 
 understand that he gave in a conspicuous way a prac- 
 tical illustration of peaceable secession." This refers 
 to Stevens' escape by leaping through a state-house 
 window at Harrisburg during the Buckshot War. 
 The day was soon to come when Stevens' leadership 
 was not a matter for joke and satire to the South, — 
 in the eventful years following the appeal to arms. 
 
 Two days later, Tom Corwin, of Ohio, applied his 
 wit and humor in a way calculated to bring Southern 
 wrath into ridicule by saying that if the Union can be 
 rent that way from turret to foundation, because a man 
 from North Carolina had written a book advising a 
 boycott which some members had carelessly endorsed, 
 " because one man advised another not to eat his dinner 
 at a particular tavern, — if it can be done that way, 
 we had better go to work and pull it down ourselves 
 and go home." 2 
 
 On one of the many ballots for Speaker, some of 
 the Republicans, Stevens among them, voted for Gil- 
 mer, the " South American " from North Carolina, 
 
 1 Globe, Dec. 7, 1859, pp. 44-45. 
 a Globe, Dec. 8, 1859. 
 
138 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 who on that ballot received thirty-six votes. If the 
 Democrats had then transferred their votes to him, 
 Gilmer could have been elected. Gilmer was an Old- 
 Line Whig which some one defined as a " fossil Whig 
 varnished over with Americanism." His Republican 
 votes, however, tainted his candidacy; Southern Dem- 
 ocrats refused pointblank to accept him because Re- 
 publicans had voted for him, although Gilmer was 
 recognized as a " national " man and was reputed to 
 be the largest slaveholder in Congress. 
 
 While strenuous efforts were being made to com- 
 bine all the opposition to the Republicans upon Gil- 
 mer, Stevens excited some amusement by saying that 
 in order to avoid misapprehension he would not vote 
 for Mr. Gilmer any more, which may have been inter- 
 preted as an intimation that he would not have voted 
 for him before if he had thought that there was any 
 danger of his election. Later, Stevens solemnly rose to 
 explain why, " departing from the general rule of 
 obeying party decrees," he had voted for Gilmer. 
 " This," he said solemnly, " requires some explanation 
 as I see from a paper I send to the Clerk's desk to 
 be read." " The paper is printed in German," said 
 the Clerk, amid laughter, " and the Clerk pan not read 
 it." " Then," said Stevens, provoking more laughter, 
 " I postpone my remarks, till the Clerk can read it." 
 
 So Stevens has very provokingly left posterity in 
 doubt as to his motives in voting for a " South 
 American." Most likely it was because he was con- 
 vinced of the impossibility of Gilmer's election, though 
 it is not impossible that it was because, since Gilmer 
 had been an Old-Line Whig, it was known that he was 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 139 
 
 sound on the tariff question. The iron interests of 
 Pennsylvania and the other protected industries of that 
 state, were as dear to the hearts of the Pennsylvania 
 Republican delegation as was the anti-slavery cause, as 
 their conduct in this speakership contest goes to show. 1 
 With the Republicans the Southern Democrats 
 would hold no terms, no parley. They might seek a 
 combination with the Americans but before a man 
 identified with the doctrines of the Helper book should 
 be Speaker, they " would hold the House up till it 
 expired, or till the people should rise in their wrath and 
 hurl these Black Republicans from the seats of 
 power." 2 Clark, of Missouri, asserted that there 
 should be no vote to elect by a plurality until the House 
 had expressed its opinion by a direct vote as to whe- 
 ther an endorser of Helper was fit to be Speaker, — 
 and he again denounced Helper's pamphlet as recom- 
 mending " civil war, bloodshed, rapine, and every crime 
 disgraceful to our species against the Southern peo- 
 ple; whose property is sought to be taken and their 
 firesides invaded " — sentiments " tending to ostracize 
 and put in jeopardy the lives, liberty and safety of 
 half of my constituents." 3 Avery, of Tennessee, ex- 
 pressed the hope that nothing would be done to aid any 
 one to shrink from the responsibility of a direct vote 
 upon the Clark resolution, or to divert in any way " the 
 
 1 See the withdrawal of votes by Morris, of Pennsylvania, and 
 others from N. H. Smith, of North Carolina, after Smith had 
 enough votes to elect and before the vote was announced, be- 
 cause acceptable pledges could not be obtained from Smith as to 
 the composition of the Ways and Means Committee of the 
 House. 
 
 2 Garnett, of Virginia, Jan. 7, 1860, Globe, p. 370. 
 
 3 Globe, Jan. 7, i860. 
 
i 4 o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 just lightning that was about to fall upon the guilty 
 heads of those who signed the Helper book." 
 
 It was in the midst of such per fervid speeches * 
 that Mr. Anderson, of Missouri, claiming independence 
 of all parties, made a " patriotic appeal " to members 
 of all the parties in opposition to the Republicans to get 
 together and organize the House. The members of the 
 Democratic party, the American party, and the Anti- 
 Lecompton party, he said, should meet together, ap- 
 point a committee of three from each, and see if they 
 could not agree upon some man upon whom they might 
 unite as the only possible means of defeating the Re- 
 publicans. 
 
 Stevens expressed appreciation of the compromising 
 proposal of the eloquent gentleman from Missouri. 
 He, too, was anxious to do everything possible to or- 
 ganize the House. Stevens regretted that the gentle- 
 men's sweet-tempered proposition did not extend to 
 his side of the House. " The gentleman," he said, 
 P has realized what I thought was a myth before; that 
 is, he has proposed — and I hope they may have a 
 good time of it — he has proposed that happy family 
 described in the Prairie, where the prairie wolf, the 
 owl and the rattlesnake live in one hole. [Great 
 laughter.] When they get together in this hole to- 
 night I trust that there will be no biting." To show his 
 own earnest desire to organize, he moved an immediate 
 vive voce vote for Speaker, which was objected to on 
 the Democratic side. Most of the Southern speakers 
 denounced the Republican party and its doctrines as a 
 menace to the Union. John H. Reagan, of Texas, in 
 
 1 January 3, i860. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 141 
 
 a notable speech denounced these doctrines as " revolu- 
 tionary in character, destructive of the foundations of 
 the Republic, calculated to promote sectional hostilities 
 and to subvert the Constitution." He charged that the 
 Republicans addressed themselves to sectional interests 
 and sectional motives, appealing to reckless fanatics 
 and urging aggression upon the rights of the South. 
 He attempted to identify the Republicans with the 
 extreme abolitionists like Garrison and Phillips who 
 had denounced the Constitution as " a league with hell 
 and a covenant with death." " That party has en- 
 dorsed a book," said Reagan, " as vile, as incendiary, 
 as calumnious, as slanderous, as anything that ever 
 came from Phillips or Garrison. One portion of these 
 agitators call themselves Republicans, another aboli- 
 tionists, but they all have the same aim, — keeping up 
 anti-slavery agitation and excitement and aggression 
 on the South." * 
 
 During the long weeks of controversy, Stevens was 
 not disposed to take much part. Once in a while, as 
 we have seen, he briefly interjected a little ginger into 
 the discussion in the form of wit and satire. What 
 he said in his brief sallies tended to add fuel to the 
 flames more than to pour oil on the troubled waters. 
 But on January 25th, toward the close of the contest, 
 he spoke more at length, partly to protest once more 
 against Northern Representatives being frightened by 
 Southern menaces, and partly to set forth the principles 
 of the Republican party, which, as he felt, had been 
 very greatly misrepresented by Southern speakers. 
 He proceeded to analyze the party situation, as a means 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 4, i860. 
 
142 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of explaining why, in his judgment, the House had not 
 been organized. 
 
 First, he referred to the Democrats, " which means, 
 of course, the Democrats of the South, — the others 
 are mere parasites." At this, Vallandigham, of Ohio, 
 interrupted and sought to prevent Stevens from speak- 
 ing, but consented to waive his objection " if offensive 
 language were not employed," whereupon Stevens, re- 
 gretting that he could not know beforehand what Mr. 
 Vallandigham would approve, substituted satellite for 
 parasite, since the Northern Democrats " revolved, of 
 course, around the larger body, as according to the 
 laws of gravitation they must, and that is not offen- 
 sive." [Laughter.] The administration Democratic 
 party, according to Stevens' view, had no claim upon 
 the twenty or more " South Americans," all of whom 
 had been elected in direct conflict with the regular 
 Democrats. With one exception, Republican princi- 
 ples were almost homogeneous with those of the 
 Democratic insurgents; yet Stevens found no reason 
 to reproach them for not voting for a Republican for 
 Speaker. 
 
 He referred to the eight Anti-Lecompton men, not 
 as a faction, as they had been called by Democratic 
 speakers, but as " respectable gentlemen who would 
 not agree to thrust slavery on Kansas against her 
 will," and they, too, were all elected in hostility to the 
 Democratic administration. What mercenary motives 
 could induce them now to vote with the administration 
 party? It would be a reproach to them. Many Re- 
 publicans had helped to elect them to Congress, yet 
 Stevens would not reproach them because they had not 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 143 
 
 seen fit to vote for a Republican for Speaker. These 
 minor parties, with the Republicans, made up one hun- 
 dred and fifty members of the House. The Democrats 
 numbered ninety. Now, why has the House not been 
 organized ? Stevens answered this question that had 
 confronted the House for weeks, as follows: 
 
 " I have learned somewhere in the old books that 
 it is lawful to learn wisdom from the enemy; but I 
 never heard any wise man suggest that it was wisdom 
 to accept their counsel. The distinguished gentleman 
 who occupies the executive at this moment is a poli- 
 tician as well as a statesman. He has long believed 
 and, I doubt not, still believes, that the true way to 
 aid the increase of the Democratic party North, is for 
 the South to frighten them into the belief that if they 
 venture to elect a Northern man with Northern prin- 
 ciples, this Union is to be dissolved and all their in- 
 dustrial and pecuniary interests sacrificed. I have just 
 as firm a belief as that I live that this whole program 
 was drawn up at the White House and is carried out 
 in pursuance of the idea that the old women and the 
 men in petticoats and the misers at the North are to 
 be frightened." 
 y Stevens then asserted that when the Democratic 
 party in the North had been sufficiently strengthened 
 " by this cry of ' disunion ' and the epithets of ' traitor ' 
 that have been launched against this side," then the 
 administration would see to it that enough Democrats 
 would be ready to yield to enable the House to be 
 organized and proceed to provide for the wants of the 
 country. In the face of the threat that the House 
 should be disorganized till 1861, and discord should 
 
i 4 4 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 reign perpetual unless the Republicans yielded, he as- 
 serted that he, for one, would stand by his cause and 
 its worthy standard bearer " if the House were not 
 organized till the crack of doom." He continued : 
 
 " For many weeks past we have listened in silence 
 to what, I think, may fairly be called the rantings of 
 the South, filled with groundless accusations against 
 the North, and threats of vengeance and dissolution of 
 the Union. Sir, we listened without reply and without 
 fear; for whatever effect they might once have had, 
 some of us always, and all of us now, have come to 
 regard them as idle menaces, as barren thunders." 
 
 Stevens then proceeded to give " an answer, plain, 
 temperate, and true," to all these allegations, by stating 
 in the briefest possible manner what he considered 
 the principles of the Republican party. It is doubtful 
 whether there can be found in print a clearer and better 
 exposition of the political principles of the Republican 
 party on the eve of the Civil War. 
 
 " I would," said Stevens, " have no man vote under 
 false pretenses. In my judgment, Republicanism is 
 founded in love of universal liberty, and in hostility 
 to slavery and oppression throughout the world. Un- 
 doubtedly, had we the legal right and the physical 
 power, we would abolish human servitude and over- 
 throw despotism in every land that the sun visits in 
 its diurnal course. But we claim no right to interfere 
 with the institutions of foreign nations, or with the 
 institutions of the sister states of this republic. We 
 would wish that Russia would liberate her serfs, Aus- 
 tria her oppressed subjects, Turkey her minions, and 
 the South her slaves. But the law of nations gives us 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 145 
 
 no authority to redress foreign grievances, and the 
 Constitution of the United States gives us no power 
 to interfere with the institutions of our sister states. 
 And we do deny now, as we have ever denied, that 
 there is any desire or intention, on the part of the 
 Republican party, to interfere with those institutions. 
 It is a stern, an inflexible, a well-recognized principle 
 of the Republican party, that every law must be obeyed 
 till it is either repealed or becomes so intolerable as 
 to justify rebellion. 
 
 " But, sir, while we claim no power to interfere be- 
 tween foreign sovereignties and their subjects, there is 
 no law to prevent our sympathizing with the oppressed 
 of Italy, of Turkey, or with the crushed souls of Amer- 
 ica; and, as we shall ever vindicate this liberty of 
 speech, no earthly power shall prevent our giving utter- 
 ance to such sentiments and denouncing such wrongs 
 whenever we deem it proper. Sir, while we claim no 
 power to interfere with any institution in the states, yet 
 where the law of no state operates, and where the re- 
 sponsibility of government is thrown on Congress, we 
 do claim the power to regulate and the right to abolish 
 slavery. No other power on earth exists that can do 
 it, for there is no other legislative body; and it would 
 be an intolerable shame and reproach upon this re- 
 public if there was any spot within its wide expanse 
 where no such power existed. 
 
 " Now, sir, the territories, the District of Columbia, 
 the navy yards, and the arsenals have no legislative 
 bodies but Congress; and it is our purpose to provide 
 in the exercise of our legislative duty for preventing 
 the extension of slavery into free soil under the juris- 
 
146 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 diction of the general government, or any extension 
 of slavery upon this continent. I do not in this remark 
 desire to shun the question. I do not found this re- 
 mark of exclusion by climate, or latitude, or soil. My 
 hostility to slavery is of a higher character, I trust, 
 than that. If it was not, there would be no kind of 
 necessity for the existence of the Republican party at 
 all. If I believed that slavery was right in itself, and 
 it might be permitted in places where certain labor 
 was or was not useful, I can not see what principle 
 the Republican party could stand upon. 1 The whole 
 ground is yielded, and this Republican party is a 
 nuisance, and this agitation is a crime, in my judg- 
 ment. 
 
 " Now, sir, we agree with Clay and Webster and the 
 other fathers of our earlier day, that while we have 
 the power to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia, the time for its exercise is a question of expediency 
 about which, I have no doubt, many men on this side 
 of the House differ. I believe that most of us agree | 
 that that time has not yet arrived, nor do I see the 
 period, for the present, when it will; but when it can 
 be safely and justly abolished it is the purpose of 
 Republicanism to do so. 
 
 " Now, sir, these are the principles of the Republican 
 party. Let those who approve them aid in their prop- 
 agation, — not here, for we do not propose to propa- 
 gate them here, but elsewhere. Let those who 
 condemn these principles oppose us. For ourselves, 
 
 1 Corwin had said that in climes where slave labor was the 
 only profitable kind that could be employed, he would admit 
 the slave system. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 147 
 
 we have resolved to stand by them until they shall 
 become triumphant; and we cheerfully submit them to 
 the judgment of our fellow countrymen, to the civil- 
 ized nations of the earth, and to posterity." * 
 
 Mr. Clemens, of Virginia, commended the " frank- 
 ness and manliness " of this utterance, but he wished 
 to know more specifically as to the attitude of Stevens 
 and his party on the Fugitive Slave Law. In reply, 
 Stevens recalled his own vote in opposition to that 
 law, a law which he regarded as unconstitutional ; but 
 he said that he had no objection to " a fair law giving 
 to the South the opportunity and the means of reclaim- 
 ing their slaves," and that so long as the court decision 
 holds with reference to the law of 185.0, he would not 
 resist its execution. Clemens then recalled a previous 
 utterance attributed to Stevens in which the latter had 
 announced it as the policy of his party " to encircle 
 the Slave States of this Union with Free States as a 
 cordon of fire, and that then slavery like a scorpion, 
 would sting itself to death." Clemens asked if Stevens 
 had ever said such a thing. " If I did," said Stevens, 
 " it is in the books," though it might be that the gentle- 
 man from Virginia was thinking of a remark of a 
 New York friend who had said that he would sur- 
 round the Free States " with an atmosphere of freedom 
 and that they should breathe it or die_ 1 ^_,-Clemens in- 
 sisted that it was the genius^'Ci" Stevens that had 
 conceived the remark, and he wished to know if it 
 should ever come to pass that the Republican policy, 
 as Stevens had proclaimed it, should prevail, and 
 slavery were abolished in the District of Columbia, 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 25, i860, p. 586. 
 
i 4 8 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 in the territories, arsenals, dockyards and forts; and 
 if, in addition, that party should have the power and 
 patronage of the presidency, and the prestige of the 
 army and navy, — whether the condition described in 
 the remark would not then be realized and slavery 
 would be forced to die by its own act, like the pro- 
 verbial scorpion that was forced to sting itself to 
 death ? 
 
 " I do not know, not being a prophet," retorted 
 Stevens, amid laughter. 
 
 Florence, of Penny si vania, arose to submit a question 
 of figures, " because," he said, " I know my colleague 
 was once a schoolmaster." " Yes," said Stevens, " I 
 am proud to say that I have taught several hopeful 
 boys. I wish I had taught you, too." [Laughter.] 
 Florence begged to know how ninety men could or- 
 ganize the House when one hundred and nineteen votes 
 were required to elect the Speaker, and he referred to 
 the intelligence that Stevens had pretended to have 
 concerning the opinions and purposes of the White 
 House. Stevens replied by saying that if a few Dem- 
 ocrats would " step out some day during the voting, — 
 get a little sick, or go out to get something to eat, or 
 anything, — we could then elect a Speaker " ; and " as 
 to my intelligence of White House affairs the gentle- 
 man must remember that the President, is one of my 
 constituents." [Renewed laughter.] To this, Flor- 
 ence very aptly replied that " if the gentleman repre- 
 sents his other constituents no better than he does the 
 President, there is little hope for him." 
 
 On the first of February, the long contest came to a 
 close by the election of Mr. Pennington, of New Jersey, 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 149 
 
 whom the Republicans substituted for Mr. Sherman as 
 their candidate. Mr. Pennington was, like Mr. Cor- 
 win, a conservative Old-Line Whig, who did not think 
 slavery was morally wrong in itself, who as Governor 
 of New Jersey had recommended the enforcement of 
 the Fugitive Slave Law, and who, as Keitt, of South 
 Carolina, said, was " taken up by the Republicans to 
 lure over floating votes." 
 
 After the organization of the House, Stevens be- 
 came a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, 
 with Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, as chairman. The rest 
 of the session as far as Stevens' activities were con- 
 cerned, was chiefly taken up with his work on tariff 
 and appropriation bills, and with some discussion of 
 contested elections. 
 
 On the matter of contested election, he recognized the 
 impossibility of the members of the House wading 
 through the testimony and passing judicially upon a 
 case. Therefore, members could act only on the find- 
 ings of the committee appointed to investigate. The 
 finding of a partisan House was apt to be partisan. 
 He considered it a great misfortune that Congress had 
 not adopted the system of Great Britain, that of having 
 a judicial determination of such cases, permitting a 
 decision to be final when made by a judicial committee 
 sworn to try the case on the law and the evidence. 
 This had worked well in Great Britain and in some 
 of the states and would tend to avoid partisan un- 
 fairness. 1 
 
 1 June 8, i860, Globe, p. 2766. This enlightened and liberal 
 view does not harmonize with Stevens' later partisan disposition 
 in contested election cases. It is reported that upon coming 
 into the House one day he found a vote in progress upon an 
 
150 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 It is not necessary to go at any length into Stevens' 
 repeated pleas for a protective tariff. Nothing new 
 could be offered upon the subject, but the old argu- 
 ments were repeatedly brought to the attention of the 
 House and the country with great effect by Stevens. 
 He had great interest in the protective cause and deep 
 convictions as to its wisdom. He held that the ar- 
 gument for free trade was always metaphysical, that 
 for protection always practical. He insisted that no 
 nation would ever reduce free trade to practise until all 
 nations were of one size, one wealth, one skill, one 
 capital. England had still continued protection after 
 her corn laws were repealed, because that repeal gave 
 her cheaper food ; and cheaper food was the only advan- 
 tage that American manufacturers had ever had over 
 the English. So, also, the English export duty on coal 
 had a protective effect, because it forced her neighbors, 
 like France, to pay more for fuel and to that extent 
 gave the English manufacturer the advantage. Ste- 
 vens believed it to be the true policy of every nation 
 to take care of her own people in preference to the 
 people of foreign countries; to foster and promote 
 domestic industries and thus give employment to labor. 
 His motive was to protect the labor of the country 
 and let the idle have a better opportunity to work. 
 He would not mince matters by declaring himself for 
 a tariff " with incidental protection." The bill before 
 the House was nothing more, and Stevens asserted 
 that if it were not for the clause repealing the ware- 
 election case, and when he inquired as to the merits of the con- 
 testants he was told that they were both " damned rascals." 
 "Well," said Stevens, "which is our damned rascal?" Ac- 
 cordingly, he voted for his own party rascal. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 151 
 
 house system, he would not support it. 1 " This is not 
 a tariff for protection," said Stevens, " such as America 
 ought to have; but it is the best we can get in these 
 degenerate days." It was his desire to pay laborers at 
 home instead of sending the money across the water to 
 pay the laborers and keep up the workshops of Europe. 
 
 The House passed the revised tariff bill which was 
 slightly more favorable to protection than the tariff 
 then in operation, but by the action of the Senate, the 
 bill, which was to be known as the Morrill Act, went 
 over to the next session. 
 
 Before the Thirty-sixth Congress came together for 
 its second session, the country had passed through one 
 of the most exciting presidential contests in its history. 
 Stevens, as one of the delegates from Pennsylvania, 
 attended the National Convention in Chicago in which 
 Lincoln was nominated. As in 1856, he again pre- 
 ferred Judge McLean as the candidate of his party, 
 though his state delegation supported Simon Cameron, 
 whom he disliked. The Pennsylvania delegation 
 finally came to the support of Lincoln in preference to 
 Seward, and Stevens voted for Lincoln on the decisive 
 ballot. Now that the Black Republican party had 
 succeeded in electing a President, it remained to be seen 
 what effect that event would have on the continuance 
 of the Union. 
 
 1 The warehouse system provided that foreigners, when there 
 was slack demand for the supply of goods which they had at 
 home, might send their goods here and put them in warehouses 
 where they could lie three years without paying duty. If they 
 kept them there till the market rose, then they could have the 
 articles in market before Americans could be ready to com- 
 pete. 
 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DISUNION, SECESSION, AND NO COMPROMISE 
 
 THE issue upon which Mr. Lincoln was elected to 
 the presidency in i860 was the restriction of slav- 
 ery by national authority to the area of the Slave States. 
 As Lincoln himself had expressed it, the question was 
 who shall control the national government? Shall it 
 be controlled by those who believe that slavery is right 
 and ought to be extended, or by those who believe that 
 slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted? In the 
 minds of some men there were other interests ; there 
 may have been side issues, eddies, and counter currents, 
 but in this statement of Lincoln is found the gist of 
 the great controversy. 
 
 But upon that simple issue thus so clearly stated, 
 the people of the Free States were by no means united. 
 To thousands of Northern people who loved the Union 
 of their fathers, the anti-slavery agitation had been 
 only a hateful source of discord and disunion. Its 
 very existence endangered the Union. The Pennsyl- 
 vanian who was then President of the United States 
 felt, as he said in his last annual message, that the 
 continued interference of the Northern people with the 
 question of slavery had at last produced its natural 
 results in disunion. Buchanan saw no blame for the 
 then sad condition of the country except in the " fell 
 spirit of fanaticism " as represented in the anti-slavery 
 
 152 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 153 
 
 agitation. Hundreds of thousands of voters in the 
 North felt that the Union and the anti-slavery cause 
 could not abide together. They looked upon the Re- 
 publican party as a sectional party that was disturbing 
 the peace of the country and threatening the Union. 
 They rather sympathized with the Southerners whom 
 they considered to be attacked unfairly, while the 
 Southerners themselves, unable to distinguish between 
 abolitionists and anti-slavery men, looked upon Lincoln 
 and his party as hostile to their section, and gave him 
 no votes worth speaking of. Consequently as the re- 
 sult of the voting in i860, the Electoral College pre- 
 sented the country with a President who was the choice 
 of only a popular minority in the states. A million 
 more votes had been cast against Lincoln than had 
 been cast for him. Even in the states of the solid 
 North, whose electoral votes he carried, Lincoln's pop- 
 ular majority against the combined opposition was 
 very meager. 1 There were almost as many against him 
 as were for him. And many thousands of those who 
 had voted for Lincoln did so in the feeling that the 
 cry of disunion was but an idle threat, a cry of 
 "Wolf!" to frighten the country, a false alarm to 
 deter men from voting their convictions on a national 
 policy as to slavery. 
 
 When, therefore, as the immediate result of Lin- 
 coln's election, the secession of the cotton states went 
 on apace and the Southern Confederacy was formed, 
 and it was seen that the Union was dissolving and the 
 clouds of war were lowering over the land, many of 
 the men who had voted for Lincoln were affrighted at 
 
 1 About 230,000 in all the Northern States. 
 
154 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 what they had done. They would gladly have recalled 
 their ballots and would have made such concessions to 
 the South and given consent to such adjustment and 
 compromises as would have guaranteed immunity and 
 perpetuity to slavery. Whatever concession was found 
 necessary to save the Union, that concession should 
 be made, and the disunion seceders themselves were to 
 be the judges of the necessity. 
 
 One of the most astounding revelations in our history 
 is the wo ful lack of national spirit and purpose, the 
 state of quaking panic and fear, which seemed to 
 prostrate the country before the determined and mili- 
 tant spirit of the South in the secession movement. 
 Our thirteenth amendment, decreeing that there should 
 be no slavery within the United States nor in any place 
 subject to their jurisdiction, was hailed upon its pas- 
 sage as " an immortal and sublime event." But the 
 thirteenth amendment assented to in 1861, proposed as 
 a compromising means of saving the Union and passed 
 by two-thirds of the members of the national Congress, 
 was an event of quite a different hue. It proposed 
 to make slavery perpetual, beyond the power of the 
 nation to repeal or to recall. The feeling seemed to 
 be very general with the country that the dissolution 
 of the Union would be the greatest calamity that could 
 befall civilization in America. " Rather than that," 
 exclaimed Charles Francis Adams, " let the heavens 
 fall ! To prevent that, let every other cause be sacri- 
 ficed. " 
 
 It was this feeling that was behind all these vain 
 and in some respects humiliating efforts at compromise. 
 It was the conviction that the Union must be saved and 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 155 
 
 that it could not be saved by a resort to force, but only 
 by the free consent of the individual states. A resort 
 to the sword seemed like madness. Senator Stephen 
 A. Douglas, who sought to keep his finger on the public 
 pulse as much as any man in public life, said in the 
 Senate, February 21, 1861, "I have too much respect 
 for the intelligence of Senators to believe for one 
 moment that they hope to preserve the Union by mili- 
 tary force. A peaceful settlement is a perpetuation of 
 the Union. The use of the sword is war, disunion, 
 and separation, now and forever." Wendell Phillips 
 had said that the South had a perfect right to form 
 an independent government of its own if it chose, 
 while Horace Greeley in his historic editorial in the 
 New York Tribune in November, i860, under the 
 caption, " Let the Erring Sisters Depart in Peace," 
 gave a piece of counsel to his country from a powerful 
 organ of public opinion that to-day must seem only 
 like a veritable curiosity. If such things could come 
 from the anti-slavery prophets on the platform and in 
 the sanctum, what could be expected from common 
 men in the marts of trade or from the time-servers in 
 the halls of legislation? 
 
 Such utterances serve to illustrate the temper of the 
 times. They were times of indecision and uncertainty, 
 of doubt and dismay. Men hesitated and were afraid, 
 and amid the multitude of counselors the dominant 
 note seemed to be that the anti-slavery case that had 
 been won after so many hard years of struggle should 
 be yielded for the sake of peace. Charles Francis 
 Adams had been the candidate of the Free-soil party 
 for Vice-President in 1848, a party that had been re- 
 
156 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 garded as radical and positive in its anti-slavery pro- 
 gram. It was no other anti-slavery apostle than he 
 who now proposed the amendment perpetuating slav- 
 ery. He proposed that no future amendment propos- 
 ing any interference with slavery " shall originate with 
 any state that does not recognize that relation within 
 its limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every 
 one of the states composing the Union." "This," 
 says Mr. McCall, "would have effectually postponed 
 until the millennium the peaceful abolition of slavery 
 under law." 
 
 Yet this proposal received nearly the unanimous 
 support of the committee of thirty-three appointed 
 by the House to consider plans of compromise and 
 conciliation. Hardly a proposition was made in favor 
 of slavery that the committee was not ready to en- 
 dorse. Its report called for the enactment of Mr. 
 Adams' " amendment," the repeal of the personal lib- 
 erty laws in the Free States; the admission of New 
 Mexico with its slave laws ; the amendment of the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law so that a person who was seized by a 
 claimant should have his right to freedom tried by a 
 jury, not in a Free State where he was seized, and of 
 which he might have been for years a citizen, but in the 
 Slave State to which he was carried. 
 
 The compromise proposals made in the Senate were 
 of the same tenor. The plan proposed by Senator 
 Crittenden, of Kentucky, known as the " Crittenden 
 Compromise " was the most prominent and compre- 
 hensive, involving, among other things, the extension 
 of the Missouri line of 36 30' to the Pacific and 
 the national guarantee and protection of slavery south 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 157 
 
 of that line; that further guarantees should be given 
 concerning the return of fugitive slaves; that 
 Congress should not interfere with the interstate 
 slave-trade, nor abolish slavery in the District of Co- 
 lumbia so long as the institution existed in Virginia 
 and Maryland ; and, finally, that no future amendment 
 to the Constitution should ever affect the three-fifths 
 allowance of slaves in Southern representation, or the 
 clause for the rendition of fugitive slaves, nor permit 
 Congress ever to interfere with slavery in the states. 
 
 Buchanan in his weak and vacillating message had 
 sought to demonstrate several distinct propositions : 
 that the anti-slavery men were entirely to blame for 
 the crisis ; that South Carolina had a just provocation ; 
 that she had no constitutional right to secede, but that 
 if she did secede there was no power in the national 
 government to prevent it. 1 A state of mind like that 
 on the part of those in the seats of power would allow 
 the Union to dissolve by inanition. It had been sup- 
 posed that Lincoln's triumph had been the triumph of 
 freedom, that he had been elected to oppose slavery in 
 its advance across the continent. It was thought the 
 nation had determined to tread again the old landmarks, 
 — in the footsteps of Washington, of Jefferson and 
 of Mason, — the great Virginians who had in their 
 day hoped to prevent the spread of slavery and to 
 place it in the course of ultimate extinction. Were 
 such humiliating concessions — they could not be 
 called compromises — was this surrender to Southern 
 
 1 Seward satirized this attitude by saying that it held sub- 
 stantially that " a state had no right to secede unless it wished 
 to and that the government must save the Union unless some- 
 body opposes it." 
 
I. 
 V 
 
 158 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 demands for slavery extension to be the result of the 
 national verdict against slavery, merely because a few 
 Southern States had passed so-called ordinances of se- 
 cession? 
 
 It was most fortunate for America that a leader had 
 been chosen to the presidency who had the sagacity to 
 understand and the courage to speak the truth that 
 the people then needed most to hear. Lincoln's vision 
 was clear and his purpose unhesitating upon the vital 
 issue. On the point of extending slavery he was in- 
 flexible, as firm as a chain of steel. " I am for no 
 compromise," he said, " which assists or permits the 
 extension of slavery on soil owned by the nation." 
 He asserted that the instant such a compromise were 
 agreed to, " they have us under again. All our labor 
 is lost, and sooner or later, must be done over. The 
 tug has to come, and better now than later. . . . Any 
 trick by which the nation is to acquire territory and 
 then allow some local authority to spread slavery over 
 it is as obnoxious as any other. To effect some such 
 result as this is the object of all these proposed com- 
 promises." 
 
 This expressed precisely the state of mind of Stevens 
 upon the proposal to surrender the paramount issue 
 in order to conciliate the South. When one reads the 
 proposed concessions offered to the South, like tearful 
 pleadings to recall the wayward sisters from their illegal 
 course of secession and dismemberment, one feels that 
 the need of the nation and of the hour was men, men 
 of convictions, men of nerves and spines, such men as 
 Oliver Cromwell or Andrew Jackson. The hour 
 needed steady men. with vision clear enough to see 
 
i 
 
 DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE. 159 
 
 that the South was not to be placated by compromise, 
 men who knew the South well enough to know that the 
 only concession that would satisfy the aggressive 
 leaders of the Slave States involved the complete sur- 
 render of the free-soil principle on which the nation 
 had just elected to live. 
 
 There were a few such men in the Congress of the 
 United States, and the boldest and ablest of all was 
 Thaddeus Stevens. The attitude of Buchanan, marked 
 by indecision and fear, and offering official apologies 
 for secession, was like gall and wormwood to Stevens. 
 He had a stout heart and he was not disposed to 
 shrink in the face of danger, but rather to stand his 
 ground and fight for his cause. He heartily disliked 
 Buchanan, whom he looked upon as a doctrinaire and 
 nerveless dotard whose presidency at this crisis was 
 nothing short of a calamity to his country. He was 
 disposed to look upon the presidential office as vacant 
 while James Buchanan was drawing the salary. He 
 would give forth no uncertain sound. It is, therefore, 
 something of a relief, like a breath of fresh air in an 
 atmosphere of depression, in those days of weakness 
 and surrender, of hesitation and doubt and compro- 
 mise, when many of his weak-kneed colleagues were 
 ready to throw over the very cause for which they had 
 won their political victory, — it is a relief to read such 
 bold and ringing utterances for the vindication of the 
 national authority as Stevens gave forth. \ A few years 
 later it was easy to see that the times called for just 
 such a type of leader. But it was only in the retrospect 
 that the great indecisive majority, looking back on 
 those times that tried the fibers of men, could applaud 
 
i Go THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the sentiment that Stevens then uttered when he ex- 
 claimed, " Oh ! for an hour of Andrew Jackson ! " 
 
 Stevens believed that if a state had no power to 
 secede, then the nation had a right to its remaining in 
 the Union, and if the nation had this right then it 
 must have the power to defend it. On December 31, 
 i860, he introduced a resolution calling upon Buchanan 
 to inform the House as to the situation of the forts, 
 arsenals and public property about Charleston. He 
 desired that the administration should not hesitate to 
 defend this property. Stevens was ready to live up 
 to the compromises of the Constitution as they had 
 been originally made and to abide by the compromises 
 on slavery that had been made since the Constitution 
 had gone into operation. But he believed that the time 
 for compromise and conciliation had gone by. He saw 
 no spirit of concession and conciliation in the Southern 
 leaders, and he had no patience whatever with the 
 weak, do-nothing character of President Buchanan's 
 message ; and when a routine motion was made that so 
 much of the President's message as relates to the 
 present perilous condition of the country be referred 
 to a special committee of thirty-three, one from each 
 state, Stevens voted against it. The futility of 
 further compromise was obvious to him. He held that 
 negotiation was ended by the solemn declaration of 
 the seceding party that they will not listen to conces- 
 sion or compromise. He called the committee of 
 thirty-three the " Committee on Incubation." " This 
 committee," says Mr. Blaine, " arrived at a series of 
 conclusions which tended only to lower the tone of 
 Northern opinion without in any degree appeasing the 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 161 
 
 wrath of the South. The record of the committee is 
 one which can not be reviewed with pride or satisfac- 
 tion by any citizen of a loyal state. Every form of 
 compromise which could be suggested, every conces- 
 sion of Northern prejudice and every surrender of 
 Northern pride, was urged upon the committee." 
 
 Stevens would have no part nor lot in any such 
 work. To him it was all a craven-hearted or chicken- 
 hearted procedure. When the report of the committee 
 came in, he spoke with vigor in denunciation of it. 
 He characterized the report, which assumed to give an 
 estimate of Southern grievances, as a delicate bit of 
 satire. He felt that the only manly way to meet the 
 South in the crisis was in the same spirit of resolute 
 purpose and determination that the Southern leaders 
 themselves had shown. And the sequel shows that 
 he knew better than his colleagues the temper of the 
 South. " No compromise," he said, " can be made 
 which will have any effect in averting the present diffi- 
 culty. I regret the fact. But when I see these states 
 in open rebellion, seizing forts, arsenals and millions 
 of public property, when I see the batteries of seceding 
 states blockading the highways of the nation and their 
 armies in battle array against the flag of the Union; 
 when I see our flag insulted and that insult submitted 
 to, I have no hope that concession, humiliation, and 
 compromise can have any effect whatever." l 
 
 News from the South confirmed this conviction of 
 Stevens. A Virginia embassy had gone to South 
 Carolina for the purpose of inducing that state to ap- 
 point commissioners to propose amendments to the 
 1 Jan. 29, i86r, Globe, p. 621. 
 
i62 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 United States Constitution in order to retain South 
 Carolina within the Union and to secure her rights. 
 South Carolina peremptorily refused to appoint such 
 commissioners. She formally resolved, in answer to 
 the Virginia embassy, that her separation was final; 
 that she had no further interest in the Constitution of 
 the United States, and that she would negotiate with 
 the United States only as a foreign power. 
 
 Under such conditions Stevens thought that homilies 
 upon the Union and jeremiads over its destruction 
 could be of no use except to display fine rhetoric and 
 eloquence. He was convinced that the Southern 
 States would not be turned from their deliberate and 
 stern purpose by soft words and touching lamentations. 
 It would do them no credit ; in that case condemnation 
 of them would degenerate into contempt. 
 
 Stevens denounced Buchanan's message as contain- 
 ing- some wholesome truths mixed with atrocious 
 calumnies. He denied what Buchanan affirmed, that 
 Northern interference with slavery was responsible for 
 disunion. " The President knew," said Stevens, " that 
 the anti-slavery party of the North never interfered, 
 or claimed the right to interfere, or expressed a desire 
 to intermeddle with slavery in the states." Stevens 
 denounced Buchanan, because after denouncing seces- 
 sion as a great wrong he had come to the impotent con- 
 clusion that there is no power in the government to 
 prevent or punish it. He thought it was time this 
 question were solved, time to decide whether this 
 Union exists by the sufferance of individual states. 
 Tf it should be determined that secession is a rightful 
 act or there is no power to prevent it. then the Union 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 16 
 
 o 
 
 is not worth preserving for a single day. Whatever 
 disposition we may make of the present difficulty, 
 fancied wrong will constantly arise and induce state 
 after state to withdraw from the confederacy. If, 
 on the other hand, it should be decided that we are one 
 people and the government possesses sufficient power 
 to coerce obedience, the public mind will be quieted, 
 plotters of disunion will be regarded as traitors, and 
 we shall long remain a happy and united people. 
 
 It will be seen that Stevens was not disposed to 
 resort to soft words as a means of turning away South- 
 ern wrath. He was accustomed rather to defy that 
 wrath and to stir it to hotter flame. ' The real ag- 
 gression," he said, " which one of the states frankly 
 assigns as the reason of secession, is that the North 
 has taken from them the power of government which 
 they have held so long. They have elected the man 
 of their choice President of the United States. The 
 American people have used no violence or malpractise, 
 but they have dared to disobey the commands of slav- 
 ery, and this is proclaimed as just cause for secession 
 and civil war. Can not the people of the United States 
 elect whom they will for President without stirring 
 up rebellion and requiring humiliating concessions to 
 appease the insurgents? I would take no steps to 
 propitiate such a feeling. Rather than show repent- 
 ance for the election of Mr. Lincoln with all its con- 
 sequences I would see this government crumble into 
 a thousand atoms. If I can not be a freeman let me / 
 cease to exist. "\ 
 
 It was in this spirit that Stevens faced the crisis of 
 disunion and secession. Stevens, in common with the 
 
164 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 great majority of his countrymen at this time, did not 
 believe there would be a serious struggle. He would 
 reduce South Carolina by peaceful means. He would 
 send no armies there to wage war. But he would an- 
 nul all postal laws within her territory and stop the 
 mails at the border of the state; he would abolish 
 all laws establishing ports of entry and collection dis- 
 tricts within the state and prevent all vessel c . foreign 
 or domestic, from entering or leaving any of her ports. 
 She could not then send her cotton or her surplus 
 products abroad. No vessel could load within her 
 harbors; she would be without officers to give her a 
 clearance, without papers, without nationality, and she 
 would be a prize to the first captors. Southern sea- 
 ports would then be a barren waste, without commerce, 
 and without industry. 
 
 Stevens had no sympathy with the impulsive emo- 
 tional sentiment of letting " the erring sisters go in 
 peace." " Those who counsel the government," he 
 said, " to let them go and destroy the national Union 
 are preaching moral treason. I can understand such 
 doctrine from those who conscientiously dislike a part- 
 nership in slaveholding, who desire to see this em- 
 pire severed along the black line so they could live in 
 a free republic." Such might have been the voice of 
 Garrison and the radical abolitionists, but it was not 
 the voice nor temper of Stevens. 
 
 It was often said in the beginnings of secession that 
 it was the purpose of the Southern leaders to take their 
 states out of the Union as a means of imposing con- 
 ditions, — in the belief that better terms could be made 
 out of the Union than in it. They would then come 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 165 
 
 back masters of the situation. Stevens warned the 
 South against this error, a warning to which subse- 
 quent years added a forceful emphasis. 
 
 " Let no Slave State flatter itself that it can dissolve 
 the Union now and then reconstruct it upon better 
 terms. The present Constitution was formed in our 
 weakness. Some of its compromises were odious and 
 have become more so by the unexpected increase of 
 slaves. Now in our strength the conscience of the 
 North would not allow them to enter into such a part- 
 nership with slavery. If this Union should be dis- 
 solved its reconstruction would embrace one empire 
 wholly slave and one republic wholly free. While we 
 will religiously observe the present compact nor at- 
 tempt to be absolved from it, yet if it should be torn to 
 pieces by rebels our next United States will contain 
 no foot of ground on which a slave can tread, no 
 breath of air which a slave can breathe. Then we can 
 boast of liberty. Then we can rise and expand to 
 the full stature of untrammeled freemen and hope 
 for God's blessing. Then the bondmen who break 
 their chain will find a city of refuge." 
 
 Stevens held that the pretexts used to justify se- 
 cession were trivial. The Fugitive Slave Law was gen- 
 erally executed; its violation was the exception. 
 Southern people could visit the North freely and in 
 safety and enjoy full liberty to defend and propagate 
 the doctrine of slavery. On the other hand, for 
 twenty years it had been unsafe for Northern men to 
 travel or settle in the South " unless they would avow 
 their belief that slavery was a good institution." 
 " They can not expect," he said, " to make us love 
 
if>6 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 slavery or withhold the utterance of our just abhor- 
 rence of it. They can not hope to make the honest 
 masses of the people adopt the blasphemy of some of 
 their clergymen and call it a divine institution. They 
 have too much respect for their temporal character and 
 their eternal salvation." 1 
 
 Stevens' purpose was to administer a tonic, to brace 
 his colleagues and the country to resist cowardly 
 counsels calculated to unnerve the people. He was 
 reminded that his language was not that of Penn- 
 sylvania as represented by the united voice of her 
 two Senators. He denied that the Senators repre- 
 sented the principles of the people of his state. 
 " Pennsylvania would go, as I would," he said, " to 
 the verge of the Constitution and of her principles 
 to maintain peace. But it is a libel on the good name 
 of her virtuous people to say that she would sacrifice 
 her principles to obtain the favor of rebels. I be- 
 lieve it to be a libel on her manhood to say that she 
 will purchase peace by concessions to insurgents with 
 arms in their hands. If I thought such was her char- 
 acter, I would expatriate myself. I would leave the 
 land where I have spent my life from early manhood 
 to declining age and would seek some spot untainted 
 by the coward breath of servility and meanness." 
 
 It was the guns at Sumter that aroused the people 
 of the North from their fear. When the flag of the 
 Union was fired on at Sumter, the latent national 
 spirit in the North seemed to find expression. The 
 lowering of the flag before hostile guns raised a new 
 issue. It was not now a question whether slavery 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 29, 1861. 
 
DISUNION AND NO COMPROMISE 16/ 
 
 should be extended or the South conciliated. It was 
 now a question of national unity and the enforcement 
 of the national authority against secession and dis- 
 memberment. Upon that issue the North united. 
 
 No public man of the time recognized more clearly 
 than Stevens that the country was in the greatest 
 danger that it had faced since the inauguration of 
 Washington. He also recognized that the virtue most 
 needed in such a time of peril was " courage, calm un- 
 wavering courage, — a courage which no danger could 
 appall." l Amid the trials and doubts and darkness of 
 the great civil struggle upon which the country had 
 entered Stevens more than any other man in the halls of 
 Congress exemplified in his course the prime quality 
 most needed in such a period, — unhesitating political 
 courage. 
 
 1 Speech in House of Representatives, January 29, 1861. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SLAVERY AND THE WAR 
 
 T INCOLN'S election had been carried upon the re- 
 -■— ' striction of slavery. His first purpose on coming 
 into power was the restriction of secession. It was 
 clearly wise for him to recognize the obvious fact, — 
 that the Union cause was much stronger than the 
 anti-slavery cause. There were still thousands of 
 Union men, especially in the Border States, as well 
 as among Mr. Lincoln's party opponents in the North, 
 in whose opinions the anti-slavery agitation was the 
 cause that had produced disunion and war; to whom 
 "coercion" was odious; who thought that military 
 force as a means of holding the states together was 
 not only useless but pernicious; who believed, or pro- 
 fessed to believe, that the national authority could 
 never be successfully asserted by the bayonet and the 
 sword against such a powerful revolution as that rep- 
 resented by the Confederated Slave States; that com- 
 promise and conciliation were still the only hope of the 
 Union. Some of this unionism may have been mere 
 pretense, — a mere cloak to cover purposes of aid and 
 comfort to the secessionists of the South. Some of 
 it certainly was pretty weak and unstable. But what- 
 ever of weight there was in it Lincoln wished to make 
 use of against the cause of secession. He would bring 
 every possible man, every ounce of opinion, to the sup- 
 
 168 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 169 
 
 port of the Union. To this end he was ready to hold 
 in check anti-slavery purposes and tendencies. His 
 I first desire was to unite the North, divide the South, 
 save the Border States, and preserve the Union. 
 
 For this reason Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address was 
 quite conciliatory in its attitude toward slavery and the 
 ; South. He called attention to the fact that the plat- 
 ; form of his party committed him both to "the 
 ! preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the 
 right of each state to order and control its own do- 
 mestic institutions according to its own judgment." 
 J He reiterated this sentiment of his party platform, and 
 quoting one of his former speeches he said, " I have 
 no purpose either directly or indirectly to interfere 
 with the institution of slavery in the states where it 
 exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, 
 and I have no inclination to do so." Lincoln thus 
 sought with earnest purpose to convince the South 
 that his intentions were not hostile, and that the in- 
 stitution of slavery had no cause to fear interference 
 from the executive authority of the nation. 
 
 His efforts were in vain. The South believed that 
 the dominance of a party that was anti-slavery in its 
 antecedents and purposes, under the administration of 
 a leader who had declared that the Union could not ex- 
 ist " half slave and half free," meant the ultimate 
 doom of slavery. No doubt they were right in this 
 opinion. If slavery were prevented from extending it 
 would be " placed in the course of ultimate extinction." 
 The tree of slavery would be girdled and left to die. 
 Time, public opinion, material interests, would have 
 made slavery impossible within another generation. 
 
lyo THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 But the South was wrong in supposing that there was 
 any purpose of political interference with slavery in 
 the states on the part either of Mr. Lincoln or of his 
 party. As Thaddeus Stevens later said, when Sumter 
 was fired on there were probably not three thousand 
 abolitionists in the whole country who were disposed to , 
 disregard the Constitution or violate interstate comity 
 in order to destroy Southern slavery. But the South 
 seceded to escape from a government that they thought 
 was hostile, and to form a government that they 
 thought would be friendly to that institution. In this 
 feeling and action there were many men in the North 
 who felt that the South had, if not justification, at least 
 serious provocation, and that the Southern States 
 ought to be given ample assurance within the Union, 
 even more than they already had, that Southern slav- 
 ery would never be endangered from Northern aggres- 
 \ sion. 
 
 ' On these issues there were political divisions in the 
 North. The bombardment of Sumter wrought a 
 change. All parties then merged, in the great national 
 uprising, into the party of the Union. Controversies 
 over abolitionism and slavery ceased. The voice of 
 faction and party contention was stilled, and the leaders 
 of all parties called upon their followers to rally round 
 the flag and to stand for the Union and the integrity 
 of their nation. The people responded with practical 
 unanimity. They rallied to the support of the gov- 
 ernment, not to prevent the spread of slavery, nor to 
 interfere with slavery in the states, — a proposal which 
 all parties since the foundation of the government had 
 recognized as being beyond the limits of the Consti- 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 171 
 
 tution, — but to save the Union and the Constitution 
 of their fathers. 
 
 This primary purpose was clearly expressed by Con- 
 gress at the opening of the war. In the famous Crit- 
 tenden Resolutions of July 22, 1861, immediately after 
 the battle of Bull Run, Congress gave official defini- 
 tion to the object of the war. These resolutions 
 recited, in substance, that the war was prosecuted on 
 the part of the national government not to conquer or 
 subjugate the Southern States, that is, not to reduce 
 them to provinces, nor to interfere with slavery in 
 those states; but to preserve the Union and to defend 
 and maintain the Constitution and the laws, " with all 
 the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states 
 unimpaired, and that as soon as these objects are 
 accomplished the war ought to cease." x The evidence 
 is conclusive that it was not the original purpose of the 
 nation in the Civil War to interfere with slavery. If 
 it had been but a hundred days' war it would prob- 
 ably have ended with slavery intact. There is no doubt 
 but that the Crittenden Resolutions, at the time they 
 were offered, voiced the public opinion of the country 
 and almost the unanimous opinion of the Republican 
 party. President Lincoln accepted this policy and was 
 ready to make it his own. In a conservative spirit 
 he attempted at first to conduct the war without inter- 
 fering with slavery, on the assumption that the status 
 of the states and their relation to the Union had not 
 changed. 
 
 But there were a few men in the country — probably 
 one in ten thousand — of the more pronounced and 
 1 Congressional Globe, July 22, 1861. 
 
172 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 radical anti-slavery type, who believed at the outset 
 that the Rebellion must result in the destruction of 
 slavery. Stevens was one of these. He had opinions 
 of his own, with no disposition to wait upon a conven- 
 tional majority. When the Crittenden Resolutions 
 were offered, he objected to them and withheld his vote. 
 He was one of four in the House who were not ready to 
 subscribe to its doctrines. He would not embarrass 
 the government nor prevent its dealing a blow in op- 
 position to slavery when occasion should arise. He 
 wished the government to have a free hand, an un- 
 restricted liberty in the conduct of the war, and he 
 did not wish Congress to commit the country to a doc- 
 trine from which, as he believed, it would soon have 
 to recede. He believed at the start what Lincoln came 
 to believe later in the war, that in such a crisis, Con- 
 gress and the President, representing a sovereign na- 
 tion in the conduct of war, had a right to take " any 
 steps which might best subdue the enemy." * 
 
 Time was soon to vindicate Stevens' opinion in re- 
 spect to the effect of the war upon the attitude of the 
 government toward slavery. A few short months of 
 war made all the difference in the world and wrought 
 a decided change in the purpose and temper of Con- 
 gress and the country. It was seen that slavery was 
 a source of strength to the Rebellion. Conservative 
 Union men were being rapidly and radically convinced 
 that if the national government did not interfere with 
 slavery, slavery would seriously interfere with the na- 
 tional government, and the success of its arms. This 
 change in policy and purpose is indicated by the fact 
 1 Life and Writings of B. R. Curtis, I, p. 348. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 173 
 
 that when the Thirty-seventh Congress came together 
 again in its regular session in December, 1861, and an 
 attempt was made to reaffirm the Crittenden Resolu- 
 tions, which had received such universal approval but a 
 few months before, they were decisively rejected. 
 They were rejected by a party vote upon the motion of 
 Stevens, who had thus considerable satisfaction in see- 
 ing that at least his own party had now come to his 
 position in asserting its freedom from a doctrinaire im- 
 pediment to the conduct of the war, and that the nation 
 was now to feel free to strike at slavery, or to do what- 
 ever else might seem best calculated to promote the suc- 
 cess of the national cause. 
 
 A fortnight had not gone by after the Crittenden 
 Resolutions were offered, defining the objects of the 
 war and giving an implied promise that slavery would 
 not be interfered with, before slavery had become a 
 subject of sore discussion in Congress. It came up 
 in connection with the first Confiscation Act of August 
 3, 1 86 1. To this measure Stevens gave his earnest 
 support. This was the beginning of war legislation 
 concerning slavery. It aroused opposition, because a 
 section of the law required that owners should forfeit 
 the slaves whom they allowed to be used in arms 
 against the United States or to labor in forts or in- 
 trenchments, or whom they should employ in any naval 
 or military capacity against the national government. 
 
 In the debate on confiscation, August 2, 1861, Stev- 
 ens voiced his deep opposition to slavery and his pur- 
 pose to strike at that institution whenever occasion 
 offered. He said : " God forbid that I should ever 
 agree that the slaves should be returned again to their 
 
174 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 masters and that you should rivet again the chains 
 which you have once broken. I do not say that this 
 war is made for that purpose. Ask those who made 
 the war what its object is. Do not ask us. I did not 
 like the Crittenden Resolutions because they looked like 
 an apology from us in saying what were the objects 
 of the war. Those who made the war should explain 
 its objects. Our object is to subdue the rebels." 
 
 In this first discussion of the war touching slavery, 
 Stevens predicted the arming of the blacks in defense 
 of the Union. 
 
 " If this war continues and is bloody," he said, " I 
 do not believe that the free people of the North will 
 stand by and see their sons and neighbors slaughtered 
 by thousands and tens of thousands by rebels with 
 arms in their hands, and forbear to call their enemies 
 to be our friends. I for one shall be ready to go for 
 it — arming the blacks — horrifying to gentlemen as 
 it may appear. That is my doctrine and that will be 
 the doctrine of the whole people of the North before 
 two years roll round." 
 
 After the rejection of the Crittenden Resolutions in 
 December, 1861, Stevens wished to bring his party 
 and the administration to higher and more aggressive 
 ground upon slavery and emancipation. He would 
 speak out the whole truth whether his colleagues would 
 hear or forbear. On December 3. 1861, the first day 
 of the regular session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, 
 Stevens introduced a joint resolution for enactment into 
 law containing two propositions : The first was to 
 strike for general emancipation as the best means of 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 175 
 
 crushing the Rebellion; the second, to make full pay- 
 ment for losses to loyal owners by this policy. His res- 
 olution asserted that slavery had caused the Rebellion 
 and that there could be no peace and union while that 
 institution existed. As slaves are used by the rebels 
 for supporting the war, and as by the law of nations it 
 is right to liberate the slaves of an enemy to weaken his 
 power; therefore the President should be directed to 
 declare free, and direct our generals in command to 
 order freedom to, all slaves who shall leave their mas- 
 ters or aid in quelling the Rebellion. 
 
 He thus urged boldly, at the very outset of the war, 
 a policy of nation-wide emancipation. He would 
 emancipate all slaves, whether of loyal or rebel masters, 
 believing that if slavery were left anywhere in the 
 South it would go everywhere. He urged this policy 
 not in the hope of getting it adopted immediately, but 
 as a means of educating public sentiment in and out of 
 Congress. " I have no hope," he wrote to a friend. 
 r Republicans are cowards, and Democrats will soon 
 be in power again, as pro-slavery as ever." But as 
 for himself he was determined that he would, at any 
 rate, speak forth the truth that was in him and which 
 he thought the country needed. 
 
 Stevens' notable speech of January 22, 1862, on 
 these resolutions shows him to be one of the earliest, 
 boldest, most outspoken, and most influential, of the 
 anti-slavery advocates who were seeking to direct the 
 war to anti-slavery ends. The House was in the com- 
 mittee of the whole on the state of the Union and the 
 debate was taking a wide range. Because Stevens did 
 

 176 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 not expect to secure the adoption of this policy at that 
 time, he was accused by the New York Times 1 of in- 
 dulging in talk that was irrelevant, wasting the time 
 of the House in talking about what was not before it. 
 Stevens knew that Congress and his party were not 
 yet ready to follow in the line of his proposals and 
 that the public sentiment of the country did not sus- 
 tain his radical policy. But he wished to educate that 
 sentiment and to lead his party in the direction that 
 he clearly saw would ultimately be found to be es- 
 sential. He felt that the national government in the 
 conduct of the war so far had been weak, timid, vacil- 
 lating, ineffective, without appreciation of the formid- 
 able task before it. The country needed a tonic; the 
 administration needed nerve and a stiffened spine. 
 Stevens would infuse more energy into the prosecution 
 of the war, and he was not afraid to employ the means 
 at hand. He did not think it a time for honeyed 
 words and conciliation. There was no sense in using 
 the words of conciliation and peace where there was 
 no peace. Speech that would nerve the country for 
 war was the message that was needed. The business 
 of war was to conquer, and in the war now forced 
 upon the nation, he stood for firm, unyielding, un- 
 compromising, conquering force. 
 
 It seems reasonable to say that in energizing the war 
 power of the nation and leading it to lay hold of every 
 possible weapon for overcoming resistance to the na- 
 tional authority there was in the national forum no 
 stronger personal force than Thaddeus Stevens. A 
 review of his speeches will give one a high apprecia- 
 
 1 January 25, 1862. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 177 
 
 tion of their educational influence in this direction. 
 He was a masterful leader, and it was a most fortunate 
 thing for the national cause that he stood in a place 
 of such power and influence in such a crisis. He was 
 bitter and unsparing in his denunciation of the South- 
 ern leaders for their course, and he sought to arouse 
 the vigor and war spirit of the nation to crush the 
 South. Men of power were needed for that hour, not 
 men of soft and honeyed words, and Stevens wished 
 the nation to arouse itself and assert its strength. He 
 brought the accusation against the Southerners of hav- 
 ing prepared for this crisis for thirty years past. 
 Secession and war were not accidents of an hour. 
 While these Southern leaders held the reins of govern- 
 ment and could perpetuate and extend human bondage 
 they deemed it prudent to stay in the Union, receive 
 its benefits, and hold its offices ; but when they saw the 
 growth of population giving power to the North they 
 prepared for rebellion against the Constitution when 
 they could no longer rule under it. 1 
 
 Though this represents partisan and bitter crimina- 
 tion in which Stevens frequently indulged, yet it is 
 manifest that in certain ways he showed a better con- 
 ception of the Southern spirit and character and of 
 the consequent nature of the task before the country 
 than that possessed by his opponents and critics. Dis- 
 missing all hope of reunion by voluntary concession 
 from the South, he wished to have it clearly recognized, 
 
 1 In order to avoid excessive length of quotation I have re- 
 duced passages from Stevens, and have in some cases used 
 abridged phrases without sign of omission. I think I have not 
 misrepresented his meaning in any degree. When he spoke for 
 himself, no one could misunderstand him. 
 
i;8 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 as it should have been, that from the Southern stand- 
 point the separation of the states was final, and that 
 the Confederate States would consent to reunion only- 
 through the exhaustion of war. This was exactly the 
 message that the nation needed to hear, to enable it 
 to escape from a weak, dawdling and indecisive policy, 
 as if the " little unpleasantries " were to end in another 
 summer campaign. 1 The disaster resulting from this 
 delusion was beyond estimate, but it was a delusion 
 from which Stevens never suffered and against which 
 he repeatedly warned his countrymen and those re- 
 sponsible for the conduct of the war. The war would 
 end only when the South could no longer resist, only 
 when her resources were exhausted. " How, then," 
 he asked, " can the South be wholly exhausted ? Let 
 us not be deceived. Those who talk about peace in 
 sixty days are shallow statesmen. The war will not 
 end until the government shall more fully recognize 
 the magnitude of the crisis; until they have discovered 
 that this is an internecine war in which one party or 
 the other must be reduced to hopeless feebleness and 
 the power of further effort shall be utterly annihilated. 
 It is a sad but true alternative. The South can never 
 be reduced to that condition so long as the war is 
 prosecuted on its present principles. The North with 
 all its millions of people and its countless wealth can 
 never conquer the South until a new mode of warfare 
 is adopted. So long as these states are left the means 
 
 1 The country was suffering from the delusion that the South 
 would in a short time repent and turn from her course; or that 
 if the government would but act tenderly and kindly, overtures 
 cf peace might be extended, and reconciliation would be brought 
 about in the same old happy Union ; and that, at any rate, con- 
 quest and subjugation could never succeed. 
 

 SLAVERY AND THE WAR 179 
 
 of cultivating their fields through forced labor, you 
 may expend the blood of thousands and billions of 
 money year by year, without being any nearer the end, 
 unless you reach it by your own submission and the 
 ruin of the nation. Slavery gives the South a great 
 advantage in time of war. They need not, and do 
 not, withdraw a single hand from the cultivation of 
 the soil. Every able-bodied white man can be spared 
 for the army. The black man, without lifting a 
 weapon, is the mainstay of the war. How, then, can 
 the war be carried on so as to save the Union and con- 
 stitutional liberty? Prejudices may be shocked, weak 
 minds startled, weak nerves may tremble, but they must 
 hear and adopt it. Universal emancipation must be 
 proclaimed to all. Those who now furnish the means 
 of war, but who are the natural enemies of slaveholders, 
 must be made our allies. If the slaves no longer raised 
 cotton and rice, tobacco and grain for the rebels, this 
 war would cease in six months, even though the liber- 
 ated slaves would not raise a hand against their mas- 
 ters. They would no longer produce the means by 
 which they sustain the war." 1 
 
 Stevens saw that the task before the country could 
 be accomplished only by the sacrifice of thousands of 
 lives and millions of money. He recognized that the 
 Southerners were proud, haughty, forceful and master- 
 ful for war, and that their training had led them to be- 
 lieve that they were born to command. They had 
 declared that they would suffer their country to become 
 a smoking ruin before they would submit. Stevens 
 would accept the issue, and he said it were better " to 
 1 Congressional Globe, January 22, 1862. 
 
180 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 lay waste the whole South than to suffer the nation 
 to be murdered, better to depopulate the country and 
 plant it with a new race of freemen, than to suffer 
 rebellion to triumph. There should be no negotia- 
 tion, no parley, no truce until every rebel shall have 
 laid down his arms and submitted to the government." 
 Stevens had little regard for the " sympathizer with 
 treason," who would " raise an outcry about a servile 
 insurrection or prate learnedly about the Constitu- 
 tion." He thought a rebellion of slaves fighting for 
 their freedom was not so abhorrent as a rebellion of 
 freemen fighting to murder the nation. He wished 
 the Northern people to be possessed and impelled by 
 the inspiration that comes from the glorious principle 
 of freedom. He thought the North had not shown 
 " the fiery zeal that impelled the South ; nothing of 
 that determined and invincible courage that was in- 
 spired in the Revolution by the grand idea of liberty, 
 equality, and the rights of man." 
 
 " Our statesmen do not seem to know how to touch the 
 hearts of freemen and rouse them to battle. No sound of 
 universal liberty has gone forth from the capitol. Our 
 generals have a sword in one hand and shackles in the 
 other. Let it be known that this government is fighting to 
 carry out the great principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence and the blood of every freeman would boil with 
 enthusiasm and his nerves be strengthened for a holy war- 
 fare. Give him the sword in one hand and the book of 
 freedom in the other, and he will soon sweep despotism and 
 rebellion from every corner of this continent. The occa- 
 sion is forced upon us and the invitation presented to strike 
 the chains from four millions of human beings and create 
 them men; to extinguish slavery on this whole continent; 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 181 
 
 to wipe out so far as we are concerned the most hateful 
 and infernal blot that ever disgraced the escutcheon of man ; 
 to write a page in the history of the world whose bright- 
 ness shall eclipse all the records of heroes and sages." x 
 
 This was effective oratory, the oratory of convic- 
 tion and action. It was spoken at a time in the early 
 part of 1862 when slavery still seemed rooted and 
 grounded in the policy of the President and of Con- 
 gress and in the public sentiment of the country. Who 
 will say that the voice of Stevens was not a power- 
 ful influence in bringing the country and its rulers 
 to the higher plane of emancipation, to a readiness to 
 direct the war for liberty as well as for union ? 
 
 When this speech went to the country it was re- 
 ceived with joy and approval by the radical anti-slav- 
 ery spirits that had been awaiting in patience and dis- 
 appointment for a more positive and aggressive policy 
 toward slavery on the part of the administration. 
 Stevens received many approving letters, not only from 
 his own constituents but from distant states. 
 
 His radical anti-slavery constituents were every- 
 where, and he was written to as a man who, amid 
 wavering and doubt and dalliance, was bold to speak 
 the truth and who dared to stand up for his convic- 
 tions. Men who had never seen him and of whom he 
 had never heard, sent him warm greeting and blessing. 
 It is evident that the speech had a resounding effect 
 and that it was a potent influence toward strengthening 
 the anti-slavery cause and arousing a public opinion 
 that subsequently became effective in controlling the 
 ruling councils of the country. " Every true patriot 
 
 1 Globe, January 22, 1862. 
 
1 82 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 throughout the North," wrote one, "nay, in the wide 
 world, as he rises from the reading of that speech, 
 ejaculates from the holy of holies of his heart, ' God 
 bless you, Thaddeus Stevens.' Amid all the obloquy 
 and insults of pro-slavers and devils you have dared 
 to stand up a man. In the good time coming you will 
 be honored for it. God grant that it may be during 
 your lifetime. I have never seen you, may never have 
 the pleasure, yet I see you standing grandly, nay, 
 proudly magnificent, while the burning words of truth 
 leap from your lips and are sped on the wings of the 
 lightning to gladden the souls of freemen and slaves. 
 God bless you! God bless Thaddeus Stevens! " 1 
 
 A gentle God-fearing Quaker in Pennsylvania wrote 
 him that " all lovers of freedom have been made 
 to rejoice in thy conduct. I have been wrought be- 
 tween hope and despair. When thee offered the bill 
 liberating all the slaves I said, ' That is noble,' and I 
 truly rejoiced; but it was not long before I found the 
 fools and sinners among you were so many that the 
 result was doubtful." 2 
 
 Another urged that no compromise should be per- 
 mitted by which slavery would be saved. " I would 
 fight to the bitter end. I am truly thankful for the 
 course you have taken in this death struggle. I hope 
 and pray that God will protect and preserve you to the 
 end of this contest." 3 
 
 It was perfectly clear to Stevens that slavery was 
 
 1 Stevens' Papers, Library of Congress, Letter of YVm. W. 
 Keith. Wyoming, N. Y., Feb. 8, 1862. 
 
 2 Stevens' Papers, Thomas Whitson, Willow Glen, Pa., March 
 20, 1862. 
 
 3 Stevens' Papers, Frederick Miles, Sugar-Grove, Pa. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 183 
 
 the cause of the war. Without that institution, in his 
 opinion, America might have continued to be a united 
 and happy people, and so long as slavery existed there 
 could be no solid Union. If a compromise were 
 patched up and this germ of evil remained, the ex- 
 penditure of life and treasure would be in vain, and 
 the peace secured would be but a delusion and a snare. 
 If future generations are to live in peace this cause 
 of strife must be removed. Stevens held that the 
 principles of the republic and slavery were wholly in- 
 compatible, that the two could not live together. His 
 unyielding militant purpose, the supreme desire that 
 most of all governed his public life in the period of 
 war, was to bring slavery to an end as a means of 
 crushing the Rebellion. 
 
 Stevens was much displeased with the conservative 
 policy of Lincoln in overruling military emancipation 
 by General Fremont in Missouri, in August, 1861, 
 and by General Hunter in the Department of the South 
 in the spring of 1862. He became a sharp critic of 
 the administration from the anti-slavery point of view. 
 As the war continued and the administration still 
 seemed conservative and reluctant to pursue an anti- 
 slavery policy, Stevens repeatedly expressed his dis- 
 satisfaction. Lincoln's message, proposing compen- 
 sated emancipation, he characterized as " the most 
 diluted milk-and-water gruel proposition that was 
 ever given to the American nation." He urged the 
 passage of the act * forbidding the return of fugitives, 
 and he favored every act looking toward anti-slavery 
 ends. He said he could not approve putting generals 
 
 1 March 13, 1862. 
 
184 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 who sympathized with slavery at the head of our 
 armies with orders to pursue and return fugitive slaves, 
 nor did he like it to have our forces set to guard the 
 property of rebel soldiers. When asked if he intended 
 his charges against the President and Secretary of 
 War or only against the generals in the field, he said 
 his remarks should " apply where they belong. I am 
 no sycophant, no parasite. What I think I say. These 
 acts have been perpetrated without rebuke. Let the 
 w r orld determine where the responsibility rests. I 
 believe the President is as honest a man as there is in 
 the world; but I believe him to be too easy and ami- 
 able, and to be misled by the malign influence of the 
 Kentucky counselors, and the Border State men." * 
 
 For rebuking General Hunter, who had declared 
 emancipation within his military district on the ground 
 that slavery and martial law were incompatible, Stev- 
 ens thought the administration deserved to be driven 
 out, and he denounced its policy of refusing the libera- 
 tion and employment of the slaves. He would seize all 
 property of disloyal men as our armies advanced and 
 plant the South with a military colony, if the Southern- 
 ers would not otherwise submit. His was a policy of 
 " thorough " and he would go directly to the end in 
 view, — the subjugation of the rebels, without scruple 
 or hesitation. It was Stevens' opinion that the " trai- 
 tors " deserved their doom and in the face of such a 
 crisis and of the momentous task confronting the na- 
 tion, he felt that he " who dallies is a dastard and he 
 who doubts is damned." He would allow the sol- 
 diers, as he said, to occupy the heritage of traitors and 
 
 1 Globe, July 5, 1862. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 185 
 
 build up there a land of freemen and of freedom, 
 which fifty years hence would swarm with its millions 
 without a slave upon its soil. He urged the admin- 
 istration not to be afraid of the cry of abolitionism, 
 but to follow out the policy of military emancipation 
 that had already been suggested by the order of Gen- 
 eral Hunter. He had no hope of success in the war 
 until that policy was adopted. He viewed the matter 
 not only as a question of emancipation, or abolition, 
 but as the only means of putting down the Rebellion. 
 To this policy he was convinced the nation would 
 have to come at last, and to delay would be but to 
 lose. Within a year's time he had the satisfaction of 
 seeing his more conservative colleagues, as well as the 
 administration and the nation at large, come to this 
 doctrine which he so early and boldly proclaimed. 
 
 He spoke boldly and repeatedly for the employ- 
 ment of negro troops, startling and shocking as the 
 proposition seemed to those whom he considered the 
 craven and cowardly conservatives. He was not 
 averse to shocking those who were constantly urging 
 gentle processes toward the " erring brothers " of the 
 South and who demanded that the war be conducted in 
 such a way as to leave slavery intact. "If men are 
 to be shot in this war," said Stevens, " let it not be our 
 cousins, relatives and friends. Let it be the slaves 
 of the traitors who have caused the war. Would that 
 100,000 of them had been at Richmond to receive the 
 first fire of their villainous masters. Am I to stand 
 here and be told that it will not do to let black men 
 shoot and be shot at instead of white men ! I abhor the 
 doctrine and despise the policy. The blood of thou- 
 
1 86 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 sands moldering in untimely graves is upon the souls 
 of this Congress and Cabinet. I no longer agree that 
 this administration is pursuing a wise policy. Its 
 policy should be to free the slaves, enlist and drill them, 
 and set them to shooting their masters if they do not 
 submit." 
 
 Speaking again in the early part of the following 
 year for the enlistment of negro troops he denounced 
 an opponent, 1 for saying that he would fight only for 
 the freedom of his own race. " That patriotism," he 
 said, " that is wholly absorbed in one's own country 
 is narrow and selfish. That philanthropy which em- 
 braces only one's own race and leaves the other numer- 
 ous races of mankind to bondage and to misery is cruel 
 and detestable." 2 
 
 At this time, in February, 1863, Stevens recalled his 
 conviction and his warning that neither the admin- 
 istration nor the people realized the magnitude of the 
 war; that if it continued every bondman belong- 
 ing to a rebel might be called on to aid in the restora- 
 tion of the Union ; and that the Union would not be 
 restored until the Southerners were deprived of their 
 main support, the slaves. Two years of bloody war, 
 accumulating debt, bleeding hearts and weeping homes 
 had given him no cause to change his opinion. The 
 Rebellion was still in the field with as brave men and 
 better generals than our own, and unless we " put 
 more energy into the commanding generals and gain 
 victories, all I predicted will happen, — the next Con- 
 gress will be in other than Republican hands." Such 
 a result, he thought, would be a triumph of the Re- 
 
 1 May, of Maryland. " Globe, Feb. 2, 1863. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 187 
 
 bellion, doing more to divide the Union than twenty 
 rebel victories, and yet " we are told that we must 
 not employ the oppressed slave against his oppressors." 
 He maintained that the blacks should be allowed to 
 bear their share in a war of liberation. He defended 
 them against the charge of cowardice and he expressed 
 his contempt for the Northern men who would save 
 the property of rebels and fill Southern graves " with 
 our relatives rather than the property of traitors." " I 
 do not expect to live to see the day," he said, " when 
 merit shall counterbalance the crime of color." * 
 
 During the summer and fall of 1862, Stevens con- 
 tinued his criticisms of what seemed to him the fatally 
 conservative policy of the administration. 
 
 Before the policy of emancipation had been an- 
 nounced to the country by President Lincoln, and while 
 the country was amid the gloom of continued military 
 defeats, the outlook was decidedly dark, both for the 
 Union and for the anti-slavery cause. Stevens kept 
 urging Lincoln to break away from the influence of 
 timid counselors; to reconstitute his Cabinet; to cut 
 out the Blairs; to assert himself against the Border 
 State politicians ; to reanimate the country with a zeal 
 for liberty as well as a love for the Union ; and to lay 
 hold boldly upon every weapon of attack, political and 
 military, with which he might prosecute the war and 
 defeat the enemy. He had no faith in Border State 
 Unionism. 
 
 His purpose was to stir up the people that a proper 
 public sentiment might be brought to bear upon those 
 in power. Unless a change of policy could be brought 
 1 Globe, Feb. 2, 1863. 
 
1 88 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 about, he had no hope. Unless Lincoln could be 
 forced to commit himself boldly to the anti-slavery 
 cause, and to fight the Rebellion in such a way as to 
 bring the greatest possible injury to its promoters, 
 he feared that a base peace would have to be negotiated. 
 To avoid that Stevens was ready to resort to any 
 extreme. 
 
 " It seems to me," he wrote, on August 10, 1862, 
 " that we are just as far from the true course as ever. 
 Unless the people speak in their primary assemblies no 
 good will come, and there seems little chance of that. 
 A change of Cabinet is our only hope." 
 
 Again, writing from Lancaster, September 5, 1862, 
 he expressed the dark and pessimistic view which had 
 been forced upon him by the circumstances and defeats 
 from which the country and the anti-slavery cause were 
 suffering. " The symptoms give me no promise of 
 good. The removal of Hunter and Butler and the con- 
 tinued refusal to receive negro soldiers, convince me 
 that the administration are preparing the people to re- 
 ceive an ignominious surrender to the South. It is 
 plain that nothing approaching the present policy will 
 subdue the rebels. Whether we shall find anybody 
 with a sufficient grasp of mind and sufficient moral 
 courage to treat this as a radical revolution and remodel 
 our institutions, I doubt. It would involve the desola- 
 tion of the South as well as emancipation, and a re- 
 peopling of half the continent. This ought to be done, 
 but it startles most men." ' 
 
 The fall elections, indicating a reaction that meant 
 rebuke and defeat for the Republican party and Mr. 
 1 Stevens' Correspondence. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 189 
 
 Lincoln's administration, did nothing to daunt the ag- 
 gressive spirit of Stevens. These political defeats 
 seemed rather to fan the flame of his radicalism and 
 to lead him to insist all the more that the Cabinet 
 should be reorganized and a more pronounced policy 
 against slavery should be adopted. " Nothing seems 
 to go right," he wrote. " I am almost despairing. 
 Without a new Cabinet there is no hope. It were a 
 great blessing if Seward could be removed. It would 
 revive hope, though I fear it can not be done. But 
 Fessenden is not the man for his successor. He has 
 too much of the vile ingredient called conservatism, 
 which is worse than secession. He is not so great as 
 at one time I hoped he would prove. Bancroft would 
 be better. But no one will succeed. Things go by 
 a wild chance." x 
 
 He drew a darker picture than the outlook justified, 
 as we now know. But his motive was clear and true. 
 It was to arouse, by repeated speeches and letters, the 
 anti-slavery forces in the North to demand a more posi- 
 tive and aggressive policy. 
 
 It has been said that this radicalism of men like 
 Stevens, this impatience to strike at slavery, at what- 
 ever cost, was one of the greatest causes of worry and 
 embarrassment to President Lincoln in his devoted ef- 
 fort to save the Union; that Stevens was to Lincoln, 
 not a help, but only a painful " thorn in the flesh." 
 It is said that Lincoln could not go faster nor further 
 in opposition to slavery than public sentiment per- 
 mitted; that if he had committed himself to the radi- 
 calism of the anti-slavery leaders he would have lost 
 
 1 Stevens' Papers, Oct. and Nov., 1862. 
 
190 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the slaveholcling Unionists in the Border States; he 
 would have lost wavering Republican voters in the 
 North to the Democratic party; he would have lost 
 volunteer soldiers to the army who had no thought 
 nor intention of fighting in an abolition war; and thus 
 he might have lost the cause of the Union itself. 
 
 If it be said that such anti-slavery criticisms as Stev- 
 ens indulged in embarrassed an ever-faithful and over- 
 burdened President who was merely biding his time 
 while waiting on public opinion, it may be asked, upon 
 the other hand, how public opinion was ever to be 
 brought to a higher plane, so that the great emanci- 
 pator might be enabled to do what he desired. His 
 desire was to lead on to that good time when all men 
 might be in the enjoyment of freedom. Could that 
 good time have come at all if the insurgent and radical 
 anti-slavery men had all kept still, or had uttered noth- 
 ing but pleasant and honeyed words for Lincoln and 
 his Cabinet? If Stevens and his kind had consented 
 to leave the administration in peace under the control 
 of the " timid conservative counselors " who, in both 
 field and forum, were ready to conduct the war with 
 polite and fraternal consideration for the Southern 
 whites and with utter indifference to the cause of the 
 slave; if they had not boldly fought and spoken for 
 their cause, it is not likely that either liberty or union 
 could have been preserved in the great civil struggle. 
 It should be remembered that a tremendous struggle 
 was going on within the councils of those friendly to 
 the cause of the Union for the control of the Presi- 
 dent and of the presidential powers. The radical anti- 
 slavery men, the " progressive insurgents " of their 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 191 
 
 day, won out, but they never could have won by a 
 policy of silence and fear. It is equally clear that they 
 could not have won by a disposition to conciliation and 
 compromise. It was not a species of lesc-majestc to 
 criticize Lincoln. He was fairly open to criticism and 
 no one knew better than himself the value of honest 
 censure. He sought no such pinnacle of exclusion 
 above his fellow men, and his course shows how wisely 
 and well he profited by the honest and patriotic censure 
 that was visited upon him. He candidly and modestly 
 acknowledged that he did not control events but that 
 events controlled him. He yielded where he ought to 
 have yielded, he resisted where resistance was de- 
 manded. One of the events that controlled him was 
 the persistent purpose of the Rebellion and its formid- 
 able character, which Stevens had so early and so ear- 
 nestly attempted to demonstrate; while another stub- 
 born and controlling event was the unbending purpose 
 of anti-slavery radicals like Stevens to see to it that 
 the restoration of the Union should carry with it the 
 abolition of slavery. 
 
 It is now quite clear, and it was clear to men of 
 foresight and vision then, that the nation had to choose 
 between the Union and slavery. They could not both 
 be preserved together. After the first year of war it 
 was only the dull unseeing persons who thought other- 
 wise, those who had no moral purpose or who were 
 very easy of conscience on the subject of slavery. 
 The loyal citizen had no alternative ; he had to choose 
 which he would cling to and which he would give up. 
 It was blind and fatuous to talk of keeping slavery and 
 the Union together. The old Union of guilty com- 
 
192 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 plicity with slavery was dead and it should never be 
 revived. This was the whole of Stevens' view, — all 
 he insisted upon; and who will say that he and the 
 men of his kind did not help Lincoln to realize it? 
 The men who preferred to " let the Union slide " if 
 its preservation by war threatened slave property were 
 a poor reliance, in Stevens' judgment, for the support 
 of the vigorous measures that were necessary to crush- 
 ing the Rebellion. A progressive policy on slavery was 
 what Stevens demanded, and there was no power so 
 great nor name so high as to restrain the utterance 
 of his conviction that it was futile, not to say criminal, 
 to continue the conduct of the war on the " stand pat " 
 policy of the " Union as it was and' the Constitution 
 as it is." 
 
 " ' The Union as it was and the Constitution as it 
 is ' is an atrocious idea ; it is man stealing," he said. 
 " Those who wish to reestablish the Union on that 
 basis can not escape the guilt of attempting to enslave 
 their fellow men. The Southern States have forfeited 
 all rights under the Constitution which they have re- 
 nounced. They are forever estopped from claiming 
 the Constitution as it was. The United States may 
 give them those rights if it choose, but they can not 
 claim them." The Slave States had voluntarily thrown 
 off the protection of the Constitution, and " under the 
 law of nations it is not only our right but our duty 
 to knock off every shackle from every limb." With 
 a deep and intense hatred of slavery and a withering 
 contempt for all who would sustain it he exclaimed : 
 "If a disgraceful peace were made leaving the cause 
 of this Rebellion and the cause of future wars un- 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 193 
 
 touched and living, its authors would be the objects of 
 the deepest execration and of the blackest infamy. . . . 
 All this clamor against radicals, all this cry of the 
 1 Union as it was,' is but a persistent effort to reestab- 
 lish slavery on the limbs of immortal beings. May 
 the God of Justice thwart their designs and paralyze 
 their wicked efforts." * 
 
 It was not the persistent utterance of such noble 
 convictions that embarrassed Lincoln and made the 
 issue doubtful. " Faithful are the wounds of a friend, 
 while the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." The anti- 
 slavery men were faithful friends to every effective 
 measure for the maintenance of the Union. Lincoln 
 knew full well that he could confidently rely upon them. 
 It was not the wounds from this source that most 
 worried the suffering President. It was the Copper- 
 heads; the weak-kneed and thin-skinned Unionists, 
 who were half secessionists ; men who were willing to 
 stand by the Union only if it protected slavery, and 
 who were ever ready to denounce the administration 
 for every forward step, — these were the men who 
 made Lincoln's life a burden in his conduct of the 
 war for the Union. At every suggestion of inter- 
 ference with slavery, these men — the Border State 
 slaveholders and the Northern Copperheads — were 
 constantly shouting "Abolitionist!" "Unconstitu- 
 tional! " which, Stevens said, were " favorite terms of 
 reproach in the mouths of tyrants and blackguards." 
 Stevens wished to brace up some of his Northern col- 
 leagues against their quaking fear of being dubbed with 
 this once odious epithet. He recognized in Lincoln 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 22, 1864. 
 
 
 
194 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 " the best meaning of living men," but he regretted ex- 
 ceedingly that the President " had not shown the stern- 
 ness of purpose and the Jacksonian resolution to save 
 the life of the nation by cutting the Gordian knot, in- 
 stead of nibbling at its fibers." He said that " Lincoln 
 had been restrained in his free action by the subtle 
 metaphysics of the Massachusetts Whigs and by the 
 perverts of the New York school, who have sought to 
 forget and to make others forget that there was ever 
 such a question as Liberty and Slavery and who have 
 sought to end the war in sixty days by not hurting or 
 provoking the rebels." 
 
 While Stevens had charity for the President, though 
 hesitating not to criticize his slowness and denounce 
 the false advisers around him, he had no charity for 
 " the bold and defiant Democrats " who, as he thought, 
 were seeking power and " were fighting the battles of 
 the rebels under the guise of the Constitution." These 
 men were ready to capitulate even though to do so 
 would be to perpetuate and extend human slavery. 
 " Those who prate for peace propose now to offer 
 the South new constitutional guarantees, and yet they 
 talk of the ' Constitution as it is.' These traitor Dem- 
 ocrats propose to amend the Constitution so as to pro- 
 hibit liberty in the South, but will not agree to amend 
 it so as to prohibit slavery in the North." 
 
 It was upon these men that Stevens visited his hot- 
 test anathemas. " Can the imagination," he asked, 
 " picture a class of men from the king of Dahomey 
 to the rebel Copperheads of New York and Pennsyl- 
 vania whose hearts are blacker, or whose thirst for 
 despotism is more hateful? Neither of the parties 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 195 
 
 could consent to ' the Union as it was.' No great 
 war ever left the parties at its close as they were at 
 its beginning." He referred to the " brutal resolu- 
 tion " of a late Democratic convention in Lancaster 
 County, recommending to the legislature " to deprive 
 a whole race of innocent men from breathing the air 
 of Pennsylvania." " The advocates of the measure," 
 said Stevens, " whether in the convention or in the 
 Legislature, are moral monsters, outlaws from every 
 principle of humanity, and of Christian civilization." 
 
 " These base Copperheads would change the Constitution 
 to conciliate the South, but not to hurt slavery. Before 
 this Rebellion began the Constitution bound us hand and 
 foot to the car of human bondage. Now when an all-wise 
 Providence has caused this wicked treason to break those 
 obligations and enable us to strike off their shackles and 
 guarantee universal freedom throughout this grand conti- 
 nent, these vipers, instead of glorying in the opportunity, 
 insist with one voice on reimposing their chains and doom- 
 ing this fair land, and generation upon generation of human 
 beings, to its blighting curse. 
 
 " Of what stuff are such things made ? Have they human 
 souls? I doubt if there can be found in the hottest corner 
 of pandemonium cinders black enough and hard enough to 
 make hearts for such inhuman wretches." 1 
 
 A year later Stevens was able to speak with a more 
 hopeful, not to say triumphant note. He then saw 
 the beginning of the end of slavery in America. He 
 warmly supported Lincoln's reelection to the presi- 
 dency, and in a notable campaign speech in the Union 
 League Hall in Philadelphia, Oct. 4, 1864, he sought to 
 encourage the people in the contest and to interpret 
 
 1 Speech before the Union League in Lancaster, 1863. 
 
196 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the deep significance of the issue involved. " From 
 this Rebellion," he said, " this republic will emerge 
 reunited, purified, strengthened, and glorious through- 
 out all time, or it will sink into profound despotism, 
 slavery, and infamy. On the result of the ensuing 
 election depends one or the other condition. Let no 
 one beguile the people at such a time with false and 
 flattering tongue. Let none dare to daub with un- 
 tempered mortar." 
 
 It is not now easy to realize the spirit of weakness 
 and surrender, not to speak of craven disloyalty, which 
 Stevens and the strong Unionists had to encounter in 
 those trying times. There were those " half traitors 
 and half cowards" who were urging the Northern 
 people to withdraw their armies and sue for peace. 
 Honorable W. B. Reed, a Pennsylvania Copperhead, 
 bearing a name distinguished in Revolutionary annals, 
 had ventured to stand in Philadelphia in the midst of 
 the Civil War and urge assent to the dismemberment of 
 the Union and the perpetuity of slavery, and he urged 
 that Pennsylvania should cast her lot with the South. 
 He drew a dreary picture of the sacrifices of the war, — 
 " a quarter of a million dead, millions of hopeless debt, 
 industry paralyzed, private fortunes shattered, the tax- 
 gatherer and the press-gang ever ready to start on 
 their relentless errand. Every day dissipates the the- 
 ory of conquest and widens the chasm which separates 
 us from our brethren of the South. The great Middle 
 States must speak and act in self-defense. If it be 
 a choice between the subjugation of the Southern 
 States and their tenure as military provinces and peace- 
 able recognition, I am for recognition. If the choice 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 197 
 
 lie between a continuance of the war and the recog- 
 nition of the Southern Confederacy, I am in favor 
 of recognition, of course making the abolition party- 
 responsible for the dread necessity. The blood of the 
 Union is on them. " x 
 
 This is a fair sample of the Democratic political 
 literature of the time which Stevens was called upon 
 to combat. No word of reproach for slaveholders in 
 arms against the nation; all reproaches were for the 
 lovers of freedom who had stirred up opposition to 
 slavery. The Constitution was constantly quoted in 
 favor of those who had thrown it overboard. If you 
 touch slavery you violate the blessed Constitution and 
 it will irritate the rebel masters and make them still 
 more angry, and, in any case, it is better to let them 
 have their way than to fight. 
 
 When it is remembered that a political party avow- 
 ing such principles and recognizing such men as lead- 
 ers had almost carried a majority of Congress in 1862 
 and were now contesting for the presidency with such 
 peace purposes in view, we may see how near the 
 nation was to surrender and how imminent was peace- 
 ful dissolution in the dark days of the Civil War. It 
 was no time for half-hearted men and half-hearted 
 speech. If ever there was a time in the history of 
 America that called for men of fighting courage, for 
 men like Pym and Cromwell, it was then. It was not 
 a time to load Union muskets with sawdust nor Union 
 speech with tender words of " fraternal regard for our 
 brethren of the South." It was a time for courageous 
 
 1 W. B. Reed, Vindication of Certain Political Opinions, Phil- 
 adelphia, 1862. 
 
i 9 8 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 fighting men, — for men like Thaddeus Stevens whose 
 words always had in them a tonic for the nerves of 
 loyal men. Facing the Copperhead leaders of Penn- 
 sylvania in the bitter political conflicts for the presi- 
 dency in the Civil War, he sought to recall to his 
 countrymen the origin of the conflict; how unprovoked 
 the Rebellion had been; how timid men had humbled 
 themselves in the dust before Southern insolence; how 
 they had proposed so to amend the Constitution as to 
 make the abolition of slavery impossible in a con- 
 stitutional way. 
 
 " The slaveholding madmen rejected the offers and 
 spurned the prostrate suppliants with scorn while yet kneel- 
 ing in the dust. Their folly was the salvation of freedom. 
 Had not the gods made them mad we should this day have 
 been in shackles instead of having stricken them from 
 others. Now that there is not a slave in the American 
 continent, shall we agree for the sake of a disgraceful and 
 precarious peace to reenslave four million human beings? 
 Shall we aid to rivet the chains on a whole race of God's 
 children that we may purchase the poor boon of a temporary 
 peace from triumphant traitors? If we are men we will 
 resist it to the death. If we are Christians we will sooner 
 suffer martyrdom. Furthermore let us consent to no peace 
 merely on the simple condition of the maintenance of the 
 Union. That would be a weak betrayal of noble men who 
 have fought our battles. Men who make such suggestions, 
 in the Cabinet or out, can be naught else than miserable 
 cowards or moral traitors. Men who aspire to march at 
 the head of a nation or to be foremost in the party of 
 progress, have no right to tremble or despair when danger 
 threatens. My young friends, I know not how such pol- 
 troonery stirs your warm blood, but, old as I am, it makes 
 the blood boil in my thin worn veins. It is not by such 
 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 199 
 
 trembling and trimming in compromises that great nations 
 are established or sustained." 1 
 
 He rejoiced that Lincoln had now risen above 
 Border State seductions, above Republican cowardice, 
 had elevated himself to the full height of his moral 
 nature, and had declared for both the integrity of the 
 Union and the abandonment of slavery. " Well may 
 every honest man, well may every man who loves God 
 and loves liberty exclaim, ' Thank God for Abraham 
 Lincoln.' Wiser and firmer than his official or officious 
 admirers, he has saved the nation from disgrace; he 
 has rescued liberty from destruction. I would not 
 bestow indiscriminate praise upon every act of the 
 President. Whoever heaps fulsome eulogy on those 
 in power is a parasite and a sycophant and not an 
 honest counselor. ' He crooks the pregnant hinges of 
 the knee that thrift may follow fawning.' An hon- 
 est critic who points out the errors of his friends may 
 be believed when he speaks of their virtues. He who 
 denies any errors to his idol makes him more than hu- 
 man and is entitled to no credit." 
 
 In the glad prospect before his country Stevens 
 thought Lincoln's countrymen might well forget that 
 he had erred in too long listening to false and timid 
 counselors. 
 
 The party of the Union was now united in an ag- 
 gressive and positive policy. The political contest in 
 Congress now was only with the apologists of the Re- 
 bellion and the friends and defenders of slavery who 
 claimed to be also friends of the Union. The final 
 
 1 Speech, Phila., Oct. 4, 1864, Union League Gazette. 
 
200 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 contest with these persistent opponents of a true Union, 
 with universal liberty as its basis, was to be over the 
 first of the great war amendments. 
 
 After the reelection of Lincoln in the fall of 1864, 
 it was seen that in the new Congress just elected there 
 would be a sufficient majority to pass the thirteenth 
 amendment to the Constitution forever abolishing 
 slavery throughout the United States. This amend- 
 ment had been introduced into the House by Mr. Ashley, 
 of Ohio, and into the Senate by Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, 
 as early as December, 1863. It had passed the Senate 
 by the necessary two-thirds majority on April 8, 1864. 
 Stevens was quick to bring it up in the House, but 
 on June 15, 1864, it failed there of the necessary two- 
 thirds vote. 1 
 
 It was opposed in debate by the most absurd, strict- 
 construction and obstructive views. Pendleton, of 
 Ohio, asserted that there were parts of the Constitu- 
 tion that could not be amended, not even by the con- 
 sent of all the states, save one. The right of any 
 state to regulate its own " domestic institutions " was 
 one of these. In our system of federal government 
 slavery was a " domestic institution," a cowardly 
 euphemism for slavery. Its abolition or retention be- 
 longed entirely to the state. It was, therefore, be- 
 yond the amending power. If all the states but one 
 should vote for the proposed amendment abolishing 
 slavery, it could not be abolished in that one save by 
 unconstitutional usurpation and lawless force. " If," 
 said Pendleton, " you propose that amendment on the 
 dissenting states by force it will be their right to 
 
 1 The vote stood, yeas, 93 ; nays, 65 ; not voting, 23. 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 201 
 
 resist you by force and to call to their aid all the pow- 
 ers which God and nature have given them to make 
 that force effective. If you propose to establish 
 over them by force a constitution which you have just 
 amended by force of arms, I warn you that you will 
 destroy the last lingering hope, faint and small as it 
 now is, that you will ever be able to restore this Union, 
 or even to maintain the jurisdiction of the federal 
 government over those states." 1 
 
 This meant, it would seem quite fair to say, that 
 Pendleton did not wish to see the Union restored by 
 successful war. He wanted, rather, that the war 
 should cease and the Southerners be allowed to have 
 their way, vainly hoping that they would choose, of 
 their own good will, to be reconciled to the Union on 
 terms not utterly degrading to the national honor. 2 
 
 1 See the Cong. Globe for June 15, 1864, and Jan. II, 1865. 
 In this discussion Stevens forced Pendleton to the reductio ad 
 absurdum of asserting that if three-fourths of the states at- 
 tempted such an amendment they would thereby take them- 
 selves out of the Union, while the minority of the resisting 
 states would compose the only true constitutional union. The 
 record is punctuated with laughter at this point, indicating that 
 there were at least some members who had a reasonable sense 
 of the ridiculous. Globe, p. 223, Jan. 11, 1865. 
 
 2 Pendleton warmly disclaimed any sympathy with rebellion 
 and slavery. He was an honest man, but whatever his inten- 
 tion, he should be held responsible for the effect of his words. 
 And it is impossible to see how his argument could have any 
 other effect than to give aid and comfort to slavery and rebellion. 
 He was giving, as he said, " the highest admiration of his intel- 
 lect and the profound homage of his heart " to a blessed docu- 
 ment, called the Constitution, forgetting his country, the nation, 
 and the welfare of millions for whom the Constitution existed. 
 It was government by parchment that he was contending for. 
 He predicted that if the majority of the House forced the final 
 emancipation of the slaves, the South " will liberate and arm 
 its negroes, and aided by the moral force, if not the material 
 power of Europe, will establish its independence, and your Union 
 President will sign the treaty of dissolution." Globe, Jan. 11, 
 1865. 
 
202 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The vanity of such a hope (if it were not a mere 
 deceitful and partisan pretense, as Thaddeus Stevens 
 was disposed to believe) was proved by every voice 
 and sign of public opinion that came up from the South. 
 
 Stevens combated Pendleton and he contended for 
 the unlimited power of amendment. He held very 
 logically that slavery was as suitable a subject for the 
 exercise of the amending power as was religion, to 
 which one of the early amendments related. No 
 power had been granted to Congress to legislate on 
 the subject of religion, but the absence of such dele- 
 gated power did not restrain the First Congress from 
 passing an amendment touching that subject. A like 
 exercise of power could be had with reference to 
 slavery. 
 
 After his reelection Lincoln, in his annual message 
 in December, urged Congress again to take up the 
 amendment and press it to passage. He asserted that 
 it was sure to pass sooner or later. The people had 
 spoken for it and the majority in the next Congress 
 would pass it, and the sooner it were done the better. 
 It would be worth thousands of armed men to the 
 Union cause and, as Lincoln urged, it might now be 
 reasonably voted for by those who had opposed it 
 before merely in deference to the expressed will of 
 the majority. 
 
 "When the amendment came up again it still met 
 with Democratic opposition. On January II, 1865, 
 Pendleton, closing a long and labored speech in oppo- 
 sition, referred to Stevens' constitutional argument 
 which was so abhorrent to the strict-construction, 
 states-rights, Democratic school. Pendleton recog- 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 203 
 
 nized Stevens' fame " for his sledge-hammer power 
 of logic," but he warned Stevens " to be careful how 
 he asserts too far his doctrine " that the war had 
 abrogated the Constitution. " Let him be careful lest 
 he may find that it will dissolve the ties which bind 
 the Northern States one to the other, and they be re- 
 mitted to their original position of independence. Let 
 him be careful lest when the passions of these times 
 be passed away and the historian shall go back to 
 discover where was the original infraction of the Con- 
 stitution he may find that sin lies at the door of 
 others than the people now in arms." * 
 
 This was equivalent to charging Stevens and those 
 who acted with him with responsibility for the war. 
 Stevens replied with spirit to so grave a charge. It 
 was during the last days in the discussions of the 
 thirteenth amendment, whose passage by the House on 
 January 31, 1865, was hailed as " an immortal and sub- 
 lime event." Up to this time in the history of the 
 amendment, Stevens, though constantly pressing the 
 amendment for passage, had spoken but little upon it. 
 The passage from Pendleton quoted above seems to 
 have been the occasion of calling from Stevens a brief 
 and valuable summary of his life's course toward slav- 
 ery in the last speech he made on that subject during the 
 Civil War. 1 A brief extract of that speech seems a 
 fitting close to this chapter, summarizing, as it does, 
 Stevens' attitude toward slavery and the war. 
 
 If it be true, as charged, that he and his anti-slavery 
 associates had first " infracted " the Constitution and 
 caused the war, it should induce them not only to 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 13, 1S65. 
 
204 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 great regret but to deep remorse. What, then, up to 
 the time of the breaking out of this Rebellion, was their 
 position upon the subject of slavery that caused this 
 war? He begged but a few moments to state it. 
 
 " From my earliest youth I was taught to read the 
 Declaration of Independence and to revere its sublime 
 principles. I have found in the great men of antiquity, 
 in all their works which have survived the ravages of 
 time, one unanimous denunciation of tyranny and 
 slavery and eulogy of liberty. And my hatred of this 
 infernal institution and my love of liberty were further 
 inflamed as I saw the inspired teachings of Socrates 
 and the divine inspirations of Jesus. 
 
 " Being immovably fixed in these principles I took 
 my stand among my fellow-citizens, and on all oc- 
 casions, whether in public or in private, in season, and, 
 if there could be such a time, out of season, I never 
 hesitated to express those ideas and sentiments, and 
 when I first went into public assemblies, I uttered this 
 language. I have done it among the pelting and hoot- 
 ing of mobs, and I never quailed before the infernal 
 spirit, and I hope I never shrank from the responsi- 
 bility of my language, j This feeling grew with my 
 growth and strengthened with my strength and I 
 thank God it has not decayed with enfeebling age. 
 
 " When, fifteen years ago, I was honored with a 
 seat in this body, it was dangerous to talk against 
 this institution, a danger which gentlemen now here 
 will never be able to appreciate. Some of us, however, 
 have experienced it ; my friend from Illinois on my 
 right (Mr. Washburne) has. And yet. sir, I did 
 not hesitate, in the midst of bowie-knives and revolvers 
 
 
SLAVERY AND THE WAR 205 
 
 and howling demons upon the other side of the House, 
 to stand here and denounce this infamous institution in 
 language which possibly now, on looking at it, I might 
 deem intemperate, but which I then deemed necessary 
 to rouse the public attention and cast odium upon the 
 worst institution upon earth, one which is a disgrace 
 to man and would be an annoyance to the infernal 
 spirits. 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, while I thus denounced it and ut- 
 tered my sentiments in favor of universal freedom 
 everywhere, I found in the Constitution of my country 
 what I construed, whatever others may think, as a 
 prohibition from touching slavery where it existed; 
 and through all my course I recognized and bowed to 
 a provision in that Constitution which I always re- 
 garded as its only blot; and I challenge the scrutiny 
 of my respected colleague on the Committee of Ways 
 and Means, or any other gentleman, through all the 
 records of utterances in this House, to find one single 
 motion or one single word which claimed on our part 
 to touch slavery in the states where it existed. We 
 admitted that it was there, protected by that instrument. 
 We claimed that in the territories we had full power 
 over it, and in the District of Columbia; and I, with 
 those who acted with me, could not hesitate as to what 
 our duty required in excluding it from the free soil 
 of the country and confining it to the spots it already 
 polluted. 
 
 " Such was our position, not disturbing slavery 
 where the Constitution protected it, but abolishing it 
 wherever we had the constitutional power and pro- 
 hibiting its further extension. I claimed the right 
 
206 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 then as I claim it now, to denounce it everywhere, 
 even in foreign lands, so that if such language could 
 anywhere affect public opinion it might do so. I 
 claimed the right to hedge it into the smallest space ; 
 • but no man with whom I acted ever proposed to violate 
 : the Constitution for the purpose of touching slavery." 
 
 He then stated the well-known position of his party 
 in favor of the exclusion of slavery from the terri- 
 tories and its abolition in the District of Columbia. 
 He endorsed the opinion of " the great man of the 
 West that it was a sin and a shame to believe that there 
 was no power on earth that could abolish slavery over 
 every inch of ground in the world." Referring to 
 Pendleton's pleas and efforts to ward off attacks upon 
 slavery, Stevens concluded : " I will be willing to take 
 my chance, when we all molder in the dust. He may 
 have his epitaph written, if it be truly written, ' Here 
 rests the ablest and most pertinacious defender of 
 slavery and opponent of liberty,' and I will be satisfied 
 if my epitaph shall be written thus: ' Here lies one 
 who never rose to any eminence, and who only courted 
 the low ambition to have it said that he had striven 
 to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the 
 downtrodden of every race and language and color.' 
 [Applause.] 
 
 " I shall be content, with such a eulogy on his lofty 
 tomb and such an inscription on my humble grave, to 
 trust our memories to the judgment of after ages." x 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 13, 1865. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 
 
 T T 7E come now to inquire into the attitude of Ste- 
 * * vens toward the Constitution, the constitution- 
 ality of war measures, and the effect of secession and 
 war on the constitutional status of the seceded states. 
 Much that has been said upon slavery bears directly 
 or indirectly upon this inquiry; but this important 
 aspect of Stevens' career and opinions in time of war, 
 calls for further notice and elaboration. It has an 
 important bearing on his later course in reconstruc- 
 tion, and it is important to notice that his constitu- 
 tional opinions after the war were merely those that 
 he announced and defended during the war. 
 
 The anti-slavery policy advocated by Stevens and 
 men like him was one of the apologies for opposition 
 to the war. The anti-slavery men were accused of 
 wishing to make the war entirely subservient to aboli- 
 tion, and of being unwilling to see the Union restored 
 with slavery as it was. They would not be quiet, and 
 they were charged with obtruding their opinions every- 
 where, with the result that, while at the beginning of 
 the war the nation was united, the Union forces were 
 soon divided, since those who wished to prosecute the 
 war solely for the purpose of restoring the Union were 
 alienated and estranged. 1 
 
 1 Diven, of N, Y., Cong. Globe, Jan. 22, 1862. 
 
 207 
 
2o8 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 A large body of conservative men in the North, 
 chiefly among those who had opposed the Republican 
 party and Mr. Lincoln's election, looked upon the anti- 
 slavery program both as a perversion of the Con- 
 stitution and an entire departure from the original and 
 legitimate objects of the war. Under the leadership 
 of adroit and able men, these conservative Democrats 
 and constitutional Unionists became a compact party 
 of opposition whose opinions and purposes may be 
 summarized as follows : 
 
 In the first place they accepted the Crittenden Reso- 
 lutions 1 as their war platform, and they would have 
 it clearly recognized that the primary and sole object 
 of the war was to save the LInion. It was not to in- 
 terfere in any way with slavery. Any act or policy 
 tending to turn the military forces of the government 
 from mere Union-saving to abolitionism, or toward 
 emancipation as a means of Union-saving, was uncon- 
 stitutional and a perversion of the object of war, and 
 it ought to be restricted. 
 
 In the second place, according to the policy of this 
 anti-war party, the war must be so conducted and 
 ended as to preserve the equality of the states. The 
 Union was based on this equality and it must be pre- 
 served as it was made. There must be no conquest, 
 nor subjugation, nor interference with statehood or 
 with the rights of the states, their governments, or 
 their domestic laws. Whoever should attempt by 
 federal authority to destroy any of the states or to set 
 up any federal authority within them not allowed under 
 conditions of peace, was guilty of a high crime against 
 1 See p. 171. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 209 
 
 the Union; and any person proposing peace on any 
 other basis than the integrity of the states was as 
 guilty a criminal as he who would propose peace on 
 the basis of a dismembered Union. The Southern 
 States must not be reduced to provinces or territories, 
 nor the Southern people regarded as alien enemies; 
 but the constitutional relation of the states to the 
 Union was to be recognized as being undisturbed and 
 the constitutional rights of the Southern people should 
 be fully maintained. To prosecute hostilities beyond 
 these limits, or in a spirit of conquest in violation of 
 these principles would destroy state equality, subvert 
 the Constitution and prevent the Union. 1 
 
 This meant that the constitutional limits set to con- 
 gressional and executive power must be the same in 
 war as in peace. Secession, rebellion, and war had 
 made no change as to the powers that Congress could 
 exercise within the states, be they the states of the 
 Confederacy or the states of the Union. The Presi- 
 dent's powers were not increased. Therefore his 
 executive orders, his proclamations, his military 
 suspension of habeas corpus, his arbitrary arrests, must 
 all be tested by the terms and restrictions of the Con- 
 stitution as in time of peace. " The Union as it was, 
 the Constitution as it is," was the maxim of the party. 
 In the view of these constitutionalists, the Union 
 was to be saved only by, through and under the 
 Constitution, — nothing more nor less. They idealized 
 the Constitution. To them the Constitution was 
 identical with the nation. Without it there could be 
 no Union. The Constitution gone, the republic is 
 
 1 Pendleton's Resolutions, July 31, 1861, Globe. 
 
2io THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 dead. The war was for the preservation of the Con- 
 stitution and for that alone ; it was against the Consti- 
 tution and because it was binding on all, that the 
 Southerners were rebels. These conservatives de- 
 nounced the anti-slavery advocates as being indifferent 
 as to whether or not their policies were in harmony 
 with the Constitution, and this fact made the hated 
 abolitionists, as they called all anti-slavery men, as 
 guilty criminals as the secessionists themselves. 
 
 In the view of this party almost everything that 
 the President or Congress proposed or did, for the 
 * effective and vigorous prosecution of the war, was 
 unconstitutional. Confiscation of slave property was 
 unconstitutional; retaining fugitive slaves within our 
 lines was unconstitutional; the military emancipation 
 of Fremont and Hunter was unconstitutional ; the use 
 of slaves as contraband was unconstitutional ; Lin- 
 coln's plan of compensated emancipation was 
 unconstitutional; enlistment of negro troops was un- 
 constitutional; abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia was unconstitutional; the prohibition of 
 slavery in the territories (with the Dred Scott decision 
 still unreversed) was unconstitutional; the Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation was unconstitutional; the draft was 
 unconstitutional; the suspension of the writ of habeas 
 corpus was unconstitutional ; military arrests were un- 
 constitutional ; suspending, or in any way reinstating 
 state governments in the South under Federal authority 
 was unconstitutional; Lincoln's appointment of mili- 
 tary governors and his beginnings of reconstruction 
 were unconstitutional. Almost everything that was 
 done or attempted in the prosecution of the war from 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 21 1 
 
 Lincoln's first call for troops to the final scene at Ap- 
 pomattox was denounced as unconstitutional. No 
 exercise of power was constitutional except what was 
 unmistakably granted by a strict construction of the 
 Constitution interpreted as in times of peace. The 
 sacred and revered Constitution was to be the standard 
 for measuring all acts and policies of war. The war 
 had made no difference in the rights and immunities 
 due to the seceded states. The Constitution protected 
 them still. They were not bound by its provisions in 
 the conduct of the war, but their opponents were to 
 be restrained from every aggressive act of power not 
 clearly within its specific limits. 
 
 This was a fearful handicap for the national gov- 
 ernment. Such a policy would have led to a passive 
 and harmless war, almost purely defensive in its 
 operations on the part of the national government. 
 Carried to its logical conclusion, no invasion of the 
 Southern States nor subduing of the Southern people 
 would have been possible under it, and it is very 
 problematical whether the Constitution and the Union 
 could have been saved for the South under its opera- 
 :ion. It would have left the government inefficient, 
 if not absolutely helpless in the face of the Rebellion. 
 
 To this party, to its constitutional views and to all 
 )f its ways, Thaddeus Stevens was diametrically op- 
 posed. He was its constant and stout antagonist. He 
 lerided these sticklers for the Constitution and de- 
 lounced them in unsparing terms, speaking of them 
 .s " traitors in disguise " or as " sympathizers with the 
 ebels," their " apologists and abetters." Against its 
 dvocates he used all his powers of ridicule, satire, 
 
212 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 invective, and anathema. He sought not to fondle nor 
 conciliate them nor to sue for their support. He would 
 ride over them and trample them under foot. To 
 him they were merely obstacles to the accomplishment 
 of the great end in view, — the triumph of the Union 
 arms in war. They and he were at the antipodes of 
 the political world, and they were not by any means 
 tender in their words for one another. 
 
 In opposition to this theoretical and nerveless con- 
 stitutionalism, Stevens sought early to establish a legal 
 basis for the conduct of the war that would give the 
 nation a chance to fight, and in the first discussion on 
 slavery and the war 1 he laid down the legal and 
 proper premises for the fighting at hand. He brushed 
 theories aside, looked at the facts and saw them as 
 they were; and he sought a basis of action best calcu- 
 lated to bring the result desired. He took the bold 
 ground that in the contest for its life the nation was 
 not bound by the limitations of the Constitution. The 
 war had abrogated the Constitution, not where it was 
 respected and could be enforced by ordinary civil 
 processes, but with respect to hostile confederated 
 states that had rejected and repudiated the Constitu- 
 tion, trampled it under foot, and were resisting its 
 restoration by organized armies. The people of the 
 Confederate States were public belligerent enemies 
 and the nation in its effort to overcome them was 
 bound only by the laws of war and the law of nations. 
 This was the sum and substance of Stevens' legal po- 
 sition, and it seemed to be dictated by the plain common 
 sense of the situation. 
 
 1 Aug. 2, 1861. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 213 
 
 To this principle, of acting toward the South as a 
 belligerent in war, bound only by the laws of war and 
 not by the hampering restrictions of the Constitution, 
 Stevens adhered strictly and consistently throughout 
 the struggle. As a principle of public law for the 
 crisis it was the most reasonable, effective, and con- 
 sistent position of any public man of his time. It was 
 calculated to free the nation from embarrassment and 
 to give it efficiency in war. The way was open for 
 the application of this principle when Southern bel- 
 ligerency was recognized by the declaration of block- 
 ade. Stevens did not approve of President Lincoln's 
 proclamation of April, 1861, declaring the blockade 
 of the Southern ports. He held it to be a mistake. 
 He would have repealed the laws making these ports 
 ports of entry and then there would have been no need 
 of a blockade. A nation has a right to close its own 
 ports, but that is not a blockade. If we had thus 
 closed our own ports, no nation would then have had 
 a right to send vessels there, even though we might 
 not have had a ship of war within a hundred miles. 
 If the Confederate States created ports of entry, for- 
 eign nations could not recognize these ports without 
 recognizing the independence of the Confederacy, and 
 that would be a cause of war. 
 
 Whether foreign nations would have respected such 
 a policy is doubtful. At any rate, by our blockade and 
 by the acknowledgment of European powers belliger- 
 ency was recognized and the South had become entitled 
 to all the rights of war. They were also subject to 
 all the rules of war, with no other rights due from 
 their belligerent antagonists than these rules accord 
 
 
2i 4 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 them. The Constitution had no longer the least effect 
 upon them. " It is idle to tell me," said Stevens, " that 
 the obligations of an instrument are binding on one 
 party while they are repudiated by the other. Obliga- 
 tions to be binding in war must be mutual, equally 
 acknowledged, and admitted by all parties. There is 
 another principle just as universal : — when parties be- 
 come belligerent the war between them abrogates all 
 compacts, treaties, and constitutions which may have 
 existed between them before the war commenced." 
 
 Such was Stevens' legal basis for the conduct of 
 the war. It was announced in the beginning x in re- 
 sponse to the argument of George H. Pendleton, of 
 Ohio, that only two alternatives were open, — either 
 the men now in rebellion are public enemies subject to 
 the laws of war or they are citizens of the United 
 States subject to the penalties of the law of the Consti- 
 tution and likewise entitled to all the benefits and 
 guarantees which that instrument prescribes for every 
 citizen. If we regard them as in one capacity we 
 can not regard them as in the other. We should not 
 hold them to be public enemies for one purpose, that is, 
 to deprive them of the guarantees which the Consti- 
 tution gives them, and still hold them to be citizens in 
 order to inflict upon them the penalties of treason, 
 which the law prescribes for a citizen. We should 
 choose one or the other of these alternatives, and fol- 
 low it to its logical and legitimate conclusion. Such 
 was Pendleton's argument. 
 
 Stevens did not shrink from the alternatives sug- 
 gested. He had no scruples over these distinctions in 
 
 1 August 2, 1861. 
 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 215 
 
 law. He saw clearly the public law in the case. To 
 his mind the people of the Confederate States were 
 rebels who had incurred the penalties of treason under 
 the Constitution, after the success of the war in sub- 
 duing them; but during the process of the war for 
 their subjection, they were public enemies outside the 
 pale of the Constitution. The position was clear and 
 logical and Stevens did not hesitate to follow it to 
 its conclusion. 
 
 It was a pity that so many men of respectability 
 and standing failed to see the folly and absurdity of 
 attempting to apply the Constitution to the state of 
 war then existing between North and South. 
 
 " I thought the time had come," said Stevens, when 
 pleading for the first act of confiscation, " when the 
 laws of war were to govern our action ; when constitu- 
 tions, if they stood in the way of the laws of war in 
 dealing with the enemy, had no right to intervene. 
 Who pleads the Constitution against our proposed 
 action? Who says the Constitution must come in in 
 bar of our action? It is the advocates of rebels who 
 have sought to overthrow the Constitution, who repu- 
 diate the Constitution and trample it in the dust. Sir, 
 these rebels, who have disregarded and set at defiance 
 that instrument, are by every rule of municipal and 
 international law, estopped from pleading it against our 
 action. Who, then, is it that comes to us and says, 
 [ You can not do this thing because your Constitution 
 does not permit it ' ? The Constitution ! Our Consti- 
 tution which you repudiate and trample under foot, for- 
 bids it ! Sir, it is an absurdity. There must be a 
 party in court to plead it, and that party to be entitled 
 
216 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 to plead it in court, must first acknowledge its su- 
 premacy or he has no business to be in court at all. 
 I repeat, then, that those who bring in this plea here, 
 in bar of our action, are the advocates of rebels. 
 They are nothing else, whatever they intend. I mean 
 it, of course, in a legal sense. I mean they are acting 
 in the capacity of counselors-at-law for the rebels, 
 speaking for them, not for us who are the plaintiffs 
 in this transaction. I deny that they have any right 
 to plead at all. I deny that they have any standing in 
 court. ... I deny that they can be permitted to come 
 here and tell us that we must be loyal to the Consti- 
 tution." r 
 
 When he was asked how members of Congress who 
 had taken an oath to support the Constitution could 
 violate it in their action, whether rebels complain of 
 it or not, he replied that they do not violate it when 
 they are operating against men who have no rights 
 to the benefits of the Constitution. It was interna- 
 tional law, not the law of the Constitution that applied 
 to the war. — " In the midst of arms laws are silent," 
 a law that has been in force from the days of Cicero; 
 and " any nation that disregards that law is a poor, 
 pusillanimous nation which submits its neck to be 
 struck off by the enemy." 
 
 A member 2 interposed an objection. "I under- 
 stand," he said, " the gentleman to admit that this bill 3 
 is unconstitutional but to defend it and to urge its 
 passage on the ground that during the existence of 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, Aug. 2, 1861, p. 414. 
 
 - Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky. 
 
 3 The Confiscation Act of Aug. 6, 1861. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 217 
 
 rebellion Congress has a right to do an unconstitutional 
 act." " I say that it is constitutional," replied Stevens, 
 " and according to the law of nations in time of war. 
 [Laughter.] I admit that if you were in a state of 
 peace you could not confiscate the property of any 
 citizen, but in time of war you have the right to 
 confiscate the property of every rebel. Every measure 
 which will enable you to subdue your enemy and tri- 
 umph over him is justifiable on your part. If by tak- 
 ing from him every dollar of property which he has 
 on earth you will weaken his hands you are at liberty 
 to fight him in that way." 
 
 This is the identical principle that President Lin- 
 coln finally adopted in the exercise of his war powers, 
 and which he announced a little more than a year later 
 as the basis of his right to make arbitrary arrests and 
 to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln's course 
 in pursuance of this principle, in the matter of arbi- 
 trary arrests, may be even more open to criticism and 
 objection than was the attitude of Stevens. The latter 
 did not hold that the Constitution and the laws might 
 be abrogated and disregarded by executive power in 
 the Northern States where the laws could be peaceably 
 enforced without process of arms. There Stevens' 
 war doctrine did not apply. But it applied against 
 those who were making war on the Constitution to 
 overthrow it. In the Rebel States the Constitution, for 
 the period of the war, had ceased to operate, but it was 
 in operation and must be respected where no war had 
 been made upon it. 
 
 The confiscation, which he favored from the begin- 
 ning, followed, not under the Constitution after con- 
 
218 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 viction for treason, but by virtue of the laws of war. 
 " No individual crime need be proved against the 
 owners. The fact of being a belligerent enemy carries 
 the forfeiture. This might work a hardship on loyal 
 men in the South. But to escape the condition of 
 enemies they must change their domicile and leave 
 the hostile state." * 
 
 This doctrine that the Constitution, with regard to 
 the states in rebellion, had no binding influence and 
 no application, Stevens maintained on repeated occa- 
 sions during the war. It was not an utterance ex- 
 pressed in the heat of partisan debate or on the spur 
 of an occasion, but it was his deliberate opinion ex- 
 pressed after a careful examination of the law of the 
 United States and of nations. When a state of war 
 came to be admitted, every obligation previously ex- 
 isting between the government and the rebellious 
 states, " every treaty, compact, contract, or anything 
 else is wholly abrogated and from that moment the 
 belligerents act toward each other according to the 
 laws of war." The following dialogue brings forth 
 clearly Stevens' position : 
 
 Mr. Dunlap : " Are not those seceded states still 
 members of this Union, and under the laws of the 
 government ? " 
 
 Mr. Stevens: " In my opinion they are not." 
 
 Mr. Dunlap : " Then I would ask, did the ordi- 
 nances of secession take them out of the Union? " 
 
 Mr. Stevens : " The ordinances of secession, 
 backed by the armed power which made them a bel- 
 ligerent nation, did take them, so far as present 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, Jan. 22, 1864. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 219 
 
 operations are concerned, from under the laws of the 
 nation." 
 
 Mr. Dunlap: "Are they, then, members of the 
 Union?" 
 
 Mr. Stevens : ' They are not, in my judgment." 
 
 Mr. Yeaman : " Does the gentleman hold that the 
 ordinance of secession passed in South Carolina was 
 legal, and under the Constitution of the United 
 States?" 
 
 Mr. Stevens : " I hold that it was an act of treason 
 and rebellion." 
 
 Mr. Yeaman : " Did the backing up of these ordi- 
 nances of secession by armed force impart to them 
 any validity? " 
 
 Mr. Stevens : " I hold that so long as they remain 
 in force against us as a belligerent power, and until 
 they are conquered, it is in fact an existing opera- 
 tion; I will not say anything about its legality. 
 [Laughter.] I hold that it is an existing fact and that 
 so far from enforcing any laws, you have not the 
 power." 1 
 
 His opponents sought to restrict him to a theory of 
 the Constitution and of the law as if the war had no 
 existence. His mind was too vigorous and assertive 
 for such a straight-jacket. Stevens was guided by 
 the facts. He was a practical statesman, not a doc- 
 trinaire particularist. He had the great qualities of 
 the lawyer — not the pettifogging qualities — that en- 
 abled him to announce the law that was suitable to the 
 momentous and overruling fact of war, and that made 
 him impatient with questions of law that were purely 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, Jan. 8, 1863, Vol. 63, pp. 239-240. 
 
220 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 theoretical and abstract. To him it was utterly absurd 
 to say — as it will seem absurd to the ordinary reader 
 to-day — that men in arms might claim the protection 
 of the Constitution and laws that were made for loyal 
 men, while these armed rebels refuse to obey one of 
 those laws or acknowledge their binding effect. He 
 wanted a reciprocity of obligation under the Constitu- 
 tion, or there should be none acknowledged as binding 
 on the part of the national government. 
 
 He assumed the same consistent attitude toward the 
 constitutionality of all the anti-slavery measures that 
 arose during the progress of the war. While he was 
 urging emancipation he referred to the claim that the 
 Constitution did not authorize Congress to interfere 
 with slavery in the states. That was true only before 
 the Constitution had been abrogated by the fact of 
 war. But when the Constitution is " repudiated and 
 set at defiance by an armed rebellion too powerful to 
 be quelled by peaceable means, the Constitution itself 
 grants to the President and Congress a supplemental 
 power which it is impossible to define because it must 
 increase and vary according to the necessity of the 
 nation." If it were necessary as a means of saving 
 the republic, there was power under the Constitution 
 to declare a dictator. Only necessity would justify 
 this fearful power, — to snatch the nation from the 
 jaws of death. But as the safety of the people was the 
 supreme law, rather than that the nation should perish 
 he would use it. " Rather than see the nation dis- 
 honored by compromise, concession, and submission; 
 rather than see the Union dissevered I would do it 
 now. Oh, for six months of stern old Jackson ! " 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 221 
 
 It will be seen that Stevens' constitutional position,"^ 
 or extra-constitutional position, was consistent, 
 straightforward, and outspoken. He blinked at noth- 
 ing, but he always looked the constitutional issue 
 squarely in the face. He made no pretenses and would 
 resort to no subterfuges or forced constructions to jus- 
 tify a course already predetermined. This is seen still 
 more clearly in his attitude toward the admission of 
 West Virginia. 
 
 The Constitution clearly provides that no state shall 
 be divided without its consent. When Virginia se- 
 ceded the people in the western counties of the state, 
 wishing to remain loyal to the Union, assumed to 
 form a state government and choose state officers, 
 and a state legislature. They elected Senators and 
 Representatives to Congress who were admitted to 
 their seats. They claimed to be the people of Virginia, 
 constitutionally competent to give the consent of the 
 state to the formation of a new state within the 
 borders of the "Old Dominion." This people, having 
 given its consent to the division of the old state of 
 Virginia, immediately erected itself into the new state 
 of West Virginia. Nobody consented except those 
 within the limits of the new state. That is, the new 
 state consented to the division of the old, and when 
 the new state had been admitted according to pre- 
 arrangement, Mr. Pierpont, pretending to be the Gov- 
 ernor of the state that pretended to be Virginia, moved 
 over to Alexandria and kept up the pretense of being 
 gubernatorial head of old Virginia, — with an official 
 body that Sumner afterward called the " common 
 council of Alexandria." As Stevens said after the 
 
222 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 war, " All the archives, property and effects of the 
 Pierpont government were taken to Richmond in an 
 ambulance." This was the government recognized 
 during the war as the legitimate, constitutional gov- 
 ernment of Virginia, so bound were public men to 
 constitutional forms. 
 
 There were distinguished members of Congress who 
 sought to find ground in the Constitution for the recog- 
 nition of the Pierpont government, and for the process 
 by which Virginia was divided and West Virginia 
 admitted. But to Stevens, the proceedings, and argu- 
 ments based upon them, were all ridiculous and absurd. 
 He scorned these fine-spun legal fictions and it was not 
 his style to " beat the devil about the bush " in any 
 such way. He was opposed to giving seats in the 
 House to members from Virginia after the secession 
 of that state, a policy that was urged on the plea that 
 the little handful of loyal men left there after secession 
 were the state of Virginia. " We know," he said, 
 " that members have been elected to this House by only 
 twenty votes and those cast under the guns of a fort. 
 To say that those gentlemen represent any district is 
 mere mockery." * Much less did they represent a part 
 of an organized state. 
 
 Stevens was willing to accomplish the end in view, 
 — 'the dismemberment of Virginia and the admission 
 of the new state, — the sufficient ground for the act 
 being that it would weaken the enemy and help the 
 national cause. However, he recognized but one legal 
 ground for the proceeding. Some of his colleagues 
 voted against the admission of West Virginia because 
 
 1 Globe, Dec. 2, 1861. 
 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 223 
 
 they thought its formation was unconstitutional. 
 Others attempted to defend it on constitutional ground. 
 Either position Stevens looked upon as weak and inane 
 in a Union war man. Stevens was ready to vote for 
 the admission of West Virginia because he did not 
 think the Constitution applied to a state in arms 
 against the government of the Union. He was not 
 afraid nor ashamed to ignore the Constitution which 
 the rebels were ignoring, in order to do what was 
 best for his cause and for their defeat. 
 
 " We may admit West Virginia," he said, " not by 
 any provisions of the Constitution but under our ab- 
 solute power which the laws of war give us. I shall 
 vote for this bill upon that theory and that alone ; for 
 I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have 
 any warrant in the Constitution for this proceeding. 
 
 "' Sir, it is but mockery, in my judgment, to tell me 
 that the Legislature of Virginia has ever consented to 
 this division. About 200,000 out of 1,250,000 people 
 have held a convention and elected a legislature which 
 has assented to the division. But before all this was 
 done the state had a regular organization and a con- 
 stitution under which it acted. By a convention of 
 a large majority of the people of that state they 
 changed their constitution and changed their relation 
 to the federal government from that of one of its 
 members to that of secession. This is treason, but 
 so far as the state corporation was concerned, it was 
 a valid act and governed the state. The majority of 
 the people of Virginia was the state of Virginia, al- 
 though individuals had committed treason. Their 
 legislature which called the seceding convention was 
 
224 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the legislature of the state. The legislature was 
 disloyal and traitorous, but the state as a state was 
 bound by their acts. Not so individuals. They are re- 
 sponsible to the general government, whether the state 
 decrees treason or not. Governor Letcher, elected by 
 a majority of the votes of Virginia, is the Governor 
 of Virginia, — a traitorous Governor of a traitorous 
 state. A small number of the citizens of Virginia — 
 the people in West Virginia — assembled together, dis- 
 approved of the acts of Virginia, and with the utmost 
 self-complacency called themselves Virginia. Is it not 
 ridiculous ? " x 
 
 This seemed more straightforward than to stretch 
 the Constitution by a forced and fictitious construc- 
 tion while claiming to respect its provisions. To a 
 layman it seemed like better law, better sense, sounder 
 morality and sounder political science. 
 
 This view of the character of the state and the effect 
 of secession Stevens maintained consistently on all oc- 
 casions. It was on this ground that he would apply 
 confiscation, that is, as against enemies in war. If the 
 Rebel States were still in the Union and under the 
 Constitution, as some theorists contended, he saw no 
 reason why they should not elect the next President 
 of the United States. If the rebels decline to vote, 
 then one hundred loyal men who, as his legal oppo- 
 nents contended, still continue to be " the state," 
 " might meet and choose the state's share of electors. 
 The few loyal men around Fortress Monroe or Nor- 
 folk, or Alexandria, and a few ' cleansed patches ' in 
 Louisiana, being one thousandth part of the state, 
 
 1 Cong. Globe j Dec. 9, 1862. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 225 
 
 might choose electors for the whole state." It was 
 such reasoning that seemed to Stevens like a mockery 
 of constitutional law and political science. Will any 
 reputable authority on the political science and the 
 Constitution of the American commonwealth deny the 
 soundness of his position? 
 
 " It is idle to say that townships and counties and 
 parishes within such states are at peace while the 
 states by acknowledged majorities have declared for 
 war. It is still more idle to say that individuals within 
 the belligerent territory, because they were opposed to 
 secession and were loyal to the parent government, are 
 the state, though only five per cent, of the people, and 
 hence that the " states " are not at war. This is ig- 
 noring the fundamental principle of democratic re- 
 publics, which is that majorities must rule, that the 
 voice of the majority, however abandoned and wicked, 
 is the voice of the state. If the minority choose to 
 stay with the misgoverned territory they are its citizens 
 and subject to its conditions. True, in dealing per- 
 sonally great difference is made between the innocent 
 and the guilty. But how can it be said that the states 
 are not at war? 
 
 " The idea that a few loyal citizens are the state 
 and may override and govern the disloyal millions, I 
 am not able to comprehend. If ten men fit to save 
 Sodom can elect a Governor and other state officers 
 against more than a million Sodomites in Virginia, 
 then the democratic doctrine that the majority shall 
 rule is discarded and ignored. Not the quality but 
 the number of votes have the right to govern. In 
 South Carolina a rebel's vote weighs just as much as 
 
226 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 a loyal voter's. It is mere mockery to say that, ac- 
 cording to any principle of popular government, a 
 tithe of the resident inhabitants of an organized state 
 can change its form and carry on government because 
 they are more holy or loyal." x 
 
 In an arraignment of Stevens' position, Honorable 
 Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, contended that state- 
 hood in the South was indestructible, that the Con- 
 federate States were like Missouri whose territory 
 had been overrun by rebel armies but whose state 
 organization, with the majority of votes and coercive 
 power behind it, had remained loyal to the Union. 
 According to Blair the Southern States were merely 
 under duress. All that was necessary was to drive 
 out the rebel power that was holding their governments 
 in restraint, and recognize and sustain the loyal ele- 
 ment as the state. This duress had not extinguished 
 the legitimate local sovereignty nor the supreme sov- 
 ereignty of the general government. Blair claimed 
 that Stevens in recognizing the Southern States as 
 subsisting states, as perfect now as before the Rebel- 
 lion, and that in regarding the Confederate States as 
 a separate belligerent power carrying on a legitimate 
 war, — in holding this position Blair contended that 
 Stevens had recognized secession as " absolutely and 
 with more distinctness than ever Calhoun had ven- 
 tured to urge it." " In this position," said Blair, " no 
 man North or South ever asserted the secession cause 
 so boldly in the forum as the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 vania." and he asserted that Stevens had treated with 
 scorn the idea that states held in duress by the rebel 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 22, 1864. 
 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 227 
 
 power have a right to look to our laws and Constitu- 
 tion for protection. This " secession-abolition-abso- 
 lute-conquest doctrine," said Blair, was " in defiance 
 of national and state constitutions, the law of the civ- 
 ilized world and of all humanity." 
 
 Stevens replied with vigor to Blair, whose speech, 
 he said, " contained the distilled virus of the Copper- 
 head." Blair had made a false statement of Stevens' 
 position. " If the armies of the Confederate States 
 should overrun a loyal state and hold it in duress, that 
 state would have a right to appeal to the Constitution 
 for protection. But a state which by a free majority 
 of its voters has thrown off its allegiance to the Con- 
 stitution and holds itself in duress by its own armies, 
 is estopped from claiming any protection under the 
 Constitution. To say that such a state is within the 
 pale of the Union so as to claim protection under its 
 constitution and laws is but the raving of a madman." 
 
 " To escape the consequence of my argument he 
 [Blair] denies that the Confederate States have been 
 acknowledged as belligerents or have established and 
 maintained independent government dc facto. Such 
 assurance would deny that there is a sun in heaven. 
 They have a Congress in which eleven states are repre- 
 sented ; they have at least 300,000 soldiers in the field ; 
 their pickets are almost within sight of Washington. 
 They have ships of war on the ocean destroying hun- 
 dreds of our ships, and our government and the gov- 
 ernments of Europe acknowledge and treat them as 
 privateers, not as pirates. There is no reasoning 
 against such impudent denials. 
 
 " But it is said the Constitution does not allow them 
 
228 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 to go out of the Union. True, and in going out they 
 committed a crime for which we are now warring 
 against them. The law forbids a man to rob or mur- 
 der, yet robbery and murder exist de facto. Blair 
 had said that those who declare the states outlawed 
 to the Union preach the doctrine of secession as much 
 as Jefferson Davis. Does the man," asked Stevens, 
 " who declares that murder and larceny exist give 
 countenance to those crimes ? The one is as reasonable 
 as the other. If the fiction of equity courts that what- 
 ever ought to be shall be considered as existing, — if 
 this is true, then the rebel states are in the Union. 
 If the naked facts, palpable to every eye, attested by 
 many a bloody battle-field, and recorded by every day's 
 hostile legislation, both in Washington and Richmond, 
 are to prevail, then the rebellious states are no more 
 in the Union, in fact, than the loyal states are in the 
 Confederate States. Nor should they ever be treated 
 so until they repent and are rebaptized into the na- 
 tional Union." 1 
 
 The seceded states had, de facto, committed the 
 )( crime of secession. That no one could deny. They, 
 therefore, stood in that attitude as outlaws and aliens 
 from the protection of the Constitution. They were 
 a belligerent, occupying the position of a foreign na- 
 tion, as far as their rights under the Constitution were 
 concerned. But, when conquered, they would be in a 
 worse condition than a foreign nation, since they were 
 traitors to their government, and, as such, they must 
 be pursued and punished to their utter subjugation. 2 
 
 1 Globe, May 2, 1864, p. 2042. 
 
 2 Stevens' critics sought to make it appear that his position 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 229 
 
 Such was Stevens' constitutional position in the 
 conduct of the war. This position he assumed at the 
 start when he was called on to meet the problem of 
 war, and he maintained it to the close when he had 
 to meet the problem of reconstruction. In maintaining 
 his ground he never wavered nor doubted; and, year 
 by year, he had the satisfaction of seeing his party 
 advancing steadily to his position. On May 2, 1864, 
 Stevens congratulated the country that the House had 
 recently passed a resolution recognizing that " the war 
 had been brought on by a wicked and wholly unjusti- 
 fiable rebellion, and those engaged in aiding or en- 
 couraging it are public enemies and should be treated 
 as such." In this the House had asserted the funda- 
 mental principle for which Stevens had contended. 
 The consequences which he sought to establish would 
 follow as a corollary. 
 
 Stevens knew full well that, in voicing the doctrine 
 that the Constitution was suspended by the fact of war, 
 he had not been all the while speaking the sentiment of 
 his party or of the administration. His position had >' 
 been too radical for his party. But Stevens was sat- - 
 isfied to go ahead and point out the way. He was > 
 content and brave enough to stand out boldly and alone 
 
 was similar to that of those who were so friendly to the South 
 that they would recognize the Confederacy as an independent 
 power, de jure; that, as Stevens expressed it, "these states be 
 permitted to remain a de facto secession power without punish- 
 ment; that this government should extend to them the right 
 hand of fellowship in the shape of negotiation, withdraw its 
 armies and allow them to maintain the attitude which, through 
 their great crime, they had acquired." Globe, April n, 1864, p. 
 1534. It is needless to say that it was only by the pretenses of 
 partisanship that attempt could be made to assimilate these two 
 positions. They were as wide apart as the poles. 
 
230 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 for a doctrine which, as he believed, was the only 
 sound and consistent position on which the war could 
 be successfully conducted, and which, as he predicted, 
 his colleagues and colaborers for the Union would, 
 in time, find it necessary to adopt. He now had the 
 grim satisfaction of seeing this very thing come about, 
 and he might very properly and reasonably have re- 
 called his personal vaunt of the year before when he 
 reminded his party associates that he had been merely 
 going a few steps ahead of them in this matter. 
 
 " But," he said, " I have never been so far ahead, with 
 the exception of the principles I now enunciate, but that the 
 members of the party have overtaken me and gone ahead; 
 and they will overtake me again and go with me before this 
 infamous and bloody rebellion is ended. They will find that 
 they can not execute the Constitution in the seceding states : 
 that it is a total nullity there, and that this war must be car- 
 ried on upon principles wholly independent of it. They 
 will come to the conclusion that the adoption of the meas- 
 ures I advocated at the outset of the war (the arming of 
 the negroes) is the only way left on earth in which these 
 rebels can be exterminated. I do not now ask gentlemen 
 to endorse my views, nor do I speak for anybody but myself; 
 but in order that I may have some credit for sagacity I 
 ask that gentlemen will write this down in their memories. 
 It will not be two years before they call it up, or before 
 they will adopt my views, or adopt the other alternative of a 
 disgraceful submission by this side of the country." x 
 
 Stevens was right. Congress and the country had 
 adopted his views. The object of the war was to 
 subdue the Rebellion. Whatever means the nation 
 deemed wise and effective in promoting that end were 
 
 1 Globe, May 2, 1864. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 231 
 
 justifiable, if they were not contrary to the laws of •>' 
 war and of humanity. This was the sum total of 
 Stevens' teaching on the government's power in war. 
 
 A writer in the London Times 1 held that all the 
 acts of President Lincoln, in suspending the habeas 
 corpus, in committing arbitrary arrests, in emanci- 
 pating the slaves, in declaring a blockade of Southern 
 ports — all these acts, and many others, in letter and 
 in spirit, were excusable on one ground alone, ground 
 which the Democrats rejected and which the Republi- 
 cans were not bold enough to stand upon, namely, 
 " that the states of the South were an alien enemy and 
 that those citizens within the jurisdiction of the United 
 States who aid and abet them are amenable to the 
 customs and usages of all governments toward treason- 
 able subjects." 
 
 It would have been only fair in this writer to admit 
 that there was at least one Republican leader who was 
 bold enough to occupy that ground, the ground on 
 which alone the war powers exercised by President 
 Lincoln are to be defended and justified. That ad- 
 vanced leader was Stevens. He saw clearly, from 
 the outbreak of the war, the weakness and the fallacy 
 of the assumption put forward by certain legalists 
 and doctrinaire constitutionalists that the Constitution 
 was the criterion by which to conduct the war. He 
 saw how utterly vain it was to try to reconcile the uses 
 of martial law with the principles of the Constitution. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how rational men 
 prompted by patriotic motives could hold to the doc- 
 trine announced by the Peace Democrats, namely, 
 
 1 November 13, 1862. 
 
232 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 that the nation could use no powers in the war except 
 those specifically enumerated in the Constitution. It 
 was the height of absurdity. Either such men were 
 arrant fools or they were unwilling to see the Union 
 preserved by war. Certain it is, that the application 
 of their doctrine would have made it impossible to 
 prosecute the war with any effect, and the burden of 
 evidence tends to prove that that was what they really 
 desired. 
 
 On the other hand, the doctrine of Stevens gave 
 the nation fighting strength and renewed life, and it 
 came to be the doctrine of all who were really desirous 
 of prosecuting the war in earnest. The doctrine was 
 that the Southern States in the war were outside the 
 pale of the Constitution from first to last. Neither 
 combatant in the struggle, in its conduct toward the 
 other, was bound by its restrictions. The Constitution 
 could not operate in the rebel states. Yet the acts 
 authorized by martial law were not to be regarded as 
 unconstitutional. The Constitution recognized martial 
 law and all the laws of war, but the laws of war never 
 operate while the Constitution and municipal laws pre- 
 vail. Nor do the Constitution and civil laws operate 
 when the laws of war prevail. The Constitution calls 
 for the laws of war and leads them forth to take its 
 place when and where it can no longer maintain its 
 power ; then it retires and leaves the theater of war to 
 the laws of nations. They are exclusive in their em- 
 pire. There can be no mixed reign of the laws of war 
 and of the Constitution. 1 
 
 While this doctrine was finally accepted for war 
 1 Speech of Stevens in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1863. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 233 
 
 purposes by all wings of the war party who were sin- 
 cerely desirous of seeing the war successful, yet, with 
 strange inconsistency and lack of boldness, when it 
 came to a question of amending the Constitution or 
 of reconstructing the Union, an effort, or pretense, was 
 made to apply the Constitution in states where seces- 
 
 , sion and war had abrogated it and made it a nullity. 
 
 j I do not refer to the laudable effort to restore the Con- 
 stitution to local state governments wherein war had 
 stricken it down; but to the pretense that it was in 
 force where, by reason of actual conditions, it could 
 not be enforced. Lincoln and many of the Union 
 party seemed strangely possessed with the idea that 
 with reference to certain civil and constitutional rights 
 
 1 and privileges, the states that were at war with the 
 
 I Union were to be treated as if secession and war had 
 not occurred. They proposed still to regard the states 
 of the Confederacy as states of the Union. They 
 were to be like all the other states for voting purposes 
 when it came to the fundamental act of remodeling the 
 organic law of the nation. If this premise were to 
 be conceded, that the Constitution was in force every- 
 where and in all respects just as if war had not oc- 
 curred, then there was no way to break the force of 
 the argument of the Peace Democrats voiced by Pen- 
 dleton. There were thirty-five states. Twenty- 
 seven were necessary to ratify the liberty amendment. 
 There were nineteen Free States. " Suppose," asked 
 Pendleton, " you get them all, — where do you get 
 the others? Count, also, Maryland, Missouri, West 
 Virginia, even Delaware, and you have but twenty- 
 three. Where do you get the other four? If you 
 
234 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 intend to make up this number by the addition of new 
 states you will have to add sixteen, three-fourths of 
 which, twelve, will be the proper proportion for the 
 number added. Will the gentlemen call on the South- 
 ern States to furnish the requisite number ? There the 
 military authorities were already well ashamed of the 
 farce enacted a short time since and were about to 
 get rid of the pretense of a government which a little 
 while ago had been set up. If these states are to vote 
 in their present condition it would be a broad farce 
 if it were not a wicked fraud." 
 
 It was exactly so. It partook of the nature both 
 of a farce and a fraud to regard the states of the 
 belligerent Confederacy as constitutional states of the 
 Union. Yet those who were responsible for the con- 
 duct of the government were so wedded to this mis- 
 chievous abstraction; they consented to be so 
 handicapped by this useless and embarrassing theory, 
 that they would not consent to proclaim liberty through- 
 out the land to all the inhabitants thereof without 
 acting as if it were first necessary to the validity of the 
 amendment to obtain the consent of a number of the 
 Confederate States, the same as if they had never 
 broken with the Union and made war on the Con- 
 stitution. Their process was but an empty form. 
 The Confederate States necessary to the amendment 
 were to be made to act under pretended civil govern- 
 ments set up and entirely supported, if not directed, 
 by the military arm of the national power. 1 
 
 1 The eight Confederate States that were finally counted for 
 the ratification of the amendment were the presidential states 
 that were set up by the military power of Lincoln and Johnson. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 235 
 
 Furthermore in order to secure the necessary 
 twenty-seven states a new state had to be admitted to 
 the Union for the express purpose of ratifying the 
 amendment. Nevada was admitted for no other rea- 
 son, a state which, even after the lapse of half a cen- 
 tury, has not, and may never have, one- fourth of 
 the population deemed essential to statehood. And 
 this unnecessary admission of a " rotten borough," 
 with a power in the United States Senate equal to that 
 of the most populous state, was brought about only by 
 recourse to a most questionable political morality, 
 namely, the purchase of congressional support by of- 
 ficial patronage. Mr. Charles A. Dana, the distin- 
 guished journalist, is authority for the statement that 
 President Lincoln authorized the offer of twenty thou- 
 sand dollars (or patronage to that amount), to a Dem- 
 ocratic Congressman, to secure his vote for the bill ad- 
 mitting Nevada, so anxious was the President to pro- 
 mote the passage and ratification of the thirteenth 
 amendment. 1 
 
 No one supposes that Stevens was more scrupulous 
 than Lincoln in the employment of means to reach his 
 end. But his doctrine on the war and the Constitu- 
 tion obviated the alleged necessity of a resort to such 
 embarrassing, not to say immoral, indirection. It en- 
 abled him to go more directly and more honestly to his 
 end. How much simpler and easier, how much 
 sounder in common sense, law, and political morality 
 was Stevens' method of bringing about the adoption of 
 the thirteenth amendment! Indeed, it may be said 
 that there was no answer to the constitutional doctrine 
 
 1 Chas. A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, pp. 175-178. 
 
 
236 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of Pendleton except the answer of Stevens. But 
 Stevens' answer was convincing and sufficient. It was 
 that the Constitution was not in force for those states 
 that had consented to its overthrow; that the states 
 that had rejected the Constitution and were making 
 war upon it were no part of the amending power. 
 There was not the slightest obligation to consult them 
 in determining the organic law of the nation, — there 
 was no more reason for consulting them than for con- 
 sulting the states of the German Empire. Though the 
 national authority might rightfully be asserted over 
 them, yet from the point of view of their rights and 
 privileges or of their powers in the Union, they were 
 non-existent as states. They ought not to have been 
 consulted, and three-fourths of the states then loyal 
 to the Union and represented in Congress were suffi- 
 cient to ratify and legalize the new amendment. 
 
 If that doctrine had been assented to in the first place 
 the way out in rebuilding the Union and the Constitu- 
 tion would have been easy and direct. 
 > Better than any other man of his time, Thaddeus 
 " Stevens saw the proper relation of the war to this con- 
 tention about the Constitution. Toward those who 
 forced, or accepted, the gage of battle and who appealed 
 to the issue of war, the law and fate of war should 
 have been applied. Their civil and political rights 
 guaranteed by the Constitution no longer existed. It 
 was a simple and natural conclusion, and Stevens was 
 determined that the Constitution should not be ap- 
 pealed to, as some sought continually to do, merely to 
 embarrass, to obstruct, and to defeat the successful 
 prosecution of the war. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE WAR 237 
 
 But the ordinary minds in Congress were so con- 
 ventional, so unoriginal, so bound by conservatism 
 and tradition, that they could not break away from 
 the " Constitution and the Union " as they had always 
 known them in years gone by. A statesman is gov- -' 
 erned by his circumstances, and the mighty changes 
 that had come in the circumstances of the states, which ' 
 smaller men were unwilling to take note of, were the 
 controlling and decisive factor in the mind of Stevens. 
 He was a leader in a revolutionary period where men 
 of boldness were needed to lead against prevailing 
 opinions that brought the people to a supine and help- 
 less constitutionalism. His disregard of the Constitu- 
 tion was a statesmanlike and noble contempt for the 
 restrictions of a parchment that stood in the way of his 
 country's realizing its highest moral ideals, — liberty, 
 equality, union. He was dealing with living forces and 
 facts, not with abstract questions of law or speculative 
 constitutional phrases. The nation could neither go 
 back to the old paths nor stand still amid the dangers 
 confronting it, and in such a crisis it was the part 
 of a real leader to press forward without regard to 
 squeamish scruples about the Constitution. The Con- 
 stitution was a means, not an end, and Stevens was 
 large enough and bold enough to put the Constitution 
 in its place, and to keep it from being lugged in out 
 of place by a set of sentimental theorizers whose leader- 
 ship would have brought the nation to impotency and 
 defeat. He rightly insisted that the Constitution be 
 kept out of the way of the nation in its struggle at 
 arms for the national life. Whether the Union came 
 to a dictatorship or the rebels were brought to exile and 
 
238 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 extermination, he would stand to the end for the life 
 of the nation in the triumph of the Union, and to him, 
 in the conduct of the war, the Constitution was but a 
 lifeless and worthless parchment until the issue of war 
 was determined. 
 
 But for such men in times of great political crises 
 there would be no political triumphs and achievements 
 worth commemorating in history. It was in real noble- 
 ness of soul that he could say, a year before the strug- 
 gle ended and before Congress and the country were 
 ready to accept the immortal amendment that guaran- 
 teed freedom to all beneath the flag, " I have lived to 
 see the triumph of principles which, although I had full 
 faith in their ultimate success, I did not expect to wit- 
 ness. If Providence will spare me a little longer, until 
 this government shall be so reconstructed that the foot 
 of a slave can never again tread upon the soil of the 
 republic, I shall be content to accept any lot that may 
 await me." * 
 
 1 Globe, May 2, 1864. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR; THE GREENBACK 
 
 TX 7HEN Lincoln as President-elect was engaged in 
 " * making up his Cabinet, Stevens was prominently 
 considered for the position of Attorney-General. 
 Simon Cameron, also of Pennsylvania, was a candidate 
 for a Cabinet appointment, and when Lincoln invited 
 Cameron to the head of the War Department, Stev- 
 ens' ambition was disappointed. Stevens was not 
 pleased at being set aside for a man with whom he was 
 not friendly, and he indulged in some caustic criticism 
 of the Cabinet, by saying that it was composed of " an 
 assortment of rivals whom the President appointed 
 from courtesy, one stump-speaker from Indiana, and 
 two representatives of the Blair family." * 
 
 Stevens was destined to play a larger role in the 
 course of the war than he would have done as Attor- 
 ney-General. On July 4, 1861, the new Congress (the 
 Thirty-seventh) met in extraordinary session at the 
 call of President Lincoln. Stevens became the recog- 
 nized leader of the House on the floor, as Chairman of 
 the Committee on Ways and Means. This committee 
 then performed the combined functions now belonging 
 to the two most important committees of the House, 
 the Committee on Ways and Means and the Commit- 
 
 1 Blaine's Tiventy Years in Congress, Vol. I, p. 286. 
 
 239 
 
240 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tee on Appropriations. On this committee rested the 
 burdens and duties of providing the funds for carrying 
 on the war and of appropriating these funds to the 
 various needs. To it were referred all measures of 
 public finance, all appropriations for the army and 
 navy and for all departments of the government, all 
 tax bills, all loan bills, all coinage bills. No greater 
 task ever devolved on a Committee of the House. It 
 embraced some of the weightiest considerations ever 
 brought into discussion within the councils of the gov- 
 ernment, including matters of great moment and peril 
 in the crisis through which the country was passing, 
 for it was quite true that the problem of success in the 
 war was a problem of money. 
 
 The financial history of the Civil War is a subject so 
 large that only its prominent features can be con- 
 sidered here. It divides itself for the most part into 
 four heads, — taxation, loans, currency, and banking. 
 
 Taxation and banking may be left on one side for 
 the present, for the sake of continuity of attention to 
 the important and greatly controverted subjects of 
 loans and currency. 
 
 It is doubtful whether in the history of any people, 
 a national debt was ever contracted so rapidly as was 
 that of the United States during the Civil War. On 
 July, i, i860, a few months before secession began, 
 the debt of the United States was about $64,000,000, 
 two years later it was $524,000,000; within three 
 years it was $1,100,000,000; within four years (July 
 I, 1864) it was $1,800,000,000, while by August 31, 
 1865, the national debt of the United States stood 
 at the enormous aggregate of $2,845,000,000. The 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 241 
 
 cost of the war was scarcely at any time under $30,- 
 000,000 a month ; at times it was as high as $90,000,- 
 000 a month, and on the average for the four years of 
 the war it was $60,000,000 a month, or $2,000,000 a 
 day. The expenditures of the government during the 
 fiscal years 1863 to 1865 were more than the entire 
 expenditures of the national government from the 
 foundation of the nation to the outbreak of the Civil 
 War. In the space of four years it was necessary for 
 the government to increase its revenue by loans and 
 taxes from $65,000,000 to $960,000,000, from 2 per 
 cent, of the gross product of the nation to 26 per cent, 
 of that product. 1 During the last year of the war the 
 government raised more than $1,000,000,000, half 
 by loans and half by taxes, "one of the greatest 
 achievements in finance that history records." 2 By 
 July 1, 1865, the treasury had raised in war loans $2,- 
 000,000,000 more than the national treasury had ever 
 received from loans and revenues combined in all the 
 previous years of its history. By the end of the war 
 the annual interest charge on the national debt for 
 which provision had to be made in annual revenue, 
 had reached the enormous sum of $150,000,000, an 
 annual burden of interest payment that was almost 
 twice as large as the whole original debt of the nation, 
 a burden that had almost staggered America and caused 
 threats of repudiation when Alexander Hamilton was 
 called on to grapple with the problem of establishing 
 the public credit. 
 
 These figures and comparisons may serve to give one 
 
 1 Adams, D. C, Public Finance, p. 535. 
 2 E. H. Derby, Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1868. 
 
242 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 some idea of the stupendous character of our civil con- 
 flict and of the fiscal problems of Congress in this pe- 
 riod. Such financial burdens had never been heard of 
 or dreamed of before. Men were altogether unused to 
 thinking in such terms or facing such trials of the na- 
 tional faith. If the burdens had been foreseen at the 
 beginning of the conflict, the prospect might have ap- 
 palled the stoutest heart. 
 
 At the opening of the struggle, July 4, 1861, Secre- 
 tary Chase submitted his financial plan. Lincoln's ad- 
 ministration inherited an empty treasury and an im- 
 paired credit. When, during the closing years of 
 Buchanan's administration, the United States was com- 
 pelled to borrow to meet an approaching deficit, its 
 securities were bought in the market at eighty-nine 
 cents on the dollar. When Congress met in extra ses- 
 sion there was not money enough in the treasury to pay 
 members for their services. 
 
 In submitting his financial plan to Congress in July, 
 1 86 1, Secretary Chase stated that the financial problem 
 to be solved was " that of apportioning loans and taxes 
 in a proper manner." This proposition was sound 
 enough, but the prime financial mistake of the war came 
 here at the outset in not starting in with positive and 
 ample measures of taxation. Credit is based on 
 revenue, and it is one of the maxims of public finance 
 that the increased use of credit in meeting war emer- 
 gencies should always be accompanied by correspond- 
 ingly increased taxation. Chase proposed to raise 
 from taxes only enough to pay the interest on the public 
 debt and the ordinary expenses of the government in 
 time of peace. No war taxes were proposed ; the extra 
 
E COLLECTION OF ROBERT DCSTER 
 
 Salmon P. Chase, 1808-1873. 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury, IS6I-IS64. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 243 
 
 expenses of the war were to be met by loans. Thus, 
 the government started out to rely on borrowing to 
 provide ways and means of waging war. Secretary 
 Chase estimated that $320,000,000 would be needed 
 for the ensuing fiscal year, only $80,000,000 of which 
 was to be provided by taxation, merely enough 
 for the peace expenses and the interest on the increas- 
 ing loans. On July 17th, Stevens' committee reported 
 a loan bill authorizing the Secretary to use the credit 
 of the government in borrowing $250,000,000, and 
 his bill passed the House without more than an hour's 
 consideration, so prompt and ready were the repre- 
 sentatives of the people to respond to the call of the 
 treasury and to furnish the sinews of war. 
 
 Secretary Chase appealed to the associated banks of 
 New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for loans. A 
 loan arrangement was speedily effected by which the 
 banks were to advance to the treasury $50,000,000 
 immediately in exchange for treasury notes bearing 7.3 
 per cent, interest, running for three years. The banks 
 were given the option of taking a second $50,000,000 
 of the loan by October 15th and a third fifty by Decem- 
 ber 15th. When the loan was arranged for, the banks 
 had a specie reserve of only $63,000,000, barely 
 enough to meet the first instalment. They hoped to 
 replenish their coin reserve by selling to the public 
 the government securities for cash and by the govern- 
 ment's disbursements for war supplies. It was 
 supposed that the coin restored to the channels of trade 
 by government payments would flow naturally and 
 steadily back into the banks. The public should buy 
 the treasury notes through the banks, the government 
 
244 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 should keep paying out specie from the subtreasury, 
 and the people should keep on depositing their coin in 
 the banks. If this chain worked smoothly and the 
 banks could collect specie as rapidly as they paid it over 
 to the government, they could continue to supply the 
 treasury indefinitely with funds. This was the plan, 
 but if a link in the operation broke, if for any reason 
 the coin did not return to the banks, suspension of 
 specie payments would be inevitable, and the Secre- 
 tary's loan policy would collapse. 
 
 The scheme rested on mutual confidence among the 
 people, the banks, and the government. If distrust set 
 in; or if the burden of demand from increasing debt 
 and credit mounted too suddenly and too high to be 
 sustained on the narrow basis of the little specie that 
 was in the country ; if the government failed to pursue 
 a policy in the interest of the banks; or if the banks 
 doubted, or sought to discount, the guarantees of the 
 government, — failure of the plan was certain to fol- 
 low. When the banks came to take the third loan in- 
 stalment of $50,000,000 and the Secretary had to sub- 
 stitute for short time treasury notes 6 per cent, bonds at 
 a discount of more than 10 per cent., realizing less than 
 $45,000,000 on the $50,000,000 loan, ultimate failure 
 of the plan should have been apparent. Confidence 
 was waning, seemingly on the part of the banks, and 
 with waning confidence in public credit it was only a 
 question of time when specie payment would have 
 to be suspended. 
 
 Critics of Secretary Chase have charged him with 
 raising the first obstacle to the maintenance of this 
 circle of specie payments because of his strict interpre- 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 245 
 
 tation of the law of August 5, 1861, amending the 
 Loan Act of July 17th. This law, it is claimed, was in- 
 tended to relax the subtreasury system by permitting 
 the Secretary to deposit the money obtained on the 
 loans " in solvent specie-paying banks," instead of with- 
 drawing the whole amount of the loan from the banks 
 to be locked up in the subtreasury. The banks de- 
 sired the Secretary to permit them to credit the United 
 States with a deposit equal to the amount of their 
 loan, against which the treasury might draw as it had 
 occasion. But Secretary Chase thought that the law 
 required him not to leave the government specie with 
 the banks and accept bank bills or book credit instead. 
 In addition to this embarrassment to the banks, the 
 Secretary used demand notes in making public pay- 
 ments. Fifty million of these notes had been issued 
 and they were receivable for public dues, and they, 
 therefore, never depreciated. Since these notes were 
 in circulation the banks would receive less gold in 
 deposits, having to receive to a certain extent the de- 
 mand notes instead, and thus they would be less able 
 to keep their loan agreement with the government. 
 
 The real causes of the outcome are not difficult to 
 see. One was the fact that in his first annual report in 
 December, 1861, Secretary Chase still failed to pro- 
 pose adequate war taxation. That important policy, 
 so necessary to the maintenance of the public credit 
 in the face of increasing obligations, was neglected. 
 The Secretary still seemed to be under the delusion 
 that the war would end before the lapse of another 
 year and that temporary provisions and makeshifts 
 might be relied upon. In addition to this the Trent 
 
 
246 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Affair had produced a serious situation in our foreign 
 relations, and war was threatened with England. The 
 formidable character of the Rebellion was apparent to 
 wise observers, and both at home and abroad the war 
 situation was alarming. The effect of the increased 
 uncertainty and scare upon the sensitive financial nerve 
 of the country became quickly apparent. The banks 
 could not sell the government securities, on a declin- 
 ing public credit, which they held in large quantities, 
 except at a sacrifice; the public not only failed to de- 
 posit its coin in the banks, but began a positive and 
 alarming withdrawal of deposits; and the specie re- 
 serve in the banks dwindled at the rate of nearly a 
 million a day. 1 
 
 It was all outgo and no income. The inevitable re- 
 sult followed, — an event of prime importance in the 
 financial .history of the war — namely, the suspension 
 of specie payments by the banks, on December 30, 1861. 
 The government, too, as a matter of course, suspended 
 coin payments. The financial prop had given way and 
 by January 1, 1862, the fiscal system established be- 
 tween the treasury and the banks had collapsed and 
 Secretary Chase was at a loss what to do or in what 
 direction to turn in the crisis. It is doubtful if any 
 minister of finance ever faced a graver dilemma. 2 
 
 1 The coin reserve in the banks fell from $50,000,000 to $43,- 
 000,000 from December 14th to 28th. 
 
 2 The holders of the " convertible bank currency," which the 
 banks had been so accustomed to applaud, could not now get 
 the gold which they had deposited and which of right belonged 
 to them. Nor could the government get the gold, according to 
 the arrangement previously made witli the banks, for then, as 
 Mr. James Gallatin, one of their leading spokesmen, said, it 
 would all "be expended and hoarded by a few people." So the 
 banks coolly kept the gold in their vaults. See address of James 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 247 
 
 The situation came about, not for the trivial reasons 
 alleged by the critics of Secretary Chase; that is, not 
 because of minor errors or incidental rulings of the 
 Secretary, but rather because of unexpected military 
 reverses, foreign complications, appalling increase in 
 expenditures, and grave doubt as to the outcome of 
 the war. Even failure to resort to adequate taxation, 
 serious as the error was, was a minor circumstance in 
 causing diminished confidence in public securities, in 
 the face of the expenses, failures, disasters and uncer- 
 tainties of the war. 
 
 In the financial crisis that faced the country in Jan- 
 uary, 1862, there was need of bold and intelligent lead- 
 ership. The Secretary of the Treasury had not been 
 trained to grapple with the problems that now con- 
 fronted him. The stupendous nature of the task was 
 enough to cause dismay. Still under the delusion that 
 the war would last but a few more months, Chase pre- 
 ferred to rely on short loans at a high rate rather than 
 resort to heavy taxes, which he thought would be sure 
 to excite popular discontent. He had calculated that 
 the meager increase of taxes that he proposed would 
 produce $90,000,000, but now his revised estimate of 
 expenditures called for $214,000,000 more than he had 
 estimated six months before, and to meet the pressing 
 need he urged another immediate loan of $200,000,000. 
 
 The Secretary, thus facing a deficit of $214,000,000, 
 had also to reckon with the need of the coming year, 
 estimated at $475,000,000. Gold and silver were no 
 longer money. They were out of circulation and could 
 
 Gallatin, Bankers' Magazine, February, 1S62, cited in The Cur- 
 rency Question, by George B. Butler, New York, 1864. 
 
248 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 not be depended on as currency. They were commodi- 
 ties of trade, articles of export and import. The coun- 
 try was without a national currency. The only 
 currency of the country was the uncertain, vacillating, 
 and discredited currency of the state banks. These 
 banks could not pay coin on their paper. The hoard- 
 ing of the precious metals, or the export of them in the 
 course of foreign exchanges, had utterly destroyed the 
 state bank currency for government uses, — it being 
 illegal, as a matter of fact, for the government to re- 
 ceive them. There was confusion in business ex- 
 changes; war demands against the government were 
 mounting up to more than $2,000,000 a day ; the treas- 
 ury resources were exhausted; and the government in 
 the midst of bankruptcy stood in immediate need of im- 
 mense sums of money. Claims were instantly pressing, 
 and if they could not be met the firms that had fur- 
 nished supplies could furnish no more, while the sol- 
 diers and sailors in the service had gone unpaid until 
 their forbearance could no longer be expected. The 
 country was facing a condition of affairs of which it 
 may reasonably be said that none more perilous ever 
 confronted a nation. 
 
 In this period of great financial need it may be 
 fairly said of the public men of the time, as Fessenden 
 said in the Senate, that " nobody knew much about the 
 question of finance." ' 
 
 1 Francis Fessenden, Life of William Pitt Fessenden, Vol. 
 I, p. 195. Fessenden said in the Senate: "I declare here to- 
 day, that in the whole number of learned financial men that I 
 have consulted, I never have found any two of them who agree ; 
 and therefore it is hardly worth while for us to plead any very 
 remarkable degree of ignorance when nobody is competent to 
 instruct us; and yet such is the fact. I can state to you, Mr. 
 
.WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 249 
 
 It is not strange that in such a time leadership fell 
 into the hands of men, who, if less discreet and less 
 trained in finance than the times called for, were at 
 any rate bold, patriotic, honest, straightforward, and 
 aggressive in action. 
 
 Stevens and his committee, with the Finance Com- 
 mittee of the Senate headed by Fessenden, now took 
 the lead in directing the financial policy of the country. 
 Stevens recognized, as he said in the debates that fol- 
 lowed, that he was " but poorly qualified for anything 
 of the kind." He and his colleagues came nowhere 
 near infallibility. But they gave anxious and patriotic 
 consideration to the situation, and taking counsel from 
 those whom they believed best qualified to advise, they 
 acted up to the best light they had. Facing a neces- 
 sitous situation that would not permit of delay, they 
 resolved upon a policy that marks a turning point and 
 has become the most notable landmark in American 
 financial history. This policy resulted not in what 
 Stevens wanted and sought strenuously to obtain, but 
 in a complex result that was a composite, or compro- 
 mise, between conflicting interests and forces. This 
 compromise outcome was the famous Legal Tender 
 
 President, that on one day I was advised very strongly by a 
 leading financial man at all events to oppose this legal tender 
 clause; he exclaimed against it with all the bitterness in the 
 world. On the very same day I received a note from a friend 
 of his telling me that we could not get along without it. I 
 showed it to him and he expressed his utter surprise. He went 
 home and next day telegraphed to me that he had changed his 
 mind, and now thought it was absolutely necessary ; and his 
 friend who wrote to me wrote again that he had changed his 
 [laughter], and they were two of the most eminent financial 
 men in the country." Globe, Feb. 12, 1862, p. 766. Such were 
 the opinions of the " financial experts " by whom Stevens and 
 his committee were expected to be directed. 
 
250 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Act of February 25, 1862, authorizing a loan of $500,- 
 000,000 of 6 per cent, twenty-year bonds known as 
 the " Five Twenties," due in twenty years and payable 
 in five, and providing for the issue of $150,000,000 
 of treasury notes commonly called " greenbacks," the 
 notes to be exchangeable for the bonds and made a 
 legal tender for all debts public and private, except 
 customs dues and interest on the public debt. 
 
 No piece of legislation in American history has ever 
 aroused more enduring controversy, and after the lapse 
 of more than a generation, honest and intelligent men 
 are still in conflict of opinion as to its merits. 
 
 The facts in the origin of this important measure 
 may be summarized briefly. 
 
 Mr. Chase in his December report, with the idea of 
 making it easier to borrow, suggested a national bank- 
 ing system requiring all banks to purchase United 
 States stocks to hold as security for their circulating 
 notes. 1 Out of this proposal came our national bank- 
 ing system two years later. Such heavy labors were 
 coming upon the Ways and Means Committee in 
 charge of this report, that a division of labor was re- 
 sorted to. Mr. Stevens, the chairman of the com- 
 mittee, gave his chief attention to the preparation and 
 pushing of the great and numerous appropriation bills 
 which required a great expenditure of time and energy; 
 Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont, father of the war tariff, 
 
 1 This plan was probably inspired by Eleazar Lord's letter to 
 Secretary Chase in November, 1861, though the essential virtue 
 of Lord's plan for a national currency was eliminated, — namely, 
 that the notes to be issued by the banks should be full legal 
 tender for all debts, public and private, and that the so-called 
 specie basis should be abandoned. The notes were to be exclu- 
 sive and inconvertible. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 251 
 
 became chairman of a subcommittee, whose duty it 
 was to frame war taxation; while Elbridge G. Spaul- 
 ding, of New York, was chairman of a subcommittee 
 assigned to consider matters of currency and loans. 
 To the latter subcommittee Secretary Chase's currency 
 scheme was submitted. Samuel Hooper, a retired and 
 wealthy merchant of Boston, and Erastus Corning, a 
 New York millionaire Democratic opponent of the 
 war administration, were Spaulding's coworkers on 
 this committee. These three men took up the Secre- 
 tary's plan and began to draft a bill for a national 
 currency to be secured by government bonds. 
 
 When, on December 28, 1861, the New York banks 
 suspended specie payments, gold was withdrawn from 
 circulation and the country, as we have noticed, was 
 left with no other currency than the notes of suspended 
 banks, — notes issued by sixteen hundred different in- 
 stitutions and varying widely in value. Was it possi- 
 ble for the government to rely on such a currency as 
 that, or to authorize its use by the people ? Under the 
 subtreasury law, as has been indicated, these notes could 
 not be legally accepted and paid out by the federal 
 treasury. It was known that the new national banking 
 system would meet with stout opposition from friends 
 of the state banks, and, at best, it would not be matured 
 and put into operation for months and perhaps for 
 more than a year to come. Adequate tax bills could 
 not be passed and begin to produce revenues for an 
 equal length of time, and internal taxes could not be 
 collected at all until the government furnished an 
 adequate legal currency in which they could be paid. 
 
 To Stevens and his committee the issue seemed 
 
252 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 clear: Shall the government break and the war stop, 
 or shall the nation declare its independence of specie, 
 rely upon its credit and its own resources, and issue 
 its notes to be used as currency ? "A delay," says 
 Mr. Spaulding, " would have been fatal to the Union 
 cause," and accordingly he changed the legal tender 
 section, intended originally to accompany the bank 
 bill, into a separate bill, and on his own motion he 
 introduced it into the House, December 30, 1861. 
 
 The bill was referred to the full committee, whose 
 members were about equally divided in opinion upon 
 its merits. Spaulding and Hooper favored the bill. 
 Morrill, of Vermont, Horton, Democrat, of Ohio, and 
 Corning, of New York, were decided in their oppo- 
 sition. Stevens at first doubted the constitutionality 
 of the legal tender clause, — a strange doubt for a 
 man of his habits and temper. But he soon overcame 
 his scruples and decided to support the bill. The 
 bill had a narrow escape from defeat in the committee, 
 but a wavering member came to its support and con- 
 sented to allow the bill to come before the House for 
 consideration, January 7, 1862. 
 
 The measure was regarded, according to its advo- 
 cates, as a matter of necessity, not of choice. It 
 was expected that the government would be out of 
 means to pay its daily expenses in thirty days. A 
 hundred million dollars were necessary within the next 
 three months or the government must stop payment, 
 and the committee saw no way to get along till the tax 
 bills could be got ready except by a temporary issue 
 of these treasury notes. 1 
 
 1 Spaulding, History of the Legal Tender Paper Money, pp. 
 17, 18. Mitchell, W. C, History of the Greenbacks, p. 47. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 253 
 
 It was clear to all that government notes of some 
 kind had to be issued, and the question arose as to 
 whether they should be short time interest-bearing 
 notes offered for investments, or non-interest-bearing 
 notes that could be used by the government and the 
 people for all the purposes of money. The latter 
 policy was decided upon by Stevens and his com- 
 mittee. 
 
 This policy was in harmony with the recommenda- 
 tions of the Secretary of the Treasury, who was now 
 urging haste in its adoption. Mr. Chase was most 
 reluctant to accept the provision making United States 
 notes a legal tender, and he anxiously wished to avoid 
 the necessity for such legislation. He, however, re- 
 garded, it as " impossible in consequence of the large 
 expenditures entailed by the war and the suspension 
 of the banks, to procure sufficient coin for disburse- 
 ments " ; and he gave it as his opinion that it had 
 " become indispensably necessary that we should re- 
 sort to the issue of United States notes." Chase 
 urged that all discrimination should be prevented in 
 the legal tender provision and that " all citizens in 
 this respect should be put upon the same level, both 
 of rights and duties." 1 
 
 Though Chase came with reluctance to this con- 
 clusion, he came to it with decision, and he gave the 
 great weight of his influence to the support of the 
 Legal Tender Bill. Whatever his scruples were as to 
 the constitutionality of the measure, he yielded these 
 to what he considered the pressure of the necessities 
 
 1 Chase, Letter to Ways and Means Committee, cited in Sher- 
 man's Recollections, p. 220. 
 
254 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of the treasury, and he expressed no dissent on that 
 point until as Chief Justice he gave a decision adverse 
 to the greenback legislation. 1 
 
 In the conflict of proposals and opinions produced 
 by the money crisis of 1862, it appears that there were 
 substantially two alternatives open to the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 It could issue interest-bearing bonds and notes, go 
 into the market with these securities and sell them 
 for what they would bring in gold; and thus, in the 
 way that was usual for governments, borrow money 
 and pay the nation's obligations. This should be ac- 
 companied with adequate taxation which would give 
 the assurance that the treasury would have ample rev- 
 enue to meet accruing interest upon its loans, and, in 
 consequence, lead to the sale of the government secu- 
 rities on better terms. It was contended then, as it 
 has been ever since, that this would be the safe, honest, 
 businesslike way, and in the end the most economical. 
 In the opinion of the advocates of this plan it was the 
 only honest way, the way that all tradition pointed 
 out. At any rate, it was the way in which money 
 lenders and bankers were accustomed to have gov- 
 ernments proceed. It was in harmony with the stand- 
 ard maxim of the so-called classical writers on public 
 finance, who assert that only coin can be real money 
 and that there are but two ways for governments to 
 obtain it, — one is to take by taxation, and the other 
 to borrow upon its notes and bonds. 
 
 This plan involved the conduct of the war and all 
 the business of the country upon a specie basis. No 
 
 1 In Hepburn vs. Griswold. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 255 
 
 matter at what a ruinous price the government was 
 compelled to sell its bonds, it was contended that the 
 gold could be obtained, if not in Wall Street and 
 through the associated banks in America, then on 
 Lombard Street or through the gold dealers in Europe. 
 The national honor and good faith, it was contended, 
 required this policy. To resort to paper money would 
 be to violate the obligation of all contracts, cheat 
 creditors, increase prices, disarrange all business and 
 multiply the cost of the war. 
 
 Those who proposed and defended this plan were 
 not at all able to show that a sufficient quantity of 
 gold would have been forthcoming. It was held that 
 if the treasury should demand the gold and offer its 
 bonds on sufficient terms, the demand would beget the 
 supply. If this did not come immediately, then the 
 consequences must follow: government must make a 
 higher bid — offer its bonds at a lower rate — and 
 wait till the supply came. Whether it would finally 
 come no one knew. At this time of dire emergency, 
 when the life of the nation was assailed, if the govern- 
 ment needed $2,000,000,000, let it offer its bonds 
 for what they would bring and trust that a sufficient 
 supply of gold would flow into the treasury. No 
 device, expedient, or legislation of the government 
 should attempt to interfere with the " laws of trade " ; 
 that is, with the " natural operation of the specie 
 standard." 1 
 
 Whether this would have been possible in the face 
 
 1 1 am indebted in this discussion to a pamphlet on " A 
 National Currency," by Eleazar Lord, published by A. D. F. 
 Randolph, New York, 1863. 
 
256 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of mounting debts and expenses of the war is, at best, 
 only a matter of speculation. Upon that financial au- 
 thorities are by no means agreed. The burden of 
 argument in that day, and of expert financial opinion 
 since, appears to favor the view that it would have 
 been impossible; that an increase of the currency by 
 some means was an absolute necessity. Gold writers 
 have never successfully dealt with the stubborn fact 
 that the quantity of coin was wholly inadequate to 
 the purposes of war; there was not enough in all 
 the banks to furnish the government with a month's 
 supply. " On January I, 1862," says Professor 
 Dewey, " the banks had but $87,000,000 to meet $459,- 
 000,000 of indebtedness. It would have been impos- 
 sible to go through a war on the basis of a currency 
 so inadequate." * A month later the situation was 
 worse and it was growing worse week by week. ■ It 
 is clear that the idea of attempting to retain, or rather 
 to restore, specie payments on so vast a scale of ex- 
 penditure should have been abandoned without delay 
 and instead of trusting to the suspended state banks 
 and the dealers in gold to furnish a currency — the 
 life-blood of the imperiled nation — the nation should 
 have trusted itself and relied upon its own resources. 
 
 This was the alternative policy. It was bolder, 
 more original, quite unusual, not to say revolutionary. 
 Its design was to make the treasury of the nation in- 
 dependent of the holders of gold; to prevent "shin- 
 ning " in the marts of the money dealers, and the con- 
 sequent sale of government bonds at discreditable 
 prices ; to avoid affording these gold dealers a " corner " 
 
 1 Financial History of the United States, p. 283. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 257 
 
 in their commodity, giving them the whip-hand in de- 
 termining at what cost the government might obtain 
 money to conduct the struggle for its life. The plan 
 was to be independent of gold, to let its holders keep 
 their gold, or sell it where they would; to abandon 
 specie as money; to use the sovereign power of the 
 nation to create a currency of its own, based on the re- 
 sources and property of the nation, the faith of the 
 people, and the power of taxation, — a currency which 
 the government would accept for taxes and take in 
 exchange for its bonds, and use in its payments, and 
 which all classes of people without discrimination, 
 could use as current money of the realm and as a legal 
 tender for all their exchanges, debts, and taxes. In 
 the absence of gold and silver, which had now sought 
 their hiding-places and were failing to do the money 
 work of the country, this plan would furnish the 
 people with a uniform national currency, enable the 
 government to meet its obligations, and save the busi- 
 ness of the country from paralysis. This alternative, 
 regarded as a temporary expedient, was deemed to be 
 rendered imperative by the necessities of the hour. 
 
 Stevens favored the latter alternative, — the aban- 
 donment of gold, and the abandonment of a paper 
 currency issued by banks that had already shown their 
 inability to redeem their paper promises at their face 
 value in gold. He stood for the establishment of a 
 uniform nation-wide paper currency for all, a cur- 
 rency issued directly by the United States government 
 without the mediation of banks. This currency would 
 do the work of money for the people. It would not 
 be a commodity of foreign commerce nor an article 
 
258 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of export. It was to be interchangeable with six per 
 cent. United States bonds, based upon the good faith 
 and property of the whole people. If the bonds were 
 safe the notes would be safe. He believed that this 
 would give the country a safe, ample, uniform national 
 currency for all the trade and business of the country 
 and prove an effective means in promoting the sale 
 of government bonds. And thus " every note-holder 
 and every bondholder, as creditors of the government, 
 would be directly interested in maintaining the na- 
 tional unity, prosperity, honor, and good faith, while 
 the interests of the people would prove a guarantee 
 against excessive and dangerous issues of currency." * 
 It is pertinent to observe that those who were con- 
 stantly crying out from fear of an over-issue of such 
 notes never seemed to have any fear of an over-issue 
 of interest-bearing bonds. 2 
 
 This scheme, as we shall see, was so modified and 
 mutilated by its opponents that Stevens subsequently 
 refused to recognize it as his own. Those interested in 
 the gold policy, while they could not accomplish out- 
 right the defeat of the Legal Tender Act, accomplished 
 their purpose by another process, the purpose of com- 
 pelling the government to sell its bonds for what they 
 
 1 Eleazar Lord, National Currency. 
 
 2 If Stevens' idea of a single uniform national currency had 
 been carried to its completion it would have involved, of course, 
 the prohibition of the notes of the state banks, and this source 
 of the paper inflation that subsequently followed would have 
 been prevented. If the United States Treasury notes were to 
 be made the basis of state bank issues at the ratio of two or 
 three to one, the whole currency would become redundant and 
 depreciated. The bullionist proposed the wrong remedy for pre- 
 venting inflation. He would have allowed the note-issuing 
 function to the state banks, while denying it to the national 
 government. 
 
 
 '\i 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 259 
 
 would command in the open market, at a ruinous dis- 
 count in gold. This was not a failure, as Stevens 
 always believed, of the greenback legislation, but a & 
 design of a creditor and money-lending class who had 
 gold to offer in considerable quantities. 
 
 Very few men of the time dared to think for them- 
 selves upon the subject of the currency. Among the 
 men then in public life Stevens was one of the very 
 few bold minds that ventured to accept suggestions 
 calculated to lead the people away from the beaten 
 paths of habit and tradition; and even Stevens, with 
 all his boldness of thought and leadership, still clung 
 to the idea that gold and silver were to be looked to 
 as a basis for future money. Resuming specie pay- 
 ments was still in his mind. Stevens may have been 
 partly influenced by Eleazer Lord, a financial pam- 
 phleteer of the time, who was making repeated public 
 pleas for a credit currency wholly disconnected from 
 the precious metals and based upon the bonded pledge 
 of the nation. " The existing theory on the subject," 
 said Lord, " is too firmly fixed by education, pre- 
 scription, prejudice, and interest, to be overthrown by 
 common sense, by reasoning, or by anything but irre- 
 sistible necessity. Such words as safe, secured, na- 
 tional, uniform (sound), when predicated of anything 
 but gold as currency, are to the specie-paying theorist 
 mere sounds devoid of significance. He even thinks 
 it a virtue to suffer and die a martyr to his idea of 
 gold rather than yield it and cast loose on the sea of 
 credit bereft of this ideal anchor. When that pure 
 extract and quintessence of wealth, the solvent of all 
 earthly wants, the object of life's weary toil, is with- 
 
260 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 drawn from sight by export to other climes, his love 
 of it, his sense of bereavement, desolation, and peril 
 without it, his desire to see its yellow face once more, 
 are intensified to an agonizing extreme." 
 
 Lord was looking to the triumph of credit. He saw 
 that specie payments could not on any system be uni- 
 formally maintained ; " that crises, panics, emergen- 
 cies, would arise when banks ought not to be required 
 to pay specie, when desolation and ruin must follow 
 any attempt to pay specie." Very recent experience 
 had shown this. The banker, like the rest of the 
 community, had recognized that the obligation to pay 
 specie was suspended, and this was but an admission 
 that " to regard specie as the basis of the currency 
 and as the element and ground of its safety and 
 soundness was but a delusion and a humbug." * 
 
 1 " The idea of specie payments, even in ordinary times of 
 peace, blindly assumes what in reality and practise never was 
 and never could possibly be true, namely, the possession in the 
 country and within the control of the banks of coin sufficient to 
 redeem the notes issued by them and necessary to the business 
 and convenience of the people. The proportion of coin held by 
 the banks is rarely ten per cent, of the amount of notes issued 
 by them; it is greatly less than the amount held subject to 
 deposit. 
 
 " This so-called specie basis, whenever there is a foreign de- 
 mand for coin, proves to be a mere fiction, a practical humbug ; 
 and whenever, by an excess of imports, this pretended basis is 
 exported to pay foreign debts, the bank-notes are withdrawn or 
 become worthless, the currency for the time is annihilated, prices 
 fall, business is suspended, debts remain unpaid, panic and dis- 
 tress ensue, men in active business fail, bankruptcy, ruin, and 
 disgrace reign. When thousands of the most industrious and 
 useful men have been sacrificed, their families reduced to pov- 
 erty, their credit and character ruined and their energies para- 
 lyzed, — then a new set of merchants, manufacturers, etc., come 
 forward to go through the same experience. The demoralizing 
 effects of this course of operations on the whole population of 
 the country and in every department of social, industrial and 
 political affairs are beyond description. They can be compared 
 only to the effects on the health of a community of a constant 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 261 
 
 The conflicts of opinion and interests were waged 
 primarily between these two alternatives, and the mixed 
 result was satisfactory to neither party, though the 
 brunt of blame for all the evils, or supposed evils, of 
 the greenback legislation has been assiduously, not to 
 say insidiously, imputed to its original proposers. 
 
 When the plan of the committee to issue legal tender 
 notes was made known to the country, bankers who 
 were opposed to the measure came to Washington and 
 endeavored to persuade the Secretary and committee 
 that there was a better remedy for the situation of the 
 treasury than the issue of government paper money. 
 They proposed through their spokesman, Mr. James 
 Gallatin, President of the Gallatin Bank of New York, 
 essentially the alternative plan that I have described, — 
 the sale of long time bonds at the market price " ac- 
 companied with heavy taxation." Gallatin's plan also 
 involved the retirement of the demand notes, the issue 
 of $100,000,000 of interest-bearing treasury notes, and 
 
 and incurable epidemic, an intensified fever and ague, a perma- 
 nent tantalism. 
 
 " When specie is not wanted by the people, and there is no 
 foreign or unusual demand for it, and the banks, though promis- 
 ing to pay it on demand for all their circulating notes and de- 
 posits, study only to keep as little of it as possible on hand ; their 
 notes freely circulate on the credit of the promise which they 
 bear, and things go on till the delusion becomes manifest. The 
 moment the note-holders want the pretended basis, they dis- 
 cover that it exists only in theory and imagination, that they 
 have been deluded by corporate promises which can not be, and 
 which were never expected to be fulfilled. What then?_ Why, 
 the promises ought to be suspended until a state of things _ is 
 brought about when there is no longer any demand for specie ; 
 and then, forsooth, the bankers may safely resume specie pay- 
 ments and receive credit for renewing the issue of their paper 
 promises. In fine, they should be required to pay_ specie when 
 nobody wants it; but to require them to pay specie when it is 
 wanted and they have not got it, and can not possibly get_ it, 
 would be absurd and fruitful only of desolation and ruin." 
 (Eleazar Lord, National Currency, 1863.) 
 
262 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the suspension of the subtreasury act so as to permit 
 the banks to become the depositories of the government 
 funds. It was to let the government take care of 
 the banks ; the banks could take care of the currency 
 and the money of the people. The government should 
 then go into the " market " and borrow this money 
 as best it could, through the banks. 
 
 There are those who call this a patriotic effort of 
 the masters of finance to aid the government in its 
 emergency, but there are others so obtuse as still to 
 believe that the bankers' plan was primarily in their 
 own interests. By this plan the state banks were to 
 be made the sole agents of the government throughout 
 the crisis; their irredeemable notes, even after their 
 suspension of specie payments, were to be received by 
 the government for loans, — notes whose gold basis 
 had just been proved but a fiction, or a figment of the 
 imagination; these local banks, more than fifteen hun- 
 dren in number, were to continue to usurp the impor- 
 tant franchise of supplying the circulating medium of 
 the country, — a medium to be used as the money of 
 commerce without any guarantee whatever of its uni- 
 formity or stability ! The essential national power of 
 controlling the currency was to be left to these state 
 agencies. To the national government, not to the 
 banks nor to the states, had been given the power to 
 coin money and to regulate its value. That was an 
 exclusive national power. The state was not to issue 
 money nor to authorize its issue. 1 Yet Stevens was 
 
 1 See " Review of Our Finances," by R. J. Walker, December 
 19, 1862, in Continental Monthly, an argument for an exclusive 
 National currency. Walker, however, was arguing for a bank 
 currency. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 263 
 
 roundly denounced as stupid and ignorant because he 
 would not advise his committee and the House blindly 
 to accept this plan of the associated banks. 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury and the committee 
 rejected this alternative proposed by the bankers, and 
 under the advice of Chase there was added to the bill 
 the provision permitting the exchange of the legal ten- 
 der notes for 6 per cent., twenty year bonds, and au- 
 thorizing the treasury to issue $500,000,000 of these 
 bonds. 
 
 It was on the Legal Tender Act, with this bond pro- 
 posal, that the House went into debate, January 28, 
 1862. After four weeks of earnest discussion the bill 
 became a law on February 25th, but not until the Sen- 
 ate had succeeded in attaching such amendments to the 
 measure as led its authors to disclaim responsibility 
 for its results. 
 
 Nothing can be attempted here toward a study of 
 these debates beyond presenting the attitude of Ste- 
 vens on the merits of the various arguments and issues 
 involved. In his principal speech on the subject on 
 February 6, 1862, Stevens admitted that it was not 
 desirable to depart from the circulating medium 
 " which by the common consent of civilized nations 
 had formed the standard of value." It was a matter 
 of necessity not of choice, and of that necessity Con- 
 gress alone should be the judge. He anticipated a 
 treasury need to the end of the fiscal year 1863 of 
 $1,000,000,000 with a corresponding enlargement of 
 the public debt. Where were these vast sums to be 
 obtained? The Secretary had not been able to nego- 
 tiate the loans already authorized. If $700,000,000 
 
264 THE LIFE OF. THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 were offered in bonds, he had no doubt they would 
 sell as low as 60 per cent, and even then it would be 
 found to be impossible to find payment in coin. Pay- 
 ment would have to be accepted in the depreciated 
 notes of non-specie-paying banks, for he supposed no 
 one expected the resumption of specie payments till 
 the war was over. The least discount on the bonds 
 that any reasonable man had a right to expect was 
 25 per cent, and at that rate it would require at least 
 $1,500,000,000 in bonds to produce the required cur- 
 rency of $1,100,000,000 needed to the end of the next 
 fiscal year. It was a sum too frightful to be tolerated. 
 He held out stoutly for the legal tender clause and he 
 preferred the greenbacks to the bank-notes under the 
 Secretary's bank currency plan. The security of the 
 government was as good as that of the banks and 
 would give as much currency. The whole benefit of 
 the bank currency plan would accrue to the banks, as 
 they would receive the circulation without interest and 
 at the same time draw interest on the government 
 bonds, while it was plain to be seen that if the United 
 States issued these notes the benefit of the whole cir- 
 culation would accrue to the people, — an argument 
 for greenbacks over bank-notes that has ever since 
 been effectively used, and which has hardly been suc- 
 cessfully refuted. The government issue would be 
 equal to a loan without interest to the full amount of 
 the circulation. The proposed new banking system 
 could, at best, afford no immediate relief. 
 
 Having shown, as he thought, that there was no 
 other possible mode for the relief of the treasury in 
 the emergency, Stevens proceeded to examine the ob- 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 265 
 
 jections that had been raised to the legal tender plan 
 proposed by his committee. 
 
 He quickly disposed of the constitutional argument 
 that the power to issue legal tender notes was nowhere 
 expressly granted to Congress. " But few acts which 
 government can perform are specified in that instru- 
 ment. It would require a volume larger than the 
 Pandects of Justinian or the Code Napoleon to make 
 such enumeration. Everything necessary to carry 
 out the granted powers is clearly implied. If nothing- 
 could be done by Congress except what is enumerated 
 the government could not live a week." He thought 
 little of the argument based on the intention of the 
 Convention of 1787. " The right to emit bills of 
 credit which the convention expressly refused to grant, 
 has for fifty years, by the common consent of the 
 nation, been practised and is now conceded by every 
 opponent of this bill. With what grace can the con- 
 comitant power to make them a legal tender be ob- 
 jected to? The Supreme Court has settled the prin- 
 ciple upon which this bill is based, that when anything 
 is necessary to carry into effect the granted power, it 
 is constitutional." 
 
 Stevens here stood upon the constitutional ground 
 occupied by Hamilton in the infancy of the Union in 
 his fundamental doctrine of implied powers, by which 
 Hamilton laid the cornerstone for the powers of the 
 federal government. In his famous opinion fur- 
 nished to Washington in advocating the validity of 
 the First United States Bank, Hamilton laid down 
 the principle that was afterward affirmed by Chief 
 Justice Marshall in the famous case of McCulloch vs. 
 
266 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Maryland. This principle was now drawn into use 
 by Stevens. He stood upon the impregnable ground 
 that if any law is necessary and proper to carry into 
 execution any delegated power, such law is valid. 
 The test of constitutionality was in the end sought; 
 the discretion of Congress was absolute and sovereign 
 as to the means to be employed. Stevens held, as 
 Hamilton did, that the necessity need not be absolute, 
 inevitable, and overwhelming; "if it be useful, expe- 
 dient, profitable, the necessity is within the consti- 
 tutional meaning, and whether such necessity exists is 
 solely for the decision of Congress. If Congress 
 should decide this measure to be necessary to a granted 
 power, no department of the government can rejudge 
 it. The Supreme Court might think the judgment of 
 Congress erroneous, but they could not review it." 
 This view, which Stevens was then advocating and 
 reasserting, has now passed into history with the 
 sanction of the Supreme Court itself and with the gen- 
 eral acceptance of the nation, and it will be the final 
 judgment of history on the legal tender legislation of 
 that day. 
 
 Having established its constitutionality, Stevens pro- 
 ceeded to defend the measure on the ground of expe- 
 diency. He wished the notes to be made full legal 
 tender money. All admitted the necessity of some 
 issue, and he did not see how the notes would be 
 made worse by being made legal tender. It would 
 not impair the obligations of contracts — though Con- 
 gress had power to do even that — as all contracts are 
 made not only with a view to present laws but subject 
 to the future legislation of the country. The value 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 267 
 
 of coin had been repeatedly changed by legislation, 
 neither our gold nor silver coin being as valuable as 
 it was fifty years before. In 1853 Congress debased 
 the coin over 7 per cent., and made it a legal tender. 
 The ex post facto laws prohibited by the Constitution 
 refer only to crimes and misdemeanors, not to civil 
 contracts. 
 
 As to the inflation of the currency and the rise of 
 prices, he did not see how the same amount of notes 
 without the legal tender quality would be better. Ste- 
 vens expected the notes to be issued only in limited 
 quantities, and that limitation upon their issue he relied 
 upon as the chief factor in keeping the notes at par 
 with gold. He was not thinking of a currency entirely 
 independent of specie. He believed that the value of 
 these notes would depend entirely upon two factors : in 
 the first place, that the notes should be made to perform 
 all the functions of money — that all men without ex- 
 ception might use them to pay their debts and their 
 taxes, and that the government would do so, too; 
 and, in the second place, upon the quantity issued as 
 compared with the business of the country. That 
 belief was founded upon the best economic authority 
 of his day. No experience or new economic argument 
 has since been brought forward to disprove it. These 
 two factors : namely, reasonable limitation in quantity, 
 and universal money use, will maintain the parity of 
 government paper. Such was Stevens' opinion, and 
 in that opinion who will say that he was not standing 
 on sound economic ground ? 
 
 It should be remembered that the notes that Stevens 
 proposed were not the notes that were issued. The 
 
268 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 notes that he favored were the notes of the Green- 
 backer, — ■ full legal tender money, limited in amount, 
 and convertible into interest-bearing bonds. The dif- 
 ference between Stevens and the later Greenbacker 
 was that he looked upon these notes, as all their pro- 
 moters did at the time, as a temporary expedient, and 
 he expected the bonds which they might be used to 
 buy not to be continually exchangeable for greenbacks 
 at the option of the holder, but to be paid in gold at 
 the end of twenty years, if they had not been redeemed 
 in lawful money before that time; that is, in the same 
 notes the purchaser should use in buying the bonds. 
 United States notes, lawful money for all alike, based 
 on an ultimate gold security (since Stevens expected to 
 return to specie payments), that he thought to be " nec- 
 essary and proper," and the best that could be devised 
 in the hour of uncertainty and distress. 1 
 
 1 A government currency based on national bonds, to be 
 issued as bank-notes through the then existing banks, a legal 
 tender for all debts, public and private, with the understanding 
 that the notes should never be redeemable in specie, — this 
 alternative proposal was made at the time. This would have 
 been essentially the same kind of currency that Stevens sought 
 to obtain, except that it was more radical in that it was proposed 
 as a permanent system and not as a temporary expedient prompted 
 by necessity. Lord's banking experience, his altruistic principles 
 and long study of the currency problem had brought him to his 
 convictions as to what the nation should do for a currency in 
 the crisis of the war. He would establish a national paper cur- 
 rency independent of specie, that would answer for either war or 
 peace. This was the scheme of Eleazar Lord. Lord, whose con- 
 tributions to the literature of our financial controversies entitle 
 him to recognition and to a worthy place in the financial his- 
 tory of the country, was born in Connecticut in 17SS. He 
 studied theology in Andover and Princeton, but the failure 
 of his eyesight compelled him* to give up his profession of the 
 ministry. In 1815 he settled in New York City and engaged 
 in commercial pursuits and later in banking. He founded the 
 Manhattan Insurance Company in 1821, and was for twelve 
 years its President. He proposed the free banking system for 
 
.WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 269 
 
 Stevens was original and bold enough to venture 
 •nly so far in that direction as he thought the neces- 
 sities of the war compelled. He was less theoretical, 
 more of an opportunist. He looked to the restoration 
 of the old system in the resumption of specie payments 
 after the war, not by the retirement and disuse of 
 the greenbacks, but in their being brought to a parity 
 with gold and silver. 
 
 The national paper currency that Stevens proposed 
 was not given a trial. Evidence that there could have 
 been a better currency for the time has by no means 
 been convincing, an opinion which a lay citizen may 
 be so bold as to entertain in spite of the traditional 
 and conventional arguments of gold standard writers 
 from that day to this. 
 
 To adopt these notes, it is true, was to cut loose from 
 the gold standard as a basis for the conduct of the war, 
 and, temporarily, as a measure of debts and a stand- 
 ard of deferred payments. This was bound to happen 
 to a greater degree than Stevens appreciated or un- 
 
 New York which was adopted by that state in 1838. He was 
 a successful, banker, the organizer of the National Institution 
 for the Promotion of Industry, and by personal influence and 
 argument helped to induce Henry Clay to declare himself in 
 opposition to free trade. Lord became one of the founders of 
 the University of New York City, and he was for many years 
 one of its trustees. He was a philanthropist and, like Peter 
 Cooper, he became the public spirited projector of many 
 schemes for the public good. In 1861 he originated and drew in 
 his own handwriting what he claimed as the draft of the first 
 greenback that was ever issued in the United States. Thou- 
 sands of Americans will rise up to bless or to blame him for 
 that! Lord published, among other essays, an extensive work- 
 on Credit, Currency and Banking (1828) ; A letter on the Na- 
 tional Currency (1861) ; Six letters on the Necessity and Prac- 
 ticability of a National Currency (1862). My information on 
 the facts in Lord's life is derived from Appleton's Cyclopedia of 
 American Biography. 
 
270 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 derstood. But the gold standard for war payments 
 and emergencies had already proved inadequate. No 
 one claimed that the emergency could be met without 
 a paper currency. The only question was whether 
 there should be a government currency or a currency 
 of a number of irresponsible state banks. 
 
 The value of the proposed notes in terms of gold 
 coin, gold bullion, or any other commodity, would 
 chiefly, if not entirely, depend upon the factors that 
 Stevens named, — the limited quantity, the growing 
 demand, and the full money function. He thought 
 that the limited amount proposed would float at par 
 with gold, and when he was asked by Judge Thomas, 
 of Massachusetts, whether he expected to limit the 
 amount to the $150,000,000 proposed, Stevens an- 
 swered emphatically that he did; he expected to call 
 for no more. Four months later 1 when Stevens, as 
 spokesman of his committee, was calling upon the 
 House to vote another $150,000,000, Judge Thomas 
 again inquired whether that would be the last $150,- 
 000,000 they would be called upon to vote. Stevens 
 replied : " I said before that $150,000,000 was all that 
 I would ask and if they had passed the bill as I wanted 
 it, it is all I would have asked; but they spoiled the 
 bill and I don't know how long it will go on." 
 
 He recognized in the first discussion the danger of 
 over issue, but he expected the government paper to 
 displace the bank circulation of $200,000,000, and that 
 the increasing business of the country would bring 
 coin into use; it would come out of hiding for invest- 
 ment. He regarded the notes as inconvertible (into 
 
 ijune 18, 1862. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 271 
 
 coin), and he understood perfectly that the value of 
 the paper would depend upon the quantity issued, and 
 the demand placed upon it. He expected rapid circu- 
 lation of the money, $100 in notes buying ten times its 
 value in a year. The money would soon find lodgment 
 in the banks, and these could not find a better invest- 
 ment than a twenty-year bond that would ultimately be 
 redeemed in gold. He had no doubt that the $500,- 
 000,000 of bonds would be absorbed in less time than 
 would be needed by the government; and " thus $150,- 
 000,000 would do the work of $500,000,000 of bonds." 
 He was not much in sympathy with " the unfortunate 
 money lenders who were clamorous lest the debtor 
 should the more easily pay his debt." He met with 
 his usual sneer — he was rich in sneers — the counter- 
 proposals before the House. Roscoe Conkling's pro- 
 posal to issue 7 per cent, bonds payable in thirty-one 
 years to be sold for the currency of the banks of 
 Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, seemed to Ste- 
 vens to lack every element of wise legislation. To 
 receive " irredeemable currency and pay that in its 
 depreciated condition to our contractors, soldiers, and 
 creditors generally ! The banks would issue unlimited 
 amounts of what would become trash and buy good 
 hard money bonds of the nation. Was there ever such 
 a temptation to swindle ? " 
 
 He denounced the substitute of the minority of the 
 committee as a curiosity. It proposed notes, not a 
 legal tender, bearing 3.65 per cent., 1 not payable on de- 
 mand but at the pleasure of the United States. Here 
 was a kind of currency never before known, — a circu- 
 
 x And fundable into 7.3 per cent, bonds. 
 
272 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 lation bearing interest. " Suppose a tailor, shoemaker, 
 or laborer were to take one of these bills, and in a 
 week he should wish to use it in market, or store, or 
 elsewhere, he must sit down and calculate the in- 
 terest on the days he has had it to find its value. This 
 would be rather inconvenient on a frosty day. This 
 currency would make it necessary for every man to 
 carry an arithmetic or interest table with which to 
 gage the value of the circulating medium." 1 
 
 In conclusion, Stevens expressed the earnest hope 
 that the bill might pass, but not without the legal 
 tender clause. If it did not pass, then he would that 
 the members of the Committee on Ways and Means 
 might have the power to resign their places to let 
 the opponents of the bill mature some other plan. He 
 would attempt no other. " The Committee on Ways 
 and Means have labored in the preparation of this 
 measure anxiously and to the best of their poor abili- 
 ties. ... If this bill pass, I shall hail it as the most 
 auspicious measure of this Congress; if it should fail, 
 the result will be more deplorable than any disaster 
 which could befall us." 2 
 
 The bill passed the House as Stevens favored it, 
 with no exception clause. The notes were to be a 
 legal tender for all debts, public and private. The 
 discriminating exceptions were imposed by the Sen- 
 ate. When the bill came back to the House it con- 
 tained, among other amendments, two provisions that 
 were calculated to defeat the chief objects of the bill. 
 These objects were to prevent all forcing of the gov- 
 
 1 Globe, February 6, 1862, p. 688. 
 
 2 Globe, February 6, 1862, p. 689. 
 
L WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 2y$ 
 
 crnmcnt to sell its bonds in the market to the highest 
 bidder, and to induce bankers and capitalists to ex- 
 change the legal tender notes for 6 per cent, bonds at 
 par or lose their interest, thus furnishing a continually 
 recurring currency by the sale of the bonds. " A 
 dollar in a miser's safe unproductive is a sore dis- 
 turbance," as Stevens had said. 
 
 One of the objectionable amendments provided that 
 the greenbacks might be deposited at the subtreasury 
 for treasury notes bearing 7.3 per cent, and payable in 
 two years. This " vicious deposit system upon inter- 
 est," as Stevens called it, would prevent the legal ten- 
 ders from being converted into bonds, and as there 
 could be no reasonable expectation that the government 
 would be able to pay its interest-bearing notes in two 
 years, the treasury would be at the mercy of its 
 creditors, and would be compelled to submit to any 
 hard bargain they chose to drive unless the govern- 
 ment should consent to become dishonored by refusal 
 to redeem its notes. 
 
 The other Senate provision was still more objec- 
 tionable : namely, that the interest on the bonds should 
 be paid in coin, and that in order to secure the coin 
 the Secretary of the Treasury should go into the 
 market and sell his bonds for what they would bring. 
 The bill was thus weighted down with a proposed 
 absurdity of two inconsistent and conflicting cur- 
 rencies, — one money for ordinary commercial trans- 
 actions among the people, with " the preposterous 
 provision that the government dues to a particular class 
 should be paid in another and wholly different legal 
 tender." This was gold, the want of which had made 
 
274 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the treasury notes necessary and which must yet be 
 purchased at any sacrifice. So, after all, the treasury 
 was not to escape from its shackles, but must be forced 
 to hawk its bonds to the gold brokers in Wall Street 
 for gold ; and the plan for a new national currency was 
 to be brought to naught. 
 
 Within a few months the " financiers " who were 
 responsible for these Senate amendments began to 
 complain of the evils arising from the disparity be- 
 tween specie and greenback notes, and with an assump- 
 tion of superior virtue and wisdom, they attributed all 
 these evils to the legal tender legislation. On the 
 other hand, the Greenbackers attributed those evils to 
 the legislation promoted by the advocates of specie that 
 made one currency for the government and another 
 for the people, — the amendment that bound the gov- 
 ernment to pay its bond interest in gold. The gov- 
 ernment thus came forth and proclaimed itself a 
 constant and permanent customer for gold at what- 
 ever price, as an exportable article of commercial 
 traffic, in competition with its foreign rivals and with 
 the whole money power of the world. That gold 
 would rise was certain and was as clearly foreseen by 
 others, if not by the "financiers," as the law of 
 gravitation. Yet the Senate had hastily allowed this 
 " expert opinion " to dictate an " invidious and un- 
 heard of preference among creditors of the govern- 
 ment." 1 
 
 It was exactly this that Stevens and his coadjutors 
 sought to avoid. They wanted no partial half-way 
 measure, no exceptions, no evasions, no equivocations, 
 
 1 Eleazar Lord, Letters on a National Currency, p. 41. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 275 
 
 no class legislation. If these notes were to be made 
 money, they should be money for all classes and con- 
 ditions of men. There should be one currency for 
 all sections and classes alike, and not one kind of 
 money for the poor and another for the rich, or one 
 kind for the debtor and another for the creditor. If 
 a forced loan were to be laid on the business of the 
 country, it should be laid upon all businesses alike, the 
 money-lending business as well as upon every other. 
 If these notes were a means of making the people pay 
 for the support of the war, all should be made to pay ; 
 and Stevens saw no reason why the government should 
 make an exception and provide special legislation to 
 safeguard the interests of a class of men represent- 
 ing accumulated wealth. If by long continuance of 
 the war the public debt should reach $2,000,000,000, 
 
 — and Stevens' vision upon that score was not be- 
 clouded as was that of so many public men of the time 
 
 — it would require $120,000,000 of gold annually to 
 meet the interest, requiring a semi-annual payment of 
 more gold than the combined banks of the country 
 contained. 1 This would enhance the price of gold, 
 and bankers and brokers would horde it for sale to 
 the government at ruinous prices; gold and treasury 
 notes would part company and speculations in gold 
 would follow. This hazardous outcome Stevens saw 
 clearly from the beginning and he sought to do his 
 best to prevent it. 
 
 Consequently, when the bill came back from the 
 Senate with these obstructing and discriminating 
 
 1 In fact the jmnual interest payment became much larger 
 than this. 
 
276 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 clauses, Stevens was ready to abandon the whole legal 
 tender feature of the bill rather than accept the 
 " pernicious amendments." He denounced the 
 amended measure as " an incongruous monster," as 
 a bill with " many uncouth features," and " no won- 
 der, for it had a vast number of progenitors and must 
 partake of the lineaments of all." As a means of 
 breaking down the amendments he contended with 
 reference to the exception that it was proposed to make 
 to the legal tender provision of the bill, either that 
 the whole legal tender provision should be abandoned 
 or the exception should be extended. He, therefore, 
 in order to make the exception odious and defeat it, 
 moved to extend it, so that if the treasury notes were 
 not to be legal tender for dues to the bondholder, 
 neither should they be in payments due to soldiers, 
 sailors, contractors, farmers, and producers. These, 
 too, were creditors of the government. Many of 
 them were risking their lives in defense of their coun- 
 try, and they were certainly as deserving of the con- 
 sideration of the government as were those who 
 staked only their money upon the issue, — and that, 
 too, only on special security. This, says Mr. White, 
 " put the House to the severest possible test." 1 It 
 did, indeed, test the spirit and motive of some of the 
 members of Congress. It appears that Stevens was 
 putting it up to the House to decide whether it would 
 stand for privilege or equality, whether it would or- 
 dain and establish " one currency for the bondholder, 
 another for the plow-holder " ; a dear money to re- 
 pay those who had quantities of capital to lend to the 
 1 Horace White, Money and Banking, p. 155. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 2J7 
 
 government, but a cheap money to pay the producers 
 who were furnishing supplies for the armies in the 
 field and the men in the trenches who were shoulder- 
 ing their muskets for the sake of the Union. 
 
 This has been denounced as the scheme of the dem- 
 agogue. It was not. It was rather the plea of a 
 great commoner whose sympathies were with the com- 
 mon people who were bearing the nation's burdens, and 
 of an honest public servant who had sufficient nerve 
 and insight to withstand the demands of interested 
 and powerful moneyed classes. It was, also, the plea 
 of an astute political manager who sought to compass 
 the rejection of amendments that he honestly thought 
 would be injurious to the interests of his country- 
 men. Stevens said, as he approached this second dis- 
 cussion of the legal tender bill, that he did so with 
 more depression of spirit than he had ever approached 
 a public question, having as he said, " a melancholy 
 foreboding that we are about to consummate a cun- 
 ningly devised scheme which will carry great injury 
 and great loss to all classes of the people throughout 
 the Union, except one." * 
 
 The original bill had been hailed with delight 
 throughout the country. Congratulations had come 
 
 1 Peter Cooper, in accepting the nomination of the Greenback 
 party for the presidency in 1876 (Indianapolis, May 17), said: 
 " The introduction of that little word except into the original 
 law drew tears from the eyes of Thaddeus Stevens when he 
 looked down the current of events and saw our bonds in the 
 hands of foreigners who would be receiving a gold interest on 
 every hundred dollars of bonds that cost them but fifty or sixty 
 dollars in gold. 
 
 " But for the introduction of that word except into that 
 original law our bonds would have been taken at par by our 
 own people, and the interest would have been paid at home in 
 currency instead of being paid to foreigners in gold." 
 
 ' 
 
278 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 in from all classes of people, — merchants, traders, 
 manufacturers, mechanics, laborers, and from the 
 Boards of Trade of the principal cities. 1 
 
 " It is true," said Stevens, " a doleful sound came 
 up from the caverns of bullion brokers, and from the 
 saloons of the associated banks. Their cashiers and 
 agents were soon on the ground, and persuaded the 
 Senate with but little deliberation, to mangle and 
 destroy what it had cost the House months to digest, 
 consider, and pass. They fell upon the bill in hot 
 haste and so disfigured and deformed it that its very 
 father would not know it. Instead of being a benef- 
 icent and invigorating measure, it is now positively 
 mischievous. It has all the bad qualities that its ene- 
 mies charged on the original bill and none of its bene- 
 fits. It now creates money, and by its very terms de- 
 clares it a depreciated currency. It makes two classes 
 of money — one for the banks and brokers, and an- 
 other for the people. It discriminates between the 
 rights of different classes of creditors, allowing the rich 
 capitalist to demand gold, and compelling the ordinary 
 lender of money to receive notes which the govern- 
 ment had purposely discredited." 2 
 
 Other minor amendments were also objectionable as 
 tending toward favoritism and class legislation. Stev- 
 
 1 Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, said in the Senate 
 that not a thousand people in his state opposed the legal tender 
 clause, that ninety-nine in a hundred of the loyal people favored 
 it, that the sentiment of the nation " approaches unanimity in 
 its favor." He had letters from several large commercial houses 
 representing millions of capital, and " they say that they do not 
 know a merchant in the city of Boston engaged in active busi- 
 ness who is not for this legal tender." Globe, 2d Session, Thirty- 
 seventh Congress, Vol. 59, pp. 788-789, February 13, 1862. 
 
 2 Globe, Feb. 20, 1862, p. 900. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 279 
 
 ens pleaded for equity and fair play to all classes 
 alike and in his conclusion he earnestly urged his 
 amendment enlarging the exceptions in order, as he 
 said, that " if this pernicious system is to be adopted, 
 if the beauty of the original bill is to be impaired en- 
 tirely, those who are righting our battles and the 
 widows and orphans of those who are lying in their 
 graves in every part of the country, killed in defense 
 of the government, may not be placed upon a worse 
 footing than those who hold the bonds of the gov- 
 ernment and the coin of the country." * He dis- 
 claimed responsibility for the result of the bill, and 
 he looked upon its passage in its amended form as 
 deplorable and permanently injurious to all classes of 
 the community except the class that he had excepted, 
 — bankers, bond buyers, and bullionists. 
 
 The House agreed to the Senate amendment pro- 
 viding for the payment of bond interest in coin, but 
 it disagreed to some other amendments. The result 
 was a conference committee between the two houses. 
 Messrs. Fessenden, Sherman and Carlisle represented 
 the Senate and Messrs. Stevens, Sedgwick, and Horton 
 represented the House, and after some days of dis- 
 cussion the outcome was an agreement to resort to 
 customs dues instead of bond sales as a means of 
 securing the coin for interest payment. 2 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 2d Session, Thirty-seventh Cong., Vol. 59, p. 900, 
 Feb. 20, 1862. 
 
 2 Mr. Horace White asserts that Stevens " afterward claimed 
 the credit " of substituting import duties instead of bond sales 
 as a means of getting the coin for the government, but that he 
 did this as a means of increasing the duties on imports for the 
 sake of higher protection and not for the sake of getting the 
 gold for which " he had intense scorn." Money and Banking, 
 P. 155. 
 
280 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The bill then passed providing for the issue of 
 $150,000,000 of legal tender treasury notes with the 
 exception clauses; stipulating that customs dues and 
 the government's interest payments should be in coin ; 
 that these notes might be exchanged for bonds at 
 6 per cent, or deposited on interest at 5 per cent., and 
 the issue of $500,000,000 five-twenty bonds was au- 
 thorized. 1 
 
 Attempt has here been made to present fairly and 
 with as much fulness as the limits of space make pos- 
 sible the position of Stevens on this most important 
 single act of legislation during the Civil War. For 
 what he then did and said in the legal tender con- 
 troversy Stevens has been severely criticized by writers 
 who condemn the greenback policy. Because he said 
 that these notes which he proposed would not depre- 
 ciate as compared with gold, that they would be 
 rapidly exchanged for five-twenty bonds, and that 
 no further issues would be called for, — these expres- 
 sions have been held up as glaring examples of his 
 wild and untrained opinions and errors in finance, 
 and as an indication of his readiness to " cast to the 
 winds the teaching of experience." 2 A standard 
 writer in American financial history refers, with some 
 flavor of satire, to the " magic " by which Stevens 
 expected that $150,000,000 of treasury notes would 
 do the work of $500,000,000 in bonds." 3 Another 
 writer refers to the expectation of Stevens that the 
 
 1 There were two subsequent issues of the greenbacks on 
 July 11, 1862, and March, 1S63. These increased the amount of 
 the greenback currency to the final total of $450,000,000. 
 
 -' Oberholtzer, E. P., Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil War, 
 .Vol. I, p. 171. 
 
 3 Dewey, D. R., Financial History of the United States. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 281 
 
 notes would be readily offered for bonds as a " vain 
 reliance " and as " far too sanguine." l 
 
 These criticisms are, no doubt, fair in intent, but 
 they are hardly fair in fact. The full truth puts 
 Stevens in a different light. Complete justice to the 
 merits of the controversy, not to speak of common 
 fairness to Stevens and his coadjutors, would seem to 
 require that the reader should be reminded of the fact 
 that these utterances of Stevens were not made with 
 reference to the notes that were issued and with which 
 experience was had, but with reference to the notes 
 that he originally favored. There was a difference. 
 The original greenbacks of which Stevens was ever 
 the ready defender would certainly have had a greater 
 value, in comparison with gold, than the ones the gold 
 advocates finally succeeded in writing into the law. 
 The notes that were issued, which Stevens so stoutly 
 opposed, had denied to them two great and important 
 functions of money, — customs taxes to government 
 and government payment of interest. In these two 
 important aspects the government dishonored its own 
 notes. To the extent of these vital exceptions the 
 greater pressure of money demand was placed upon 
 gold ; it was made preferred money and was required 
 for a large money work that the greenbacks were 
 by law prevented from doing, and, consequently, the 
 notes that were finally enacted took exactly the course 
 with reference to gold that Stevens predicted for them. 
 Instead of saying, as quoted, that the greenbacks as 
 issued would pass at par with gold, he specifically 
 predicted that they would depreciate. He did not 
 1 Mitchell, W- C, A History of the Greenbacks. 
 
282 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 expect depreciation under the original bill, but under 
 the amended bill he did expect it. 
 
 On the eve of the final enactment of the Legal Tender Act, 
 in speaking of the " exception clause," which he denounced 
 as one of the " uncouth features " of the bill imposed by 
 the Senate amendments, Stevens said: "After we had 
 made a currency for all, declaring it to be equal with gold, 
 we made an exception and declared that it was not equal 
 to gold and should be a currency only for some, thereby 
 depreciating our bonds and bringing our currency below par 
 which we declared was par." 
 
 Herein I give not quite the form of Stevens' utter- 
 ance but the exact meaning of it. When Stevens 
 spoke of declaring paper money " at par " and making 
 it " equal with gold " he must have meant only that the 
 government and the people would treat the legal ten- 
 ders without discrimination," that they should be recog- 
 nized as equal with gold in the equal power of per- 
 forming all the functions of money. Whether, if no 
 legal discriminations had been made in favor of gold, 
 and equal money functions had been given to paper 
 and gold alike, the greenbacks and the gold would have 
 exchanged at a parity, can be neither proved nor dis- 
 proved. That would have depended on the quantity 
 issued and the demand for money. Stevens thought 
 such notes would be at parity with gold. The experi- 
 ence with an issue, in 1861, of $60,000,000 in demand 
 notes which, being made receivable for customs but not 
 a legal tender, did not depreciate, appears to sustain his 
 view; and with such a limited supply as he first pro- 
 posed it is not unreasonable to conclude that the law 
 of probabilities was in favor of Stevens' opinion. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 283 
 
 Men who speak flippantly about his " wild-eyed no- 
 tions of finance " give little evidence that they them- 
 selves are either fair judges of sound opinion, or care- 
 ful students of the paper money problem. Stevens 
 should be allowed to stand upon his record. If the 
 notes had been allowed to retain the full money quali- 
 ties with which he so earnestly desired to clothe them, 
 those qualities would certainly have added to their use; 
 the larger use would have added to the demand for 
 them; and the larger demand would have increased 
 their value. What their gold value would actually 
 have been is a matter of speculative opinion, but it is 
 quite obvious that the criticisms here referred to do not 
 apply with fairness to Stevens' real opinions and 
 prophecies. 
 
 In another respect the criticism of Stevens by fi- 
 nancial writers is equally unfair. I refer to that " too 
 sanguine expectation " and the " magical process " 
 by which, it is said, he expected the legal tender 
 notes to be turned over rapidly and repeatedly for the 
 five-twenty bonds. The record reveals Stevens' clear 
 recognition of the fact that these notes as they were 
 finally issued would not be so exchanged for the 
 five-twenties. Yet his words are misused to make him 
 say the opposite of what he believed, — the words he 
 applied to the legal tender notes before they were 
 vitiated by the Senate amendments. He openly as- 
 serted that the notes as they were made by the Senate 
 amendments would not be funded into bonds. " I do 
 not," he said, " expect one dollar of the $150,000,000 
 of legal tender notes ever to be invested in the twenty 
 years bonds, as no bonds would be sold until the cur- 
 
284 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 rency became frightfully inflated." All classes were 
 required to take these notes " unless they had money 
 enough to buy the United States bonds, and then they 
 shall be paid in gold, and that favored class is nobody 
 but bankers and brokers." 1 " Does anybody suppose 
 that they are going to give their coin at par for such 
 notes as we are about to issue? They will sell the 
 gold for what their consciences will allow. Was 
 ever before such a machine got up for swindling the 
 government and making the fortune of the gold bul- 
 lionists in one single year? " 2 It was because he saw 
 that the easy convertibility which he claimed for the 
 original notes had been destroyed that he so vigorously 
 denounced the " vicious deposit system upon interest " 
 which was imposed by one of the Senate amendments. 
 Under that system the holders of the legal tenders 
 could deposit them in the subtreasuries and receive 5 
 per cent, interest on them. This put the government 
 into the position of receiving its currency on deposit 
 and withholding it from use, and it effectually pre- 
 vented, as Stevens said, all conversion of the legal ten- 
 ders into the bonded debt. To Stevens this seemed 
 like a cunning device to prevent the greenbacks from 
 having a rapid and constant circulation and from do- 
 ing the very work for which they were designed. He 
 distinctly said so in the open House. He believed the 
 gold money brokers were using every means which 
 their ingenuity could devise to prevent the greenbacks 
 from doing the work of money. What these gold men 
 
 1 Stevens disregards the clients of the bankers, the small in- 
 vestors who merely wished to use the banks as agencies for the 
 investment of their savings and capital funds. 
 
 - Globe, Feb. 20, 1862. 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 2S5 
 
 most feared, according to Stevens, was not that the le- 
 gal tenders could not do the money work, but that they 
 could do it, and he repeatedly denounced the proposal 
 to lock them up on deposit as an adroit scheme by 
 which the enemies of the greenbacks were accomplish- 
 ing their purpose, — to prevent a soundly secured paper 
 money from coming into use as well as to prevent their 
 being offered for bonds. A year later he reiterated 
 this opinion, which experience had vindicated, by call- 
 ing attention to the fact that only $23,000,000 of bonds 
 had been sold, since the passage of the law. 1 The 
 full record of the case does not show that in this 
 respect Stevens was either deceived or that he was 
 obtuse, or over-sanguine. Many men in his day de- 
 nounced Stevens as a vindictive political tyrant; some 
 men, since his death, have accused him of being a 
 knave; but no one ever took him for a fool. The 
 record will show that he penetrated the problem of 
 paper money in relation to the war with as keen an 
 intelligence as any man of his time. 
 
 One may reasonably believe, in harmony with tra- 
 ditional opinion and the dicta of eminent writers 
 (though they have assumed rather than proved their 
 case), that the legal tender legislation was not wise 
 nor economical. There is reasonable ground, also, 
 for an opposite opinion. It is repeatedly asserted that 
 that legislation added greatly to the cost of the war. 2 
 The sum of $870,000,000 has been given as the un- 
 necessary cost to the taxpayers caused by the use of a 
 depreciated currency. 3 But the case is by no means 
 
 1 House, January 20, 1863. 
 
 2 Rhodes, III, pp. 566, 567. 
 
 3 Horace White, Money and Banking, p. 162. 
 
286 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 clear against the greenback. Not to speak of the 
 claim, which may reasonably be made, that a consider- 
 able part of the increased expenses of the war came 
 directly from the mutilation of the greenbacks by its 
 enemies, by which they were prevented from being re- 
 ceived for all forms of taxes, duties, and debts, 1 yet it 
 will be accepted as a matter of common agreement that 
 the greenback issue gave to the government an immedi- 
 ate relief, by affording a means of making payments 
 that taxes could not possibly have afforded ; that, in so 
 far as they were in the nature of a loan or government 
 obligation, they were " a loan without interest " and 
 saved an interest payment on a nominal capital equal 
 to the amount of the issue; that their issue was fol- 
 lowed by a notable commercial and industrial pros- 
 perity; that production and exchange were greatly 
 facilitated, and, therefore, government revenues were 
 increased ; and that this prosperity and the rising prices 
 were a potent factor in making the people both able 
 and willing to meet the heavy taxes that became neces- 
 sary later for the conduct of the war. This productive 
 and commercial prosperity was so pronounced during 
 the years from 1862 to 1865 that our exports of sta- 
 ples to foreign markets were so unprecedented as to 
 exceed by from two to four times the average of the 
 years just prior to the war, — and this, too, at a time 
 when a million of men were drawn from the field of 
 
 1 In a later financial discussion in the House, Feb. 28, 1865, 
 Stevens said: "To this unwise discrimination, creating two 
 kinds of currency, and pronouncing one kind of lawful money 
 inferior to the other kind of lawful money, 1 attribute most of 
 the trouble which has arisen from the high price of everything, 
 the enormous and unnecessary expense of the war and the con- 
 stant fluctuation in the market." 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 287 
 
 productive labor and when it was feared that the waste 
 of war would take all our national surplus and call for 
 the importation of supplies from abroad. 
 
 I think it has been demonstrated that the gold 
 standard had, of necessity, to be abandoned. But if 
 there are those who think otherwise, they are under 
 obligations to adduce some reasonable ground for be- 
 lieving that upon the gold standard and without the 
 greenback, the country could have sent such an un- 
 precedented volume of products to foreign markets; 
 that it could have supplied with such ease and ability 
 the sinews for a war of such gigantic magnitude ; and 
 that the nation could have raised for its treasury within 
 a single year, as it did, a thousand millions of money 
 in loans and taxes. This does not seem credible, and 
 it was, therefore, not unreasonable to say, as was said 
 repeatedly by public men after the war was over, that 
 the greenback money, after gold had become a com- 
 modity to be bought and sold, was one of the most 
 potent factors in promoting the success of the national 
 arms. 
 
 Nor are the usual assertions of the gold standard 
 advocates, and of the historians who assume without 
 knowledge the correctness of their view, at all con- 
 vincing to show that the paper currency added greatly 
 to the cost of the war. Undoubtedly the prices which 
 the government had to pay for commodities were 
 raised by the use of the paper dollar. But this was 
 an increased expense only in name. What the war 
 cost was the amount of labor and wealth consumed 
 in waging it. 1 That could not have been increased by 
 
 1 Journal of Political Economy, Vol. V, p. 143. 
 
288 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 any change of the money standard. The number of 
 soldiers required for the army and sailors for the 
 navy, and the amount of supplies required to arm and 
 feed them, — these were just the same as if the gold 
 dollar had been used instead of the greenback. The 
 number of dollars were increased, but the consumed 
 wealth that these dollars represented was exactly the 
 same. The increased cost of the war came, not in 
 the use of the greenbacks to conduct the war, but in 
 their disuse after the war was over, — that is, in the 
 policy of paying the creditors of the government 
 dollars of higher value than they had loaned. 1 The 
 capital that was borrowed represented so much wealth, 
 but the capital that was returned represented nearly 
 twice as much wealth. But that policy of adding to 
 the cost of the war was not the policy of Stevens 
 and the Greenbacker, nor were they responsible for it. 
 It was the policy of those who combated and defeated 
 Stevens' greenback legislation. If only the values that 
 were borrowed had been returned to the lenders, the 
 war would have cost essentially the same on either 
 money standard, — if it had been possible to conduct 
 it at all on the specie basis. 
 
 In view of the whole controversy and of Stevens' 
 persistent and consistent efforts to prevent the gold 
 legislation that was here secured by the " interests," 
 — those that were working in favor of the gold dealers 
 and bankers — it is slightly ironical for the gold advo- 
 
 1 " The depreciation of the currency then made no difference 
 in the amount of wealth consumed during the war. The only 
 way in which it did make a real increase in its cost came in the 
 repayment of the debt." Mitchell, " The Greenbacks and the 
 Cost of the War," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. V, p. 
 144 (1897). 
 
.WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 289 
 
 cates to attribute to Stevens and other original friends 
 of the Legal Tender Act the failures and shortcomings 
 of that measure. Those interested in money lending 
 and gold holdings, while they could not defeat the Legal 
 Tender Act, accomplished their principal purpose by 
 another process, — the purpose of compelling the gov- 
 ernment to sell its bonds in the open market for what 
 they would command in gold. They were permitted 
 to accomplish this purpose in spite of the fact that 
 Stevens had made it perfectly obvious that the bond 
 sale was certain to result in a discount ruinous to 
 the public interest. The capitalist opposition to the 
 greenback legislation was not at all marked nor strenu- 
 ous after the interests of their particular class had 
 been safeguarded by the Senate amendments. With 
 more recent history before us of the ways by which 
 moneyed interests control legislation at Washington, 
 we may conclude that Stevens was not far from wrong 
 when he attributed this particular " failure " of the 
 Greenback Act to a " cunningly devised scheme " of a 
 creditor and bondholding class who had gold in con- 
 siderable quantities to offer the government, under con- 
 ditions that would enable them to dictate the terms of 
 its sale. 
 
 What would have resulted in financial conditions if 
 the original Greenback Act had gone through; what 
 the expenses of the war, measured in money, would 
 have been; how a real Stevens greenback without any 
 exception clause would have been rated in terms of 
 gold, — all this is entirely a matter of speculation. It 
 is certainly not to be settled by the dogmatic assertion 
 of those who choose to flatter themselves as the only 
 
290 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 " advocates of sound money," or by the epithet of 
 ridicule and denunciation against greenbacks and 
 Greenbackers usually indulged in by the orthodox ad- 
 vocates of the gold standard. After the experience of 
 recent years, the advocates of gold as the only stable 
 measure of value can not much longer perpetrate the 
 absurd farce of calling it a " standard." Happily that 
 ever-shifting, not to say ever-cheating, " standard " is 
 not now in the minds of the creditor and salaried 
 classes quite so sacred a thing as it was a half-century, 
 or even two decades, ago. More than a thousand mil- 
 lions of new gold within a decade and the consequent 
 fall in its value (or the rise of gold prices, which is 
 the same thing) are leading " classical writers," and 
 perhaps even the intolerant dogmatists of the gold 
 standard school, to question whether the yellow metal 
 was really designed in the original councils of the 
 Almighty as the one standard of honest money for 
 the realm. 1 The ax is being laid at the root of the 
 
 1 The director of the mint in his estimate of the output of 
 gold for the year 191 1, places its value at $466,000,000. That 
 was but a slight increase over the years immediately preceding. 
 But ten years ago the gold output was valued at only $262,- 
 000,000, while twenty years ago it was only $130,000,000, and 
 the average for the decade of 1880 to 1890 was but a little over 
 $100,000,000. The product of gold from the Transvaal has 
 grown in ten years from $9,000,000 to $191,000,000. It is not 
 contended that the recent rise of prices is to be attributed to 
 the gold flood alone, yet few reputable economists will deny that 
 it is the most effective cause. The phenomenal increase of gold 
 has brought us the " fifty-cent dollar " which was so decried 
 in the notable Bryan campaign of 1896. The gold " standard " 
 was even more inconstant and unreliable in Stevens' day than 
 in ours, the difference being that in Civil War times the metal 
 was scarce, while in these times of high prices it is abundant. 
 
 Professor Irving Fisher, of the Department of Economics of 
 Yale University, has recently presented much evidence and sound 
 argument to prove that the present high cost of living is due 
 primarily " to gold and credit inflation." He is reminding the 
 
WAYS AND MEANS IN THE WAR 291 
 
 tree, as the radical custom always was with Thaddeus 
 Stevens. The value of gold has so calamitously 
 changed in the wrong (?) direction in recent years 
 that the orthodox may well question the divinity that 
 has always been supposed to hedge about the yellow 
 metal as a standard of value. It is barely possible 
 that they may be led to see that Thaddeus Stevens, 
 the Greenbacker, even fifty years ago in the midst 
 of the trials of war, had an intelligent conception of 
 the need of a uniform national currency, and that he 
 saw and understood the merits of gold in relation to 
 money as clearly as some of his hasty and intolerant 
 critics. 
 
 Stevens looked upon this struggle over a national 
 currency as a contest between Privilege and Democ- 
 racy. America has never produced a more power- 
 ful, more consistent, and more uncompromising foe 
 to Privilege than Thaddeus Stevens. In this cause he 
 felt and spoke for the people with the same fervent 
 democratic spirit that characterized his opposition to 
 slavery. He knew the motives that were actuating 
 men in their importunities for government favors. 
 He had as keen and as sensitive an appreciation of the 
 financial honor of the nation as any man of his time. 
 He saw the bearings of this financial legislation upon 
 the burdens which his government was undergoing 
 and upon the prosperity of his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 public of what ought to be obvious to all, that gold inflation is 
 as bad as any other kind, and that sound money that is really 
 honest demands emancipation " from fluctuations in either di- 
 rection of the purchasing value of the monetary unit," and that 
 business "may suffer from gold inflation which comes from 
 natural causes as truly as from inflation through legislative enact- 
 ment." This helps to get the dust out of the eyes of the public. 
 
 
 
292 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 His record upon this subject, as upon all others, mani- 
 fested a yearning for the welfare and prosperity of the 
 & masses, an unfaltering purpose to resist special favors 
 and to promote a democratic equality for all. He had 
 a burning scorn for graft, pretense, and hypocrisy. 
 He proved that he was ready to stand, like a great 
 commoner in the halls of legislation, to speak for the 
 interests of the toiling masses and the honest wealth- 
 producers of his country, and in resistance to those 
 who were seeking special privilege in legislation. The 
 time will come when his opinion and services in this 
 great crisis will bring a reward in appreciation and 
 gratitude that has not yet been accorded to him. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION DURING THE WAR 
 
 TN the latter part of April, i86j2, New Orleans was 
 ■*■ captured by the Federal forces. Soon after this 
 event Union men under the protection of the army be- 
 gan to form associations to develop loyal sentiment 
 in the state. There were two parties of opinion 
 among those who wished to restore a Union state 
 government. One wished to have an election un- 
 der the old Constitution of 1852, on the ground that 
 the act of secession and the Constitution of 1861 were 
 void and, consequently, that the Constitution of 1852 
 was still in force. The other wished to hold a con- 
 stitutional convention, recognize the abolition of slav- 
 ery, and form a new constitution. 
 
 In August, 1862, General George F. Shepley, who 
 had been mayor of New Orleans under the military ad- 
 ministration of General Benjamin F. Butler, was ap- 
 pointed by President Lincoln as Military Governor 
 of Louisiana. This may be regarded as the first step 
 in the restoration of Federal government in that state. 
 It was the first step in any attempt at reconstruction. 
 
 In December, 1862, Governor-General Shepley, by 
 permission of the President, ordered an election for 
 members of Congress in the districts over which his 
 military jurisdiction extended. Lincoln cautioned the 
 
 293 
 
294 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Governor-General against the choice of Northern men 
 at the point of the bayonet, which, he said, would be 
 " disgraceful and outrageous." 
 
 Two citizens of Louisiana, Messrs. Hahn and Flan- 
 ders, were elected to Congress at an election in which 
 7760 votes were cast, and on February 9, 1863, these 
 men were admitted to seats in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. Their being seated shows that Congress at 
 this time was disposed to encourage and promote an 
 easy restoration of the seceded states and to recognize 
 any respectable body of loyal people in Louisiana as 
 the " State," if they would act in harmony with the 
 Federal authority. 
 
 Lincoln wished to avert the inconveniences arising 
 from military occupation. The way, he said, was for 
 the " people of Louisiana simply to take their place 
 in the Union upon the old terms." * " Let the people 
 of Louisiana who wish protection to person and 
 property reach forth their hands and take it ; let them 
 reinaugurate the national authority and set up a state 
 government under the Constitution. The army will 
 be withdrawn as soon as such state government can 
 dispense with its presence; and the people of the state 
 can then, upon the old constitutional terms, govern 
 themselves to their own liking." 2 
 
 Lincoln was evidently anxious to restore old re- 
 lations, and he was disposed, as far as the executive 
 power was concerned, to offer most liberal terms, re- 
 quiring as few conditions and changes as possible. 
 
 Nothing more was done with reconstruction in 
 
 1 Works of Lincoln, pp. 214-215. Letter to Reverdy Johnson. 
 
 2 Lincoln's Letter to Bullett, July 28, 1862, Works. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 295 
 
 Louisiana until December, 1863. It was then that 
 Lincoln set forth his plan of reconstruction, as far as 
 he may be said to have had a plan, in his message to 
 Congress and in his accompanying proclamation of 
 December 8, 1863. In his proclamation which may be 
 called a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruc- 
 tion, Lincoln offered full pardon (with excepted 
 classes) for all participation in rebellion, " with res- 
 toration of all rights of property, except as to slaves," 
 upon condition that every person so pardoned should 
 take an oath thenceforth faithfully to support, protect, 
 and defend the Constitution of the United States, and 
 to abide by all laws and proclamations of the Federal 
 government made during the existing Rebellion hav- 
 ing reference to slaves, so far as not modified or de- 
 clared void by a decision of the Supreme Court. 
 
 The exempted classes to whom the amnesty did not 
 apply, were all civil and diplomatic officers of the 
 Confederate States ; all military and naval officers of 
 the Confederate States above the rank of Colonel; all 
 who left the judicial, congressional, or military service 
 of the United States to aid the Confederacy; and " all 
 who have engaged in any way in treating colored per- 
 sons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise 
 than lawfully as prisoners of war." 
 
 Whenever in any one of the insurrectionary states 
 " a number of voters, not less than one-tenth in num- 
 ber of the votes cast in such state at the presidential 
 election of i860, shall establish a state government 
 which shall be republican, such shall be recognized as 
 the true government of the state " ; and such state was 
 to receive the benefit of the guarantee clause " of the 
 
296 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Constitution in so far as it gave to the President 
 power " to guarantee to each state a republican form 
 of government. The state was also promised pro- 
 tection against invasion and domestic violence. Any 
 provision adopted by such state government concern- 
 ing free men which shall recognize their permanent 
 freedom will not be objected to by the national gov- 
 ernment. Subject only to these modifications the 
 newly constructed loyal state government was to be 
 as it had been before the Rebellion, in name, boundary, 
 subdivisions, constitution, and its general code of laws. 
 It was recognized that whether members sent to Con- 
 gress from any state shall be admitted to seats rested 
 exclusively with the two houses and not to any ex- 
 tent with the Executive. 
 
 This proclamation was intended to present to the 
 people of the insurrectionary states a mode by which 
 the national authority and loyal state governments 
 might be reestablished ; and " while the mode is the 
 best the Executive can suggest with his present im- 
 pressions it must not be understood that no other pos- 
 sible mode would be acceptable." 
 
 Lincoln asserted in his annual message of the same 
 date that in this proclamation nothing had been at- 
 tempted but what " is amply justified by the Constitu- 
 tion." He recognized that to guarantee and protect a 
 revived state government constructed from the very 
 elements against whose hostility and violence it was 
 to be protected was absurd. " There must be a test 
 by which to separate the opposing elements so as to 
 build only from the sound; and that test is a suffi- 
 ciently liberal one which accepts as sound whoever will 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 297 
 
 make a sworn recantation of his former unsound- 
 ness." 
 
 As a test for the recognition of statehood and res- 
 toration to the Union Lincoln felt that he had a right 
 to require not only an oath of allegiance to the Con- 
 stitution and the Union, but also to the laws and 
 proclamations in regard to slavery. These had been 
 of aid in suppressing the Rebellion; there must be a 
 pledge for their maintenance. To abandon them 
 would be " an astounding breach of faith." He 
 would not retract or modify the Emancipation Proc- 
 lamation. Support of these should be included in the 
 oath; and the Executive, Lincoln contended, might 
 lawfully claim it in return for pardon and restora- 
 tion of forfeited rights which he had " clear constitu- 
 tional power to withhold altogether, or grant upon 
 terms which he shall deem wisest for the public in- 
 terest." This part of the oath he deemed subject to 
 modification by legislation or judicial decision. 
 
 As a reason for his proclamation at this time Presi- 
 dent Lincoln said that there seemed to be elements in 
 some states ready for resumption, but they remained 
 inactive apparently for want of a plan of action. " By 
 the proclamation a plan is presented which may be ac- 
 cepted as a rallying point, and which they are assured 
 in advance will not be rejected here. This may bring 
 them to act sooner than they otherwise would." 1 
 President Lincoln was under the impression that a 
 majority of the people in all of the seceded states were 
 really in favor of the Union, and he wished to erect 
 a standard around which these loyal people would be 
 
 1 Lincoln's Message, December 8, 1863. 
 
298 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 encouraged to rally and make their influence potent for 
 the restoration of the Federal authority. 
 
 In pursuance of this policy of Lincoln, on January 
 8, 1864, a Free State Convention was held in New 
 Orleans in harmony with the national administration. 
 It accepted the Emancipation Proclamation as the 
 basis of its action. General Banks, the military com- 
 mander, by a proclamation of January 11, 1864, fol- 
 lowing the request of the convention, appointed 
 February 22, 1864, for an election for state officers, 
 and March 4th for their installation. Banks recognized 
 the Constitution of 1852 as still in force; the act of 
 secession and the Constitution of 1861 were held as 
 void. No election was ordered for members of the 
 Legislature for the obvious reason that there was only 
 one-third of the state within the Union lines where 
 an election could be held, and, therefore, there were 
 not enough counties, or constituencies, to elect a ma- 
 jority of the Legislature. Less than a majority was 
 not a quorum; no business could be transacted, no 
 state officers could be legally paid by the state with- 
 out a quorum, as that could be done only by an ap- 
 propriation made by law. Yet it was held that a 
 Governor could be elected by a few loyal people under 
 the protection of Federal arms. 
 
 More than eleven thousand votes were cast in the 
 election for Governor, or more than a fifth of the vote 
 of i860. Michael Hahn was elected Governor as the 
 representative of the President's policy, and was in- 
 stalled on March 4, 1864. The next step was an or- 
 der from the new Governor for an election of dele- 
 gates to a constitutional convention to revise the con- 
 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 299 
 
 stitution so as to bring it into harmony with the new 
 conditions created by the war. On March 15, 1864, 
 President Lincoln recognized Hahn as Governor of 
 Louisiana, " invested until further orders with the 
 powers exercised hitherto by the Military Governor of 
 Louisiana." He was to be a trial Governor in a trial 
 state created and sustained by military power, whose 
 existence was to continue at the discretion of the ex- 
 ecutive power of the United States. 
 
 President Lincoln congratulated Hahn on having 
 fixed his name in history as " the first Free-State Gov- 
 ernor of Louisiana," and in speaking of the approach- 
 ing state convention for the formation of a new 
 constitution and the defining of the elective franchise, 
 President Lincoln suggested " for your private con- 
 sideration, whether some of the colored people may not 
 be let in, as for instance the very intelligent, and espe- 
 cially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks." 
 This was one of the first official suggestions of negro 
 suffrage. 1 
 
 Lincoln's plan of reconstruction for Louisiana was 
 completed by the state convention which met in April, 
 1864. By a vote of seventy to sixteen the convention 
 declared slavery to be abolished forever within the 
 state. Suffrage was restricted to white males above 
 the age of twenty-one, but the legislature was em- 
 powered to confer the voting privilege on negroes in 
 harmony with the principles suggested by Mr. Lincoln. 
 On September 6, 1864, the Constitution was adopted 
 by the people by a vote of 6836 in its favor to 1566 
 against it. As the total vote of Louisiana in i860 was 
 
 1 Blaine, II, pp. 39-40. 
 
.-• 
 
 300 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 50,510 it was seen that the new state government had 
 more than fulfilled the requirement of the President's 
 proclamation, about 16 per cent, of the vote of i860 
 being cast in the election for the adoption of the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 V \ Thus in the fall of 1864 Lincoln was able to say 
 that " a ^ery fair proportion of the people of Louisi- 
 i£" . i** ana have inaugurated a new state government, mak- 
 ing an excellent new constitution, — better for the poor 
 $? black than we have in Illinois. This was done under 
 
 military protection, directed by me, in the belief, still 
 securely entertained, that with such a nucleus around 
 which to build we could get the state into position 
 again sooner than otherwise." * 
 
 The President's plan of reconstruction had so far 
 been completed, and Louisiana was under the form 
 of a loyal government. But it was known by all that 
 this reconstructed government could not maintain it- 
 self for a day if the military support of the nation 
 should be withdrawn. Similar action was taken in 
 Arkansas. Isaac Murphy, a Union man, was elected 
 Governor in that state, an anti-slavery constitution 
 was adopted, a government was installed and Senators 
 and Representatives were elected to Congress, — all 
 in the early spring of 1864. 
 
 This was the plan that the President proposed to 
 put into operation for the other states as fast as the 
 circumstances and the advance of the national arms 
 would permit. 
 
 We turn now to see how this presidential work in 
 
 1 November 14, 1864, Works, Vol. II, p. 597. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 301 
 
 reconstruction was received in congressional circles. 
 The President's scheme and all that had been done 
 in pursuance of it were destined to fall between two 
 fires in the halls of Congress. The Democrats who 
 were always ready to put themselves in opposition to 
 whatever the President undertook for the suppression 
 of the Rebellion, fell upon it with their usual cries 
 of " usurpation " and " violation of the Constitution." 
 The blessed Constitution was the constant resource 
 upon which they relied to hamper and embarrass the 
 administration as much as they could. According to 
 this conservative Democratic view, this " Amnesty- 
 Reconstruction Proclamation "of the President was 
 a naked act of power, a rank usurpation for the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, prompted by hostility to the domestic 
 policy of the South more than by a desire to restore 
 the Union. The fact of war was nothing; the sacred 
 Constitution was still unimpaired, and the President's 
 powers were as much prescribed and limited in war 
 as in peace. The only oath that Lincoln had a right 
 to impose on the people of Louisiana was an oath 
 to support the Constitution; the oath that he had pro- 
 posed was unknown to that great instrument. " It 
 is loyalty to proclamations, not to the Constitution, on 
 which Mr. Lincoln would rebuild his republican 
 states." ..." A state government founded on one- 
 tenth of the people and dictated by himself; shades of 
 our fathers! are these the kind of republican states that 
 are to perpetuate the American Union ! " 1 The 
 
 1 Holman, of Indiana, in the House, March 12, 1864, Globe, 
 pp. 1063-1064. Holman's speech is here interpreted as a typical 
 speech of the Democratic opposition. 
 
302 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 states in rebellion, it was maintained, were still states 
 in the Union. The Constitution embraces them. The 
 President has no authority to fix any conditions not 
 fixed by the Constitution, as 1 a basis for their recogni- 
 tion as states. His only duty is to execute the law, 
 to subdue the armed power that for the time being 
 suspends the authority of the Constitution; and it is 
 not within his province to organize civil government. 
 When the Rebellion is subdued the states are restored 
 by that very fact, without conditions and without 
 change. No note was to be taken of the wrong and 
 penalty attaching to rebellion. 
 
 The Democrats, therefore, rejected the President's 
 plan for restoration because he had imposed a con- 
 dition for the seceded states — namely, the abolition 
 of slavery — that the Constitution did not impose. 
 He was acting in excess of power and was requiring 
 too much, in violation of the sacred Democratic 
 slogan, " The Union as it was, the Constitution as it 
 is," 
 
 On the other hand, Lincoln's policy fell athwart the 
 opinions and purposes of the radical anti-slavery men 
 in Congress. According to these radical congres- 
 sional leaders the President was requiring too little, 
 and he was, as they also held, acting in excess of 
 power in presuming, without the assent of Congress, 
 to reestablish civil government in conquered terri- 
 tory, and in reorganizing states there, and in lay- 
 ing down conditions on which they might be restored 
 to the Union. All these were functions of civil gov- 
 ernment, not of military power; they were preroga- 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 303 
 
 tives of the law-making body, not of the Executive; 
 they belonged to Congress, not to the President. 
 
 By the time the Arkansas Senators came to claim 
 seats in the Senate it was seen that the majority of 
 the Senate were not in sympathy with what was called 
 the Lincoln " ten per cent., short-hand method of re- 
 construction." Mr. Sumner offered a resolution, on 
 May 27, 1864, asserting that a state "pretending to 
 secede from the Union and battling against the general 
 government to maintain that position must be regarded 
 as a rebel state subject to military occupation and 
 without representation on this floor until it has been 
 readmitted by a vote of both houses of Congress." 
 This was the position that the two houses of Congress 
 subsequently took toward President Johnson. The 
 Senate now took the position that the Rebellion was 
 " not so far suppressed in Arkansas as to entitle that 
 state to representation in Congress," and the Arkan- 
 sas Senators were refused their seats. 
 
 This radical disposition in opposition to Lincoln's 
 work in reconstruction was also reflected in the House, 
 especially by Stevens, at the opening of Congress in 
 December, 1863. Before the Thirty-eighth Congress 
 was organized, while the Clerk was still presiding, 
 Stevens called for the credentials " of the persons 
 claiming to be representatives of the so-called state of 
 Louisiana." After the credentials were read Stevens 
 offered a resolution directing that the names of the 
 members from Louisiana be stricken from the roll of 
 the House. This was objected to on a point of order. 
 The point of order was sustained by the Clerk, where- 
 
304 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 upon Stevens withdrew his motion, being satisfied with 
 having made his protest against the appearance of the 
 names of the Louisiana members on the rolls, since he 
 wished in no way to recognize, even by silence or ac- 
 quiescence, the legitimacy of any " state " in Louisi- 
 ana. 
 
 In his notable speech of January 22, 1864, Stevens 
 discussed at some length the constitutional status of 
 the seceded states and their relation to the United 
 States. He deplored the great confusion of ideas 
 and diversity of opinions, and he urged upon Congress 
 and the country the essential importance of a clear, 
 safe, and logical theory on that subject. He again set 
 forth his view that the South, being de facto an in- 
 dependent belligerent, the Constitution and the laws of 
 the Union were abrogated in respect to these states 
 and their people ; that the law of nations alone would 
 limit the conqueror in determining the conditions to 
 be imposed as the basis of a restored Union. 1 This 
 would strengthen the nation, give the general govern- 
 ment a free hand, and simplify the problem. In op- 
 position to this practical policy he described the con- 
 fusing and weakening theory that the rebellious states 
 were still in the Union, entitled to the protection of the 
 Constitution and the laws ; that whenever these " way- 
 ward sisters " choose to abandon their frivolities and 
 come back and send Senators and Representatives to 
 Congress, then, notwithstanding all they have done, we 
 must receive them, give them all the privileges of 
 loyal men and loyal states, and " throw, over them 
 
 1 See p. 218. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 305 
 
 the protecting shield of the Union, of which it is said 
 they had never ceased to be members." 1 
 
 To Stevens a decision between these two views was 
 a matter of vast moment to the outcome of the war 
 and the future of the country. He was dissatisfied 
 with the mixture of military and civil processes in 
 Lincoln's work and he was determined that no state- 
 hood should be recognized and civil rights restored 
 in the South until Congress, representing the sovereign 
 people of the loyal states, was satisfied with the con- 
 ditions and guarantees imposed. To what Lincoln 
 had done, if he were acting as a military conqueror, 
 by the rights of war, he had no objections; but if 
 what he had done were to be judged from the point 
 of view of his functions as a civil ruler, as President 
 of the United States, then Stevens felt that there were 
 very weighty and decisive objections. He acknowl- 
 edged that his own views as to the war powers of the 
 government were not acceptable to either house of 
 Congress when he announced them in the extra ses- 
 sion of 1 86 1, but now he professed to see in the 
 President's plan an endorsement of his views, and 
 he sought to show that only on the basis of his 
 (Stevens') doctrine could Lincoln's plan of reconstruc- 
 tion, or any other be approved and carried out. 
 
 " In details," he said, " we may not quite agree ; \ , 
 but his plan of reconstruction assumes the same general (^ 
 grounds. It proposes to treat the rebel territory as 
 a conqueror alone would treat it. His plan is wholly 
 outside of and unknown to the Constitution. But it 
 
 1 Globe, January 22, 1864, p. 316. 
 
306 THE LIFE 0E THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 is within the legitimate province of the laws of war. 
 His legal mind has carefully studied the law of na- 
 tions and reached a just conclusion. 
 
 " The condition of the rebel states having been thus 
 fixed, reconstruction becomes an easier question, be- 
 cause we are untrammeled by municipal contracts and 
 laws, — that refuge of conservative sympathizers with 
 our ' erring brethren.' The President may not strike 
 as direct a blow with a battering-ram against this 
 Babel as some impetuous gentlemen would desire; 
 but with his usual shrewdness and caution he is pick- 
 ing out the mortar from the joints until eventually the 
 whole tower will fall. . . . When the free North shall 
 be united ; when that odious party which is inspired by 
 the love of slavery alone shall have sunk into utter 
 contempt and be despised of all men, then will the 
 traitors' hearts sink within them; then will the brave 
 freemen of the North, having crushed into atoms 
 the ephemeral empire whose cornerstone was slavery, 
 establish a united and enduring nation on the solid 
 foundation of universal freedom." 1 
 
 The rising opposition in Congress to the President's 
 work in reconstruction soon found expression in the 
 shape of a congressional measure. On December 19, 
 1863, on motion of Mr. Henry Winter Davis, of 
 Maryland, that part of the President's message relating 
 to " the duty of the United States to guarantee a 
 republican form of government to the states in which 
 
 1 Globe, January 22, 1864, pp. 318-319. In other parts of this 
 speech which I have incorporated in a previous chapter, Stevens 
 indicates his fundamental objection to any plan of reconstruc- 
 tion that would treat the rebel states as states within the Union, 
 with rights under the Constitution. See pp. 218-304. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 307 
 
 the governments recognized by the United States have 
 been abrogated or overthrown," was referred to " a 
 select committee of nine to be named by the Speaker, 
 which shall report the bills necessary for carrying into 
 execution the foregoing guarantee." Davis's purpose 
 was to have Congress see to it, when armed resistance 
 had ceased in the area of rebellion, that the restored 
 governments should be republican in form. 
 
 Mr. Davis, the chairman of this special committee, 
 introduced a bill in the House designed to carry out 
 this purpose * which came into the open House for 
 discussion on March 22, 1864. This bill, after pass- 
 ing the House, was managed in the Senate by Mr. 
 Wade, of Ohio, and it came to be known as the 
 " Wade-Davis Plan of Reconstruction." It was what 
 Congress saw fit to propose as a counter plan to that 
 of the President. Its provisions may be briefly sum- 
 marized as follows: 
 
 1. The President was to appoint Provisional Gov- 
 ernors, who, as soon as military resistance ceased, 
 were to enroll the white voters and submit to each 
 voter an oath to support the Constitution. 
 
 2. When a majority of these voters should take the 
 oath of allegiance the Governor was to order an elec- 
 tion of delegates to a constitutional convention. 2 
 
 3. It was to be the duty of the convention to declare 
 for the people of the state their submission to the 
 Constitution of the United States, and to involve three 
 
 1 February 15, 1864. 
 
 2 In the original draft of the bill one-tenth of the voters were 
 required to take the oath before an election of delegates to a 
 convention might be held, but opposition and pressure brought 
 Davis to accept an amendment requiring a majority. Davis in 
 the Globe, May 4, 1864, p. 2107. 
 
308 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 fundamental provisions in their organic law : First, 
 no one who had held an important office under the 
 Confederate government or a military office as high 
 as the rank of Colonel, should be allowed to vote for, 
 or be a member of, the Legislature, or to vote for, 
 or be elected, Governor; second, slavery should be 
 forever prohibited and freedom of all persons guar- 
 anteed; third, no debt, state or Confederate, created 
 in aid of the Rebellion should ever be paid. 
 
 4. When the new state constitution should be so 
 framed and had been adopted by a majority of the 
 popular vote as enrolled, the Provisional Governor 
 was to notify the President and the President, after 
 obtaining the assent of Congress, was to recognize 
 the state government as the legitimate and constitu- 
 tional government, under which Senators and Repre- 
 sentatives to Congress might be chosen by the people. 
 
 5. The bill abolished slavery at once in all the re- 
 bellious states and imposed penalties for the violation 
 of this provision. 
 
 It will be seen that this plan differed with the Presi- 
 dent's in three essential respects. In the first place 
 it claimed that reconstruction was a legislative prob- 
 lem, not an executive problem. In the second place, 
 it required the loyalty of at least a majority of the 
 adult whites, instead of onty one-tenth. In the third 
 place, it asserted the power of Congress to abolish 
 slavery within the limits of the rebellious states, deal- 
 ing with the states in this respect as districts, or terri- 
 tories, under the control of the central government, 
 and not as states in the Union. 
 
 The bill, and Mr. Davis, its author, in defense of 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 309 
 
 it, spoke of the rebellious states as " states whose 
 governments have been overthrown." The purpose of 
 the national legislature in this act was to restore civil 
 government on the basis of permanent peace. " The 
 bill," said Mr. Davis, " challenges the support of all 
 who consider slavery the cause of the Rebellion, as 
 well as those who seek to insure freedom and peace, 
 the first fruits of the war, by adequate legislation." 
 Davis claimed that his measure was entitled to the 
 support of those who held, like Stevens, that the 
 Rebellion " has placed the citizens of the rebel states 
 beyond the protection of the Constitution, and that 
 Congress, therefore, has supreme power over them 
 as over a conquered enemy," as well as of " that other 
 class who think that they have not ceased to be citi- 
 zens and states of the Union, though incapable of 
 exercising political privileges under the Constitution, 
 but that Congress is charged with a high political 
 power by the Constitution to guarantee republican gov- 
 ernments in the states, and that this is the proper time 
 and mode of exercising it." 
 
 This power to guarantee republican government in 
 the states is one of the class of plenary powers con- 
 ferred upon Congress, in its nature without limitation, 
 intended to meet just such emergencies in our na- 
 tional life. The secession governments were usurpa- 
 tions against the authority of the United States. 
 They do not recognize the Constitution of the United 
 States, and the Constitution can not recognize them. 
 " There can be no republican government within the 
 limits of the United States that does not recognize, 
 but does repudiate, the Constitution." The seceding 
 
310 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 governments, being usurpations, can not be guaranteed ; 
 they must be suppressed and expelled. When we have 
 suppressed the military usurpation in the South there 
 will be no form of state authority that Congress can 
 recognize. " Our success will be the overthrow of 
 all semblance of government in the rebel states. The 
 government of the United States is, then, in fact the 
 only government existing in those states, and it is 
 there charged to guarantee them republican govern- 
 ments. . . . The duty of guaranteeing means to accom- 
 plish the result ; . . . that republican government shall 
 exist ; that everything inconsistent with it shall be 
 weeded out," Congress itself being the judge. . . . 
 " Until Congress recognize a state government organ- 
 ized under its auspices, there is no government in the 
 rebel states except the authority of Congress." 
 
 Davis asserted, what every one recognized to be 
 true, that there is now no rebel state held by the United 
 States, enough of whose population adheres to the 
 Union to be entrusted with the government of the 
 state. " One-tenth can not control nine-tenths. Five- 
 tenths are nowhere willing to undertake the control 
 of the other five-tenths. Nowhere does such a pro- 
 portion exist who can safely be trusted with the 
 powers of a state government, carrying with it the 
 right of taxation, the existence of courts, the appoint- 
 ment of officers, the command of the militia, the 
 supremacy in the internal concerns of the state, and 
 the right to participate in the government of the United 
 States, by Representatives, Senators and Electors." 
 No one believes that " any respectable proportion of 
 the people of the Southern States now in rebellion are 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 311 
 
 willing to accept any terms that even our opponents 
 on the other side of the House are willing to offer 
 them." 
 
 Davis denounced Lincoln's plan as a government 
 "of doubtful existence, half civil and half military; 
 neither a temporary government by law of Congress, 
 nor a state government; something as unknown to 
 the Constitution as the rebel government that refuses 
 to recognize it." The proclamation of the President 
 to which an oath of allegiance is required may subse- 
 quently be found by the state courts to be invalid. 
 The proclamation declared that certain negroes were 
 to be recognized as free, while others were to remain 
 slave. Were these proclamations on slavery, to which 
 an oath of adherence is demanded, within the author- 
 ity of the Executive? " How local state governments 
 created by the Southern people will decide such a 
 question no one can doubt." If left to their choice they 
 will maintain slavery, but if they are required to give 
 it up as a condition precedent to restoration they will 
 abandon it. This must not be left as the President 
 leaves it, to be merely a judicial question. It must 
 be settled by a supreme political jurisdiction, and in- 
 stead of arguing before the courts the legality of the 
 proclamation of freedom it must be enacted into law. 
 The paramount political power of Congress should 
 proceed to reorganize governments in those states, to 
 impose such conditions as it thinks necessary, to refuse 
 to recognize any governments there which do not pro- 
 hibit slavery forever, and to take the responsibility of 
 saying, in the face of those clamoring for speedy recog- 
 nition of governments tolerating slavery, that the 
 
3 i2 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 safety of the people of the United States is the 
 supreme law, and that Congress is the body author- 
 ized to express that will. 1 
 
 As between these principles and those on which the 
 President appeared to be acting, Davis and the con- 
 gressional leaders undoubtedly represented the safer 
 and the sounder political science. If the states were 
 out of their normal relation to the Union, without 
 equal rights with the other states, and if conditions were 
 to be imposed for their restoration, Congress was un- 
 doubtedly the power to determine what rights were 
 impaired and what the conditions of restoration should 
 be. The doctrine of Davis and his bill was not as 
 clear and as unmistakable as that of Stevens ; there 
 was more of uncertainty and inconsistency about it. 
 It denied the simple " restoration theory " of the Dem- 
 ocrats, but it did not distinctly affirm, with Stevens, 
 that the seceded states were out of the Union, without 
 any rights under the Constitution. If Stevens' posi- 
 tion were admitted, namely, that the Southern States 
 were in the Confederacy and not in the Union, which 
 was the undoubted fact, all bodies of opinion in Con- 
 gress would then agree that the states would have to 
 be reorganized, readmitted, and that power could be 
 exercised only by Congress itself. 2 
 
 This measure of the majority party, like Lincoln's 
 policy, met with Democratic opposition, as was ex- 
 pected. Mr. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, gave, 
 perhaps, the most forcible and outspoken expression to 
 
 1 Henry Winter Davis, in the House, March 22, 1864, Globe, 
 Appendix, First Session, Thirty-eighth Congress, pp. 83-85. 
 
 2 See Holman's speech, Globe, March 12, 1864, p. 1064. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 313 
 
 this opposition. " At last," he said, " the mask has 
 been thrown off, the pretenses laid aside, and the pur- 
 poses of the Republican party have been acknowl- 
 edged," — in this bill that " defines their ideas of Union 
 and interprets their construction of the Constitution." 
 " We have had double-dealing, hypocrisy, and fraud 
 for the last three years, — false professions, false 
 names, double-faced measures. We have had armies 
 raised, taxes collected, battles fought under the pre- 
 tense that the war was for the Union, the old Union, 
 the Union of the Constitution. These were now seen 
 to be mere catchwords for the patriotic people, to be 
 sneered at in secret conclave as devices to ensnare the 
 innocent, to deceive the ignorant, to coax the obsti- 
 nate. Now the veil is drawn and the revolutionary 
 purpose of the party is revealed. That purpose is to 
 destroy the government, to change its form and spirit, 
 to make a new Union, to ingraft upon it new principles, 
 new theories, new powers. It is rebellion against the 
 Constitution, differing in nothing from its armed ene- 
 mies except in the weapons of its warfare. 1 
 
 " Those who support this revolutionary bill should 
 admit that they are revolutionists, that they do not 
 wish to restore the old order and the old Union. . . . 
 Where is the authority to declare state governments 
 overthrown, to reconstruct them, to appoint a Gov- 
 ernor, to call a convention, to remodel state constitu- 
 tions, to fix cmalifications for voters and state officers, 
 to dictate what debts a state shall or shall not pay, or 
 
 1 1 do not here make exact quotations from Pendleton's 
 speech, but I reduce and summarize what he said without im- 
 pairing his meaning. 
 
314 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 to declare that slavery shall not exist within the limits 
 of a state? The Constitution gives to Congress no 
 authority to prescribe a single one of these conditions, 
 as proposed by the bill; and a republican form of 
 government within the Union is compatible with a 
 state's refusal to provide for any of them. 
 
 " Virginia, in repealing the ordinance by which she 
 ratified the Constitution, merely breaks a link of con- 
 federation, annuls a bond of union; she repeals but a 
 single law, while her constitution, her laws, her po- 
 litical polity, are untouched. 
 
 " Gentlemen must not palter in a double sense. 
 Those acts of secession are either valid or they are in- 
 valid. If they are valid they separated the state from 
 the Union. If they are invalid they are void; they 
 have no effect. The state officers who act upon them 
 are rebels to the Federal government ; the states are not 
 destroyed ; their constitutions are not abrogated ; their 
 officers are committing illegal acts, for which they are 
 liable to punishment; the states have never left the 
 Union, but so soon as their officers shall perform 
 their duties or other officers shall assume their places, 
 will again perform the duties imposed and enjoy the 
 privileges conferred by the Federal compact; and this 
 not by virtue of a new ratification of the Constitution, 
 nor a new admission by the Federal government, but 
 by virtue of the original ratification and the constant, 
 uninterrupted maintenance of position in the Federal 
 Union since that date. . . . 
 
 " The seceded states are either in the Union or out 
 of it. If in the Union their constitutions are un- 
 touched, their state governments are maintained, their 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 315 
 
 citizens are entitled to all political rights, except so far 
 as they may be deprived of them by the criminal law 
 which they have infracted. . . . 
 
 " The monstrous doctrine of this bill and its authors 
 has no foundation in the Constitution. It subjects all 
 the states to the will of Congress; it places their insti- 
 tutions at the feet of Congress. It creates in Con- 
 gress an absolute unqualified despotism. The rights 
 of the people of the state are nothing, their will is 
 nothing". My own state of Ohio is liable at any mo- 
 ment to be called in question for her constitution. She 
 does not permit negroes to vote. If this doctrine be 
 true, Congress may decide that this exclusion is anti- 
 republican and by force of arms abrogate that consti- 
 tution and set up another permitting negroes to vote. 
 From that decision of the Congress there is no appeal 
 to the people of Ohio, but only to the people of Massa- 
 chusetts, New York, and Wisconsin, at the election 
 of Representatives; and if a majority can not be 
 elected to reverse the decision, the people of Ohio must 
 submit. Woe be to the day when that doctrine shall 
 be established, for from its centralized despotism we 
 will appeal to the sword. 
 
 "If this be the alternative of secession I should 
 prefer that secession should succeed. I should prefer 
 to have the Union dissolved, the Confederate States 
 recognized; aye, more, I should prefer that secession 
 should go on, if need be, until each state resumes its 
 complete independence. I should prefer thirty-four 
 republics to one despotism. ... I would rather live a 
 free citizen of a republic no larger than my native 
 county of Hamilton than be the subject of a more 
 
316 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 splendid empire than a Caesar in his proudest triumphs 
 ever ruled, or a Napoleon in his loftiest flights ever 
 conceived." 1 
 
 This seemed to bear out the charge of Stevens and 
 the radical anti-slavery Republicans that the Democrats 
 were more opposed to the administration and to what 
 Congress was doing for the conduct and success of 
 the war than they were to secession and rebellion. 
 The Democrats were, at any rate, consistent, — they 
 hung together, equally opposed both to the plan of 
 Lincoln and to the plan of Congress. 
 
 The basis of this opposition, which is here repro- 
 duced at such length, was the old-school, decentralizing, 
 states rights conception of the Constitution, and the 
 purely theoretical, impractical idea that the Constitu- 
 tion applied to all the states alike, to those that had 
 repudiated it and had gone into rebellion as well as 
 to those loyal to the Union. 
 
 This Democratic view Stevens utterly repudiated 
 and despised. It was difficult for him to believe that 
 men who were not fools could bring themselves to an- 
 nounce and defend it from any other motive than 
 sympathy with the Rebellion and from a desire to em- 
 barrass the conduct of the war. But neither was 
 Stevens satisfied with the Wade-Davis plan. His ob- 
 jections were that it partially acknowledged the rebel 
 states to have rights under the Constitution, which he 
 denied ; the war had abrogated them all. He criticized 
 the bill because it " takes for granted that the President 
 may partially interfere in the civil administration of 
 the Southern States, not as conqueror, but as Presi- 
 
 ] rendleton, Globe, May j, 1S64, pp. 2105-2107. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 317 
 
 dent of the United States; and because (and this to 
 Stevens was the most objectionable feature of all) 
 it took away the chance of confiscation of property of 
 the rebels." x 
 
 Stevens restated his doctrine of the belligerent 
 rights of the nation, which should control the govern- 
 ment's action toward the rebel states in the war. 2 He 
 noticed the sharp and extensive criticisms which his 
 position had called forth. 3 He restated his argument 
 from international law, quoting Vattel and other au- 
 thorities to justify confiscation by a conqueror in a 
 just war, and he would leave the House and the country 
 to decide whether this war was just. 
 
 " Yet," he said, " we hear a howl of horror from 
 conservative gentlemen at the inhumanity of the propo- 
 sition. A band of men sufficiently formidable to be- 
 come an acknowledged belligerent, have robbed the 
 treasury of the nation, seized the public property, oc- 
 cupied our forts and arsenals, severed in twain the 
 best and most prosperous nation that ever existed, 
 slaughtered two hundred thousand of our citizens, 
 caused a debt of two billion dollars, and obstinately 
 maintain a cruel warfare. If we are not justified in 
 exacting the extreme demands of war then I can hardly 
 conceive a case where it would be applicable. . . . No 
 one advises the execution of the extreme right. But the 
 
 1 Globe, May 2, 1864, p. 2041. 
 
 2 See pp. 218, 304. 
 
 3 Stevens seemed unable to refrain from indulging in another 
 thrust at Francis P. Blair, whom he denounced as " a political 
 Ishmael who, having apostatized from all the principles which 
 once gave him credit with the people, has no sympathy with any 
 body of men, in or out of the House, except his own family 
 circle." 
 
318 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 right exists and ought to be enforced against the most 
 guilty. To allow them to return with their estates un- 
 touched, on the theory that they have never gone out 
 of the Union, seems to me rank injustice to loyal 
 men." x 
 
 Stevens held boldly and consistently to the fact, — 
 that the seceded states were out of the Union. If 
 they were not and had all the rights of the other 
 states and should come here at the next presidential 
 election and claim them, — where would such a doc- 
 trine lead? "It leads you to subjection to traitors 
 and their Northern allies. If they are in the Union, 
 where are their Representatives on this floor? Every 
 one of the United States is entitled to have members 
 here and Senators in the other branch. Where are 
 these evidences of existing states ? They are at Rich- 
 mond, where the Congress of the Union does not sit." 
 
 Stevens was anxious that Congress in its conduct 
 with reference to the rebellious states should set no 
 precedent that might subsequently be embarrassing, and 
 that legislation on this line should be based on sound 
 doctrine. He had opposed the seating of Halm and 
 Flanders, the Representatives from Louisiana, in the 
 previous Congress. He thought they had been ad- 
 mitted to seats " without any law or right," 2 and 
 he was now quite satisfied not to have been in any 
 way personally responsible for such a precedent.' 5 
 
 1 Globe, May 2, 1864, pp. 2041-2042. 
 
 2 House, January 29, 1864, Globe, p. 412. 
 
 3 Stevens intimated that Harm and Flanders had heen favored 
 on account of party service, since they had " gone off and 
 stumped New England for two months and then come back 
 and had their cases decided." When he was asked by a Ken- 
 tuckian whether if they would stump two months more he 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 319 
 
 He now wished the Davis bill to assert the full power 
 of Congress and to deny all rights under the Constitu- 
 tion to the rebellious states. He offered a substitute 
 for the bill expressing his doctrine. By arrange- O 
 ment with Mr. Davis, instead of having a direct vote 
 upon his substitute, a portion of it was proposed 
 as a preamble to the Davis measure, to be voted on 
 separately. This asserted that " the Confederate 
 States are a public enemy waging an unjust war, 
 whose injustice is so glaring that they have no right 
 to claim the mitigation of the extreme rights of 
 war which are accorded by modern usage to an en- 
 emy who have a right to consider the war a just 
 one, and that none of the states which, by a regularly 
 recorded majority of its citizens, has joined the so- 
 called Southern Confederacy can be considered and 
 treated as entitled to be represented in Congress or 
 to take any part in the political government of the 
 Union." 
 
 This preamble was rejected by a vote of seventy-six 
 to fifty-seven. When the bill was put on its passage 
 without the Stevens doctrine and after Hubbard and 
 Grinnell, of Iowa, announced that they voted for it un- 
 der protest, Stevens announced, with due solemnity 
 but amid the laughter of members, that he " refused to 
 vote under protest." The Wade-Davis Plan passed 
 the House May 4, 1864, by a vote of seventy- four to 
 fifty-nine. It passed the Senate the last day of the 
 session, July 4, 1864, and came to Lincoln for his ap- 
 
 would not be ready to admit them, Stevens replied that he 
 thought he might be, " if they would stump Kentucky for 
 emancipation." 
 
320 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 proval less than one hour before the sine die adjourn- 
 ment of Congress. It was prevented from becoming 
 a law by the " pocket veto "of the President. On 
 July 8, 1864, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation to the 
 country giving his reasons for not signing the bill. 
 
 He treated the Vv'ade-Davis Bill as an opinion of 
 Congress as to the best plan of reconstruction, a plan 
 which he now saw fit to lay before the people for their 
 consideration. The President stated that he himself 
 had propounded a plan and that he was not prepared 
 by a formal approval of this bill to be committed in- 
 flexibly to any single plan of restoration. He was also 
 unprepared, he said, to declare that " the Free State 
 constitutions and governments already adopted and 
 installed in Louisiana and Arkansas shall be set aside 
 and held for nought, thereby repelling and discour- 
 aging the loyal citizens as to further effort"; and he 
 did not wish to recognize a constitutional competency 
 in Congress to abolish slavery in a state. " But," 
 said Mr. Lincoln, " I am at the same time sincerely 
 hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment 
 abolishing slavery throughout the nation may be 
 adopted, nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the 
 system of restoration contained in the bill as one very 
 proper for the loyal people of any state choosing to 
 adopt it, and I am, and at all times shall be, prepared 
 to give executive aid to any such people, so soon as 
 the military resistance to the United States shall have 
 been suppressed in any such state, and the people 
 thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedi- 
 ence to the Constitution " ; then he would be ready to 
 appoint Military Governors and instruct them " to pro- 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR *2i 
 
 o* 
 
 ceed according to the bill." Stevens, though he was 
 quite dissatisfied with the Wade-Davis Bill, was su- 
 premely disgusted with the President's pocket veto and 
 his defense of it. " What an infamous proclama- 
 tion ! " he wrote privately to a friend. " The Presi- 
 dent is determined to have the electoral votes of 
 the seceded states, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, 
 Florida and perhaps also South Carolina. The idea 
 of pocketing a bill and then issuing a proclamation as 
 to how far he will conform to it is matched only by 
 signing a bill and then sending in a veto. How little 
 of the rights of war and the law of nations our Presi- 
 dent knows ! But what are we to do ? Condemn pri- 
 vately and approve publicly! The conscription act 
 weighs heavily on our people's judge, as I expected." l 
 On April 5, 1864, Wade and Davis published in the 
 New York Tribune a paper arraigning President Lin- 
 coln for his course on the Reconstruction Bill. They 
 complained that the President, after defeating the act, 
 proposed to appoint Military Governors over the rebel 
 states, without law, and without the consent of the 
 Senate. This was dictatorial usurpation which he had 
 already exercised in Louisiana, and now he had de- 
 feated the bill to prevent the limitation of his power. 
 A more studied outrage, said this manifesto, on 
 the legitimate authority of the people had never been 
 perpetrated; the President must understand that their 
 support of his administration was that of a cause, not 
 of a man; and that he must confine himself to his 
 executive duties and leave political organization to 
 Congress. 
 
 1 Stevens' Papers, July 10, 1864. 
 
322 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The party division revealed by this controversy was 
 not permitted to endanger President Lincoln's reelec- 
 tion. The method of reconstruction did not become 
 an issue in the campaign, and all sections of the " Na- 
 tional Union " party, as the Republicans were called 
 in 1864, were united in Mr. Lincoln's support. After 
 the election, when, in the congressional session of 
 1864-65, Senator Trumbull, chairman of the Senate 
 Committee on the Judiciary, reported to the Senate a 
 joint resolution recognizing the new government of 
 Louisiana as legitimate, Sumner and Wade, and other 
 radical Republicans joined the Democrats in opposi- 
 tion. Sumner asserted that the passage of the 
 resolution would be " a national calamity " and he 
 resorted to dilatory tactics to prevent a vote in the 
 Senate. Sumner was chiefly concerned because negro 
 suffrage was not provided for, though he also insisted 
 that reconstruction was a legislative function, to be 
 attended to by law, and not an executive function, to 
 be carried out by military power. 
 
 Wade again denounced the President's plan with 
 vigor. He spoke of the foundation of the government 
 as " being swept away by executive usurpation " ; he 
 objected to the recognition of a state government that 
 had been set up by Major-Generals, nor would he be 
 compelled " to receive as associates on this floor these 
 mere mockeries, these men of straw, who represent 
 nobody.". . ." Talk not to me of your ten per cent, 
 principle," he exclaimed. " A more absurd monar- 
 chical and anti-American principle was never an- 
 nounced on God's earth." * 
 
 1 Globe, February 27, 1865, p. 1128. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION DURING WAR 323 
 
 The recognition of Louisiana was defeated. Con- 
 gress refused to count the electoral votes of Mr. Lin- 
 coln's reconstructed states, and the question of recon- 
 struction did not again recur during Mr. Lincoln's 
 term. The problem had been deferred, and neither 
 the policy of Congress nor that of the President had 
 triumphed. Lincoln had shown that he was not fixed 
 beyond change in favor of any particular scheme of 
 reconstruction. No doubt, he would have cooperated 
 with Congress and the states in carrying out such a 
 plan as Congress had proposed, if a change of circum- 
 stances had appeared to make his cooperation desirable. 
 But the problems of war were then too pressing, and 
 the outcome of the struggle was yet too uncertain, to 
 permit the problem of civil reorganization to assume 
 first place in the President's attention. That problem 
 was to be bequeathed, unfortunately, by the untoward 
 act of the assassin, to other executive hands. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTON 
 
 / "1~" V HE period of reconstruction includes the years 
 ■*■ from 1865 to 1876, from the end of the Civil 
 War to the election of President Hayes, who by the 
 withdrawal of the Federal troops from the Southern 
 States left those states to govern themselves in all 
 respects like the other states. " The Southern ques- 
 tion " then ceased to be a dominant issue in American 
 politics. 
 
 The problem of reconstruction was one of the most 
 complex and delicate that ever confronted American 
 statesmanship. It had to be met amid the disasters 
 and passions of war. Unlike union in the formative 
 period, reunion had to be brought about immediately 
 after a period of internal strife that had aroused the 
 bitterest feelings of hate and resentment. The con- 
 ditions and estrangements leading to fratricidal war 
 had not risen in a year ; they could not be expected to 
 die out in a year. The reader of our history in this 
 dark period who is inclined to bewail the fact that re- 
 organization and reconstruction were not brought 
 about more rationally and more dispassionately, should 
 bear constantly in mind the momentous factor of the 
 popular feeling. 
 
 The task would, also, have been easier and simpler 
 under a consolidated form of government. In that 
 
 324 
 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 325 
 
 case the absolute authority of the reorganizing power, 
 triumphant by the issues of war, would have been rec- 
 ognized without question, and the controversies over 
 constitutional rights and the limits of constitutional 
 power would have been avoided. 
 
 The problem clearly involved a number of distinct 
 factors. In the first place it required the reorganiza- 
 tion of Southern State governments. The old state 
 governments that had gone into secession were parts of 
 a defunct Confederacy. When the Confederate gov- 
 ernment died, these state governments had to be set 
 aside. All bodies of opinion in the Union recognized 
 that these governments could no longer be allowed to 
 exercise authority, and that new state governments, 
 loyal to the Union and the Constitution, had to be 
 erected in their stead. Moderate and conservative 
 leaders in the North, Democrats as well as Republicans, 
 who held that the states were indestructible, that they 
 had endured without impairment throughout the war 
 and that their constitutional rights and political status 
 should be respected, still held that the governments of 
 these states, having wrongfully attempted to secede, 
 were illegal and disloyal. The agents of these govern- 
 ments were, in the category of " rebels " and " trai- 
 tors," to be saved from a merited punishment only 
 through the grace of conciliation and pardon. Conse- 
 quently no exception was taken to the policy of Presi- 
 dent Johnson in directing the military commanders in 
 the South to prevent the old legislatures from assem- 
 bling, while the Governors of certain states — Brown, 
 of Georgia, Clark, of Mississippi, Magrath, of South 
 Carolina, Vance, of North Carolina, and Watts, of Ala- 
 
326 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 bama — were arrested and imprisoned. 1 New state 
 
 governments had to be set up on the ruins of the old. 
 
 In the second place, the restoration of the seceded 
 
 states, with their new governments, to their proper 
 
 ,A l relations in the Union had to be provided for. The 
 
 Union had been broken for a time by secession and 
 
 2 war and had to be restored. Was it to be the old 
 
 2 > Union or a new one ? Was the maxim that had been 
 
 raised so persistently, not to say pestiferously, by the 
 
 Democratic opposition during the war, " the Union as 
 
 it was, the Constitution as it is," — was this maxim 
 
 to be the guiding principle and to have decisive weight 
 
 in the councils of the restoring authority? 
 
 According to the Federal system which the fathers 
 had made and to which the people had become accus- 
 tomed, all matters of domestic concern in government 
 were left with the people of the states. The national 
 government for general affairs, the state government 
 for local affairs, and in the allotment of governmental 
 activities and powers it is a common observation that 
 the state government touches the citizens a hundred 
 times where the general government touches him once. 
 In all matters of domestic concern, in the e very-day life 
 of the people, in their personal relations, in respect to 
 their school laws, road laws, suffrage laws, police laws, 
 laws of land tenure, contracts, torts, and marriage, — 
 in all these matters and many others the Constitution, 
 in dividing the functions of government between state 
 and nation, had left the state supreme. This right of 
 local self-government had existed before the Union 
 was formed and to this idea the people had become 
 1 Dunning, Reconstruction, pp. 35-36. 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 327 
 
 devotedly attached. This state loyalty had been as 
 positive in the North as in the South before the war. 
 Had the Civil War changed this old and revered system 
 of government? Was there to be a new readjustment 
 of powers? Were the states that had taken the Con- 
 federate view of the Union and had attempted seces- 
 sion in pursuance of their legal rights, as they 
 conceived, to be treated like states of the Union? Or 
 were they to be treated like conquered provinces to be 
 subject in all their domestic concerns to the absolute 
 authority of the central government. The Constitu- 
 tional theory of the Union and of the effect of the war 
 upon the relation of the states was one of the factors, 
 and by no means a small one, in the problem of re- 
 construction. 
 
 In the third place, in determining the conditions of 
 restoration and the reconstruction of the Union, a 
 decision had to be made as to what should be the status 
 of two classes of people, — those who had borne arms 
 against the Union, and the slaves who had been made /j 
 free by the war. Here was room for conflict and 
 radical differences of opinion. The conflicts and dis- 
 cussions that arose from the efforts to meet these ques- 
 tions occupied a large part of the struggle in the 
 period under consideration. 
 
 Such was the problem of reconstruction. If ever 
 the nation needed wisdom, tact, and harmony in the 
 councils of government, the spirit of bearance and fore- 
 bearance, the dominance of reason and the subjection 
 of passion, these qualities were needed then. Yet 
 more than at any other period in American history, 
 the period of reconstruction is distinguished by bitter- 
 
328 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ness, passion and resentment among the people, and by 
 the most violent and unseemly quarrel between the 
 legislative and executive branches of the government, a 
 conflict that made the matter doubly difficult and that 
 seems, in its misfortune and unhappiness, second only 
 to the conflict in arms. 
 
 One of the potent factors in that conflict, and there- 
 fore one of the influential agencies in determining the 
 course of events in reconstruction, was the personal 
 character and disposition of Andrew Johnson. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln died on the morning of April 15, 
 1865. Three hours later Andrew Johnson, of Ten- 
 nessee, took the oath of office of President of the 
 United States. Johnson was born in Raleigh, North 
 Carolina, December 29, 1808. His parents were uned- 
 ucated and belonged to the class in the South known as 
 " poor whites." The father died when Andrew was 
 a mere child, and when he reached the age of ten he was 
 apprenticed to a tailor. He had no early education, 
 and it was while working at his trade that he learned 
 to read, at the age of fifteen. At eighteen as a jour- 
 neyman tailor, he moved with his mother to Greenville, 
 Tennessee, where he had the good fortune to meet 
 and marry Elizabeth McCardle, a woman of consider- 
 able education and refinement. His wife taught him 
 to write and during the day she read to him while he 
 was at work at his tailor's bench. Young Johnson 
 showed a love for oratory and he read eagerly the 
 speeches of Pitt and Fox and other English classics. 
 He was a natural talker and this talent led him into 
 politics. At twenty he became an alderman of Green- 
 ville, was later chosen Mayor and then was elected 
 
 
FHOM THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT COSTER 
 
 Axdrew Johnson, 1808-1875. 
 
 President of tit* United States, 1865 (869. 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 329 
 
 to the Legislature. In 1843 he was elected to the 
 lower house of Congress, where he served for five 
 terms, till 1853. He was then elected Governor of 
 Tennessee, and in 1857 he was sent to the United 
 States Senate. He was looked upon as a " Plebeian 
 Democrat," and was called the " Mechanic Governor," 
 as it was unusual in the South for such artisans to be 
 elected to such high office. 
 
 Johnson was known in the Senate as a strict con- 
 struction states rights Democrat, though socially it was 
 recognized that he was not in the same class with the 
 aristocratic Southern Senators. He shared with the 
 common people of his section, the non-slaveholding 
 majority, certain inherited prejudices against the mas- 
 ter class. He owed nothing to them for his advance- 
 ment and as a Southerner he looked upon the war, 
 which he thought the slaveholders had brought upon 
 the country, as " a rich man's war but a poor man's 
 fight." In the campaign of i860 he supported Breck- 
 inridge, the Southern Democrat, for the presidency. 
 But he stoutly opposed secession in Tennessee and 
 after the state had passed an ordinance of secession he 
 retained his place in the Senate. He showed his un- 
 bending devotion to the Union in East Tennessee un- 
 der times and circumstances when the fighting qualities 
 were required and in boldness of speech and action 
 that left it impossible to doubt the courage and integ- 
 rity of his convictions. Evidently he was not in the 
 habit of moving in the line of least resistance. In 
 March, 1862, he was appointed Military Governor of 
 Tennessee and he sought to cooperate with Lincoln 
 in the restoration of his state to the Union. He was 
 
330 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 in this office when he was nominated for the vice- 
 presidency with Lincoln in 1864. It was his stanch 
 Unionism and his work as Military Governor that led 
 to his nomination. The Republican party in that year 
 called itself the National Union Party, and it sought 
 to call to its support all who would support the war 
 for the Union and the vindication of the national 
 authority, and in order to give itself a more national 
 and less sectional appearance it refused Vice-President 
 Hamlin a renomination and took up Andrew Johnson 
 instead, — a mistake that caused the party, if not the 
 country, bitter regret in the years immediately follow- 
 ing. 1 
 
 It seems to be the consensus of opinion among the 
 critics of Johnson that he lacked adaptation to the 
 delicate task before him. He was stubborn, opinion- 
 ated, a man of prejudice, was lacking in tact and was 
 not sufficiently in touch with the different sections of 
 the country. He did not have Lincoln's cautious 
 method of feeling the public pulse before launching 
 into a new policy. He lacked the faculty of harmon- 
 izing his advisers or of profiting by their opinions. 
 Benjamin R. Curtis, who defended him in the im- 
 peachment trial, said : " Johnson is a man of few 
 ideas, but they are right and true, and he could suffer 
 death sooner than yield up or violate one of them. He 
 is honest, right-minded, and narrow-minded ; he has no 
 tact and even lacks discretion and forecast." 
 
 1 Colonel A. K. McClure relates that Stevens said to him 
 after McClure had voted in the Convention of 1864 for the 
 nomination of Johnson : " Can't you find a candidate for Vice- 
 President in the United States without going' down to one of 
 those damned rebel provinces to pick one up?" Lincoln and 
 Men of War Times. 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 331 
 
 Johnson took up the work of reconstruction where 
 Lincoln laid it down. Their plans were identical. On 
 May 9, 1865, the Pierpont government in Virginia, the 
 shadow of a government, was recognized as the legiti- 
 mate government of the state, and Lincoln's reorgan- 
 ized governments in Louisiana, Arkansas and 
 Tennessee were assumed to be legitimate and their 
 authority was recognized. Johnson began the work 
 of reconstruction for the other seven states on May 
 29, 1865. On that day he issued a proclamation of 
 pardon and amnesty for all who had taken part in 
 the Rebellion, who were ready to take an oath to sup- 
 port and defend the Constitution. The offer did not 
 apply to those who had already taken advantage of 
 Mr. Lincoln's previous offers. There were certain 
 excepted classes, — those who had held civil or military 
 office under the Confederacy, or military office above 
 the rank of Colonel ; those who had left Congress or 
 judicial stations of the United States to aid the Rebel- 
 lion; those who had treated prisoners of the United 
 States otherwise than as prisoners of war; those who 
 had been engaged in destroying the commerce of the 
 United States upon the high seas ; those who had passed 
 from the United States through the Confederate lines 
 for the purpose of aiding the Rebellion ; and those who 
 had been under criminal or civil arrest or who had 
 failed to keep the oath previously taken. 
 
 Johnson excepted six more classes than Lincoln, the 
 most significant of the new classes being that of persons 
 worth twenty thousand dollars or more, an exception 
 which, as had been supposed, was prompted by John- 
 son's prejudices against the richer classes in the South. 
 
332 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 These exceptions would have excluded almost all the 
 men qualified by experience and training for leadership, 
 but there were liberal provisions for restoration and 
 escape, since pardon and clemency would come, as a 
 matter of course, to the leaders who made personal ap- 
 plication to the President. The great body of the peo- 
 ple were amnestied as a whole. 
 
 On the same day (May 29th), President Johnson is- 
 sued a second proclamation appointing a Provisional 
 Governor of North Carolina and authorizing him to 
 cause the election of delegates to a state convention 
 for the reconstruction of the state and its restoration 
 to the Union. The voters for delegates to the state 
 convention should be those who were qualified to vote 
 by the laws of North Carolina just prior to her seces- 
 sion in May, 1861, after taking the prescribed oath. 
 The oath required as a condition of pardon and partici- 
 pation, an unqualified pledge to support all laws and 
 decrees touching slavery. Any subordinate officer 
 competent to administer oaths might administer the 
 oath of loyalty, issuing a certificate of restored citizen- 
 ship. County and municipal officers were directed to 
 resume their functions, under the oath, and the certify- 
 ing officer was almost brought to the door of every 
 Southern household. " The mercy and grace of the 
 government fell upon the great mass of those .who 
 had engaged in rebellion as gently and as plenteously 
 as the rain from heaven upon the place beneath the foot 
 of the offenders." 1 The excepted classes could take 
 no part in reorganizing the state. 
 
 It appears that Johnson's Cabinet was evenly divided 
 
 1 Blaine, II, p. 76. 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 2,32, 
 
 upon a proposal to include the negroes in the new elec- 
 torate, permitting " all loyal citizens " to participate in 
 the government under provisions of law imposed on the 
 state by Federal authority. Chief Justice Chase by 
 letters from the South strongly urged this policy. 
 Johnson was not friendly to negro suffrage but he 
 was willing to see such colored men admitted as voters 
 who were able to read the Constitution and write their 
 names or who paid taxes on as much as two hundred 
 and fifty dollars' worth of property. But this conces- 
 sion was made, not because Johnson believed in the 
 political capacity of the negro or that he should be ad- 
 mitted to the rights of manhood, but as a means of 
 " disarming the adversary " and of preventing the rad- 
 icals " who are wild upon negro franchise " from 
 " keeping the Southern States from renewing their re- 
 lations to the Union." * While Johnson was willing to 
 yield something upon the point of qualified negro suf- 
 frage allowed by the consent of the state, he was very 
 positive in his position that the state should be left to 
 decide. To prescribe suffrage rules, was not, in his 
 view, within the scope of Federal power. " That was a 
 power," as Johnson said, " which the people of the sev- 
 eral states have rightfully exercised from the origin of 
 the government to the present time." Congress, dur- 
 ing the war, in the Wade-Davis Bill, had wrongfully 
 presumed to fix the suffrage requirements, but even 
 then it had proposed to restrict the suffrage to the 
 whites. All but six of the Northern States denied the 
 negroes the right to vote and one of these (New York) 
 
 1 Johnson to Governor Sharkey, Garner's Reconstruction in 
 Mississippi, pp. 84-85- 
 
334 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 required of the black a property qualification not re- 
 quired of the white, and Johnson astutely said that he 
 wanted to let all the states alike be independent in this 
 matter. 1 
 
 Under the North Carolina proclamation the laws of 
 the United States were to be put into operation within 
 that state, the judges were to open the courts and the 
 military officers were to render all necessary military 
 aid. The convention, or the Legislature, was to pre- 
 scribe the qualifications of voters and the eligibility 
 of persons to hold office under the state. The state 
 was recognized as of old and was looked upon as 
 simply amending its constitution in ways essential to 
 meet the conditions of restoration. This involved " ac- 
 cepting the results of the war." President Johnson 
 let it be known that he would hold these results to be 
 secured essentially if the state consented to the follow- 
 ing fundamental conditions : 
 
 i. The repeal of the Ordinance of Secession, or de- 
 claring it null and void. 
 
 2. The abolition of slavery, or the recognition of its 
 abolition. 
 
 3. Repudiation of the debts incurred by the states 
 in aid of the Rebellion. 
 
 On the basis of these conditions Johnson's plan of 
 reconstruction proceeded. Proclamations similar to 
 that for North Carolina were issued for the other 
 states, appointing Provisional Governors and restoring 
 local civil laws and authorities. During the summer 
 and fall of 1865 elections were held in other states on 
 the basis of the old suffrage; their constitutional con- 
 1 Rhodes, V, p. 524. 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 335 
 
 ventions met, their state constitutions or laws were 
 amended in the particulars required, and in October 
 and November their people proceeded to elect members 
 of Congress, United States Senators, Governors and 
 State Legislators. When their legislatures met they 
 were given to understand through the Provisional 
 Governors that they were expected to ratify the thir- 
 teenth amendment. This they all did except Missis- 
 sippi. 1 During this period the President had declared 
 the cessation of armed resistance, the restoration of in- 
 tercourse throughout the country, the raising of the 
 blockade and putting all branches of the civil govern- 
 ment into operation. 2 
 
 Thus by the close of 1865, the states were all re- 
 organized, 3 the Provisional Governors appointed by the 
 President were relieved of their duties, and the new 
 governments were recognized as being in the full ex- 
 ercise of their functions. In brief, the United States 
 government had, through executive action alone, reas- 
 serted its civil power and reassumed its civil functions 
 and duties within the seceded states; legal and legiti- 
 mate state governments were in operation; and every 
 legal connection under the Constitution between the 
 state and the national government had been fully re- 
 stored. All that Congress was to do was to judge of 
 the qualifications and elections of the members from 
 
 1 See Garner, p. 120. 
 
 2 When Texas, somewhat belated, had completed her reorgan- 
 ization on the terms imposed (April, 1866), Johnson in disregard 
 of congressional rebuke and dissension, August 20, 1866, pro- 
 claimed the complete restoration of peace, order and authority 
 throughout the United States. With this, he persistently held, 
 the work of reconstruction was completed. 
 
 3 Except Texas. 
 
336 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the South who might come to Washington bearing the 
 credentials of the Johnson governments. "The re- 
 construction conventions," says Mr. Blaine, " were 
 little else than consulting bodies of Confederate officers 
 under the rank of Brigadier General, actually sitting 
 throughout their deliberations in the uniform of the 
 rebel service and apparently dictating to the govern- 
 ment of the Union the grounds on which they would 
 consent to resume representation in the national Con- 
 gress." Johnson's Provisional Governors were mostly 
 made up of Southern Whigs who had opposed seces- 
 sion, but in the reorganizing conventions there were 
 many active secessionists and as time passed by under 
 the operation of amnesty and pardon this secession ele- 
 ment came to the front in political activity and control, 
 and the new state governments that were set up came 
 under the control of men who had been active leaders 
 in the Confederate cause. The thing that loomed large 
 in the view of the people of the North was that the 
 " unrepentant rebels " were again in control of their 
 states and that such men were to be sent to Congress 
 to help make laws for the nation. The new Governor 
 of South Carolina had been a Confederate Senator, 
 that of Mississippi, a Brigadier General in the Con- 
 federate army; a Confederate Major-General had been 
 elected to Congress from Alabama, 1 and no less a 
 person than Alexander H. Stephens, who, when Con- 
 gress adjourned March 3, 1865, was acting as Vice- 
 President of the Southern Confederacy, had the bold- 
 ness with the iron-clad oath " staring him in the face, 
 to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate as a 
 1 Dunning, Reconstruction, p. 44. 
 
JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION 337 
 
 Senator-elect from Georgia." The iron-clad oath 
 imposed by act of Congress, of July 2, 1862, required 
 of all who wished to qualify for any office of profit 
 or honor under the United States government, to 
 swear that he had never voluntarily borne arms against 
 the United States, and that he had given no aid nor 
 encouragement to any one engaged in armed hostility. 
 The men who reorganized the Johnson governments in 
 the South denounced this law as unconstitutional and 
 in defiance of it the people elected men as Senators 
 and Representatives in Congress who were, with few 
 exceptions, active participants in the Rebellion. 1 " In 
 his astounding effrontery," says Mr. Blaine, " Mr. 
 Stephens even went so far as to insist on interpreting 
 to those loyal men who had been conducting the United 
 States government through all its perils, the Con- 
 stitution under which they had been acting and to point 
 out how they were depriving him of his rights by 
 demanding an oath of loyalty and good faith as the 
 condition on which he should be entitled to take part 
 in legislation for the restored Union, as if every liv- 
 ing man had forgotten that for four years he had been 
 exerting his utmost effort to destroy the Constitution 
 under which he claimed the full rights of a citizen." 2 
 
 If Johnson thought that Congress would accept 
 quietly and without protest Southern State govern- 
 ments established in such conditions, it shows how 
 sadly he misunderstood the f eMper and purpose of 
 the North. The men who had borne the heat and 
 burden of the war for the Union for four long years 
 were not inclined to see the men against whom they 
 
 1 Blaine, II, pp. 87-88. - Twenty Years, II, pp. 88-89. 
 
338 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 had fought immediately restored to places of power 
 and influence in state and nation. Those who had 
 been so long and so bitterly hostile to the Union had 
 given no evidence of such change of spirit as entitled 
 them to be replaced in power. If the President had 
 organized state governments under the control of men 
 who could have given reasonable guarantee to the 
 North that they were loyal to the Union ; and if these 
 governments had shown a disposition to protect loyal 
 citizens and to secure freedom and a " fair deal " to 
 all the inhabitants of those states, Congress doubtless 
 would have overlooked the manner of their organiza- 
 tion and have restored them to their proper relations 
 to the Union. Congress and the country were as 
 anxious as the President that this be done on fair and 
 honorable terms. But they also felt under a sacred 
 obligation to safeguard the black man in his " new 
 birth of freedom," and they were not willing that " the 
 rebellious states should be ruled over by rebels and 
 that Union men be persecuted for their loyalty." x 
 
 With the opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress John- 
 son was to be given an opportunity to learn the strength 
 of the Northern purpose in respect to reconstruction, — 
 a purpose that had no expectation of being left out of 
 the account. This Northern opinion, as reflected in 
 Congress, Johnson seemed determined to override or 
 ignore. How this opinion and Johnson's obstinacy 
 came into collision the first session of the new Con- 
 gress brings into view. 
 
 1 Trumbull, 1867, Harper's Monthly, Vol. 34, p. 399. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 
 
 ' I V HE President's plan of reconstruction was com- 
 •*• pleted. Peace was declared to be restored, but 
 there was to be no peace. The struggle in arms, it is 
 true, had ended; but the country was on the eve of 
 a political conflict unsurpassed in its history. 
 
 When the Thirty-ninth Congress met for its first 
 session in December, 1865, the Clerk of the preceding 
 House, whose business it was to make up the pre- 
 liminary roll of members entitled to take part in the 
 election of the Speaker and the organization of the 
 House, omitted the names of those coming up with 
 certificates of election from Johnson's reconstructed 
 states. In this the Clerk was acting in obedience to 
 the Republican party caucus which had been largely 
 dominated by Stevens. The Clerk refused to listen to 
 protests from the Tennessee members or to entertain 
 motions from Democrats directing him to put on the 
 roll the members-elect from Johnson's own state. The 
 Constitution requires the President to be an inhabitant 
 of a state. Brooks, a Democrat from New York, 
 demanded to know, if Tennessee were not a loyal state 
 and the people of Tennessee were aliens and foreigners 
 to the Union, by what right the President usurped 
 his place in the White House. If members-elect from 
 Tennessee were not entitled to their seats because 
 
 339 
 
340 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 their state was not in the Union, how was Johnson 
 entitled to his ? Was he to be looked upon as a usurp- 
 ing inhabitant of a territory? Brooks demanded a 
 decision of this question before the Speaker was elected. 
 In the preceding Congress members from Louisiana 
 had been admitted in time of war; why should Ten- 
 nessee now be refused in time of peace? 
 
 But the Republicans were largely in the majority; 
 a program had been arranged, and under the leader- 
 ship of Stevens, with this majority behind him, all at- 
 tempts at debate or delay were overruled, and the 
 Southern members were left off the roll. 1 
 
 Stevens had in his pocket the resolution which was 
 to open the great contest with the President, — a con- 
 test most memorable in our congressional annals. He 
 was taunted by Brooks, the Democratic leader, with 
 the inquiry as to when, acting for his party caucus, 
 he intended to press his resolution. " I have no ob- 
 jection to answering the gentleman," retorted Stev- 
 ens ; " I propose to press it at the proper time." Im- 
 mediately after the election of the officers of the House, 
 but before the reading of the annual message of the 
 President, Stevens offered his resolution which pro- 
 vided for a joint committee on reconstruction to 
 consist of nine Representatives and six Senators who 
 should inquire into the condition of the Southern States 
 and " report whether they or any of them are entitled 
 to be represented in either house of Congress, and 
 until such report shall have been made and finally 
 
 1 Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, was elected Speaker by a vote 
 of 139 to 36, the minority vote being cast for James Brooks, of 
 New York. 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 341 
 
 acted upon by Congress no member shall be received 
 into either house from any of the so-called Confeder- 
 ate States." For the passage of this resolution Stev- 
 ens moved the suspension of the rules and the previous 
 question. This cut off debate, and the resolution car- 
 ried by one hundred and thirty-three ayes to thirty-six 
 noes. The members from Johnson's reconstructed 
 states were not to be allowed the usual privilege of the 
 floor while a decision was pending. 
 
 This summary action gave indication of the temper 
 of Congress, showing that it was in no mood to ac- 
 cept Johnson's plan of reconstruction. It served no- 
 tice that a contest was at hand, and that, at any rate, 
 Stevens and his radical colleagues were determined 
 to overthrow if possible what Johnson had set up. 
 " Before that day," says Mr. McCall, " Stevens had 
 been the leader of the House of Representatives. 
 Henceforth he was to be its dictator and the leader 
 of his party throughout the country." 1 
 
 Stevens was made chairman of the House Com- 
 mittee on Reconstruction and associated with him were 
 such men as Bingham, Washburn, Boutwell, Conkling, 
 and Morrill. Senator Fessenden, of Maine, was made 
 chairman of the Senate Committee. On the second 
 day of the session Stevens introduced three resolu- 
 tions setting forth the terms of reconstruction that he 
 wished to have imposed, to be incorporated by amend- 
 ment into the fundamental law of the land. These res- 
 olutions and the notable speech of Stevens of De- 
 cember 18, 1865, in which he opened the great debate 
 on reconstruction, may be said to lay down the es- 
 
 1 Life of Stevens, p. 259. 
 
342 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 sential reasons why Congress rejected the reconstruc- 
 tion policy of President Johnson and began to construct 
 a policy of its own. 
 
 In the first place, Congress thought it was not the 
 exclusive business of the President to carry on recon- 
 struction. The problem of restoring the broken union 
 was fundamental. It went to the roots of political 
 power and the institutions of government. It far 
 transcended the routine and technical question of 
 whether men claiming to have been elected to Congress 
 were of proper age and had been elected without fraud. 
 It involved the problem of rebuilding the Union, the 
 readmission of states that had foresworn their alle- 
 giance to the Constitution, and the reestablishment of 
 local government in those states on the principles ac- 
 ceptable to the nation. This vast political problem of 
 reconstruction, as we have seen, not only involved the 
 destruction of the Confederate State governments of 
 the South and the setting up of new governments in 
 their stead and the restoration of these new govern- 
 ments in their proper place in the Union, all of which 
 Johnson had undertaken to accomplish without the 
 least shadow of constitutional authority, but also the 
 legal and constitutional status of two important ele- 
 ments of the population had to be determined, — the 
 negroes who had been set free by the war and the 
 Confederate leaders who had for four years borne 
 arms against the Federal government. It was absurd 
 to suppose that Congress was to be barred from hav- 
 ing any voice in the determination of these great ques- 
 tions of state. They involved powers and policies 
 too large for the President alone. Was it short of 
 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 343 
 
 "preposterous," as Stevens said, for Johnson to as- 
 sume such powers to himself? It belonged to the 
 United States in Congress assembled to determine 
 what should be the constitutional and civil results of 
 the war and how these were to be made permanent 
 and secure. There can be no doubt of the soundness 
 of the political theory that Stevens now so forcibly 
 laid down as the basis of congressional action. 1 
 
 The controlling provision of the Constitution in re- 
 storing the broken Union was where Stevens found it, 
 in the power to admit new states. On this he based 
 his policy of reconstruction. It has been called his 
 " conquered province theory." It was a practical 
 policy rather than a theory, and it was the same as 
 that on which he sought to conduct the war for the 
 Union. It was that the war had severed the original 
 compact and broken all ties that had bound the states 
 together. The power of Congress was absolute in the 
 conquered states, and to their rights and immunities 
 the Constitution had ceased to apply. They must now 
 come in as new states or remain as conquered prov- 
 inces, and Congress is the only power that can de- 
 termine the conditions of readmission. " But 
 suppose," says Stevens, " as some dreaming theorists 
 imagine that these states have never been out of the 
 Union, but have only destroyed their state govern- 
 ments so as to be incapable of political action," then 
 the United States shall guarantee a republican form 
 of government. The United States is not the Presi- 
 
 1 Professor J. W. Burgess, of Columbia University, a leading 
 American authority in political science and constitutional law, 
 expresses very positive approval of Stevens' view. "Recon- 
 struction and the Constitution/ p. 43. 
 
344 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 dent " but the sovereign power of the people," exer- 
 cised through their representatives in Congress. This 
 is the power that is to establish a republican form of 
 government in lapsed or outlawed states. 
 
 " It is worse than ridiculous to hear men of respect- 
 able standing attempting to nullify the law of na- 
 tions and declare that because the Constitution forbids 
 it, the states could not go out of the Union in fact. 
 The theory that the rebel states, for four years a sep- 
 arate power and without representation in Congress, 
 were all the time here in the Union, is a good deal 
 less ingenious and respectable than the metaphysics of 
 Berkeley which proved that neither the world nor 
 any human being was in existence. If this theory 
 were simply ridiculous it could be forgiven, but its 
 effect is deeply injurious to the nation. I can not doubt 
 that the late Confederate States are out of the Union 
 to all intents and purposes for which the conqueror 
 may wish to consider them. After the palpable facts 
 of war, to deny that we have a right to treat them 
 as a conquered belligerent, severed from the Union in 
 fact, is not argument but mockery." If the states 
 were to be regarded as dead within the Union, from 
 their own act of suicide, the only power that could 
 reanimate them and make them capable of political 
 action was in Congress. A law of Congress is neces- 
 sary to revive a dead state, and until then no member 
 can be admitted lawfully to either house. The provi- 
 sion that each house shall be the judge of the elections 
 and qualifications of its own members has not the most 
 distant bearing on this question. Congress must first 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 345 
 
 create states and declare when they are entitled to be 
 represented. 
 
 Standing on this principle of congressional power in 
 the solution of this problem, Stevens insisted upon two 
 matters as of vital importance in the beginning of 
 reconstruction. One was that it should be decided 
 for all time what power was competent to " revive, 
 recreate, and reinstate these provinces into the family 
 of states " ; the other was that none of the South- 
 ern States should be counted in adopting the amend- 
 ments held to be necessary for the reconstructed Union. 
 Congress should assert its sovereign authority. Stev- 
 ens very much disliked the course Secretary Seward 
 had assumed in counting the Southern States in mak- 
 ing up the three- fourths necessary for the adoption of 
 the thirteenth amendment. Such a position " was in- 
 tended to delude the people and to accustom Congress 
 to hear repeated the names of these extinct states as if 
 they were alive." To Stevens' mind these states had 
 " no more existence than the revolted cities of Latium," 
 and he proposed to take no account of " the aggrega- 
 tion of whitewashed rebels who, without any legal 
 authority, have assembled in the capitols of the late 
 rebel states and simulated legislative bodies. . . . How 
 shameful that men of influence should mislead and 
 miseducate the public mind ! " 
 
 Having established the power of Congress in the 
 case, Stevens sought next to lay down the conditions 
 for the readmission of the conquered states. These 
 conditions should be fixed beyond recall by such con- 
 stitutional amendments as would make the Constitu- 
 
346 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 lion what its frame rs intended it to be and would 
 " render republican government forever firm and 
 stable." 
 
 One of his proposed amendments indicated the 
 second essential reason why Congress and the country 
 were not willing to accept Johnson's plan, namely, the 
 necessity for the protection of the freedman. It pro- 
 vided that " all national and state laws shall be equally 
 applicable to every citizen and no discrimination shall 
 be made on account of race or color." Here is the 
 germ of an important part of the fourteenth amend- 
 ment, — the guarantee of civil rights to the negro. 
 Stevens did not at this time propose to grant the right 
 of suffrage to the freedmen, though he did not conceal 
 his opinion in favor of that measure. He thought it 
 would be brought about by the readjustment of rep- 
 resentation. However, he spoke boldly for the de- 
 fense of the freedmen under uniform laws and for their 
 provision till they could take care of themselves. 
 " The infernal laws of slavery," he said, " have pre- 
 vented them from acquiring an education, understand- 
 ing the commonest laws of contract, or of managing 
 ordinary business of life. We must not leave them 
 to the legislation of their late masters, but we must 
 provide for them protective laws. . . . If we fail in 
 this great duty now when we have the power we shall 
 deserve and receive the execration of history and of 
 all future ages." 
 
 Northern belief in the necessity of protection for 
 the negro was one of the most potent influences lead- 
 ing to the rejection and defeat of Johnson's plan. The 
 electorate that he had established precluded negro 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 347 
 
 suffrage, but far more important than that was the 
 treatment accorded the freedmen by the Legislatures 
 of Johnson's newly erected states. 
 
 The unfair discriminations visited upon the blacks 
 by the vagrancy laws passed in the South in 1865 are 
 a matter of common knowledge, and they need not be 
 recounted here. Their unequal character seemed to 
 General Sickles to call for the intervention of the 
 military arm for the sake of civil liberty, and one of 
 his military orders decreed that the vagrancy laws ap- 
 plicable to free white persons should be the only ones 
 recognized as applicable to freedmen. 1 To the North- 
 ern mind it was made to appear that the design of 
 these laws was the practical reenslavement of the 
 blacks. " Vagrants," without visible means of sup- 
 port were to be put to forced labor, and the helpless 
 blacks, for no other crime than that of poverty, might 
 be " hired out " to masters, old or new, who would 
 pay the public for their time and labor. These " black 
 codes " aroused anger and indignation in the North and 
 they were looked upon as having been enacted from a 
 spirit of irritation and defiance because of the aboli- 
 tion of slavery. Stevens was convinced that the spirit 
 •of slavery still lived, and he had no doubt that if the 
 freedom of their race was to be preserved the negroes 
 should not be entrusted to the tender mercies of their 
 former masters with political power in their hands. 
 Stevens had in view, but held in abeyance, his policy 
 on this phase of reconstruction. But he sought here, 
 in the beginning, to emphasize the principle that the 
 protection of civil rights and civil equality was a na- 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, March 10, 1865. 
 
348 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tional function ; that the Constitution should require the 
 states to treat their own inhabitants with equality in 
 regard to their civil rights, and that the only way 
 these civil rights could be secured was by national law. 
 He would place that guarantee where it could never 
 be undermined nor overthrown. 
 
 A third reason why Congress would not accept John- 
 son's plan was that it left the Southern States and their 
 elections entirely within the control of the Confeder- 
 ates. His policy had led the ex-Confederates, so 
 lately in arms for the purpose of destroying the Union, 
 to show a disposition to claim rights rather than 
 to submit to conditions. Their conventions seemed 
 little more than consulting bodies of Confederate of- 
 ficers, " actually sitting throughout their deliberations 
 in the uniform of the rebel service apparently dic- 
 tating to the government of the Union the grounds on 
 which they would consent to resume representation 
 in the national Congress." " Hardly is the war 
 closed," said the committee on reconstruction, " be- 
 fore the people of the insurrectionary states come 
 forward and haughtily claim as a right, the privilege 
 of participating at once in that government which they 
 have for four years been fighting to overthrow. Al- 
 lowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize 
 state governments, they at once placed in power lead- 
 ing rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding with 
 contempt those who had manifested an attachment to 
 the Union, and preferring in many instances those who 
 had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious." 
 
 In Stevens' opinion and according to his policy, the 
 first duty of Congress was to pass a law defining the 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 349 
 
 condition of these "defunct states" and providing 
 civil government for them. He recognized that mili- 
 tary law was despotic and ought not to exist any longer 
 than is necessary. A territorial government was the 
 proper arrangement, and he saw no symptoms that they 
 would be ready to participate in constitutional govern- 
 ment for some years to come. In this territorial state 
 they " can learn the principles of freedom and eat 
 the fruit of foul rebellion." Congress could then fix 
 the qualifications for voters and the rebels might be 
 given an opportunity " to practise justice to all men and 
 make and obey equal laws." As to their rights of 
 life and property and the retributive justice that was 
 due them he had opinions that he proposed to an- 
 nounce " at the proper time." 
 
 There were other reasons that had great weight in 
 Stevens' mind, and in those of the other radical lead- 
 ers, why Congress should overturn the policy of John- 
 son. The national debt should be guaranteed, as, also, 
 the sacred pension obligations to soldiers and sailors 
 and to their widows and orphans, against any possible 
 hostile combination of " Southern rebels " and " North- 
 ern Copperheads." The payment of the Confederate 
 debt contracted by a state for Confederate purposes 
 should be prevented by the fundamental law of the 
 land, before these states should be readmitted and be 
 given the rights of local self-government. The na- 
 tion should not permit men to be rewarded or repaid 
 for an effort upon its life. Stevens wished to outlaw 
 these debts that had been contracted for lawless and 
 wicked purposes, and he believed that if the states were 
 admitted and left to do as they pleased, these debts 
 
350 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 would be taken up and paid. Money lenders who 
 staked their capital on the effort to disrupt the Union 
 and destroy the government should be taught the les- 
 son they deserved. 
 
 Stevens was in entire harmony with the public opin- 
 ion of the North in regarding the Rebellion as a gi- 
 gantic crime and he held that its leaders, instead of 
 being pardoned and exonerated and elected to office 
 and admitted again into the seats of honor and power, 
 should be visited with condign punishment. He 
 would provide homesteads and the suffrage for the 
 negroes for their protection, and as a means to this 
 end and as a punitive measure calculated as a fair 
 warning to future ages, he advocated the confiscation 
 of the estates of Southern leaders and their exclusion 
 from political power. No one to-day would approve 
 Stevens' drastic plan of confiscation as a public policy, 
 and wherein he manifested the spirit of vindictiveness 
 and revenge in public speech and policy he is, as a 
 matter of course, to be disapproved distinctly and con- 
 demned. But the feeling that there should be some 
 punishment meted out for the Rebellion w r as almost 
 universal in the North. On that matter Stevens was 
 not by any means exceptional. The hatred engen- 
 dered by the war was not more intense in Stevens than 
 in thousands of others in the North. 
 
 The final and one of the most important reasons 
 for the break with Johnson came from the desire of 
 Stevens and the radical leaders in Congress to read- 
 just the distribution of political power among the 
 states. This came partly from a desire to promote 
 political equity and partly to secure party ascendency. 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 351 
 
 It was to be secured by one of Stevens' proposed 
 amendments apportioning representation among the 
 states, not according to population but in proportion 
 to legal voters. Stevens was most anxious to see to 
 it that the basis of representation for the allotment of 
 political power should be changed. He believed that 
 the Slave States had enjoyed an unfair share of political 
 power from the foundation of the government and that 
 Johnson's reconstruction would aggravate the evil. 
 The opportunity for remedy that now presented itself 
 should not go unimproved. It was seen that the adop- 
 tion of the thirteenth amendment, forever abolishing 
 slavery, would give to the Southern States an increased 
 representation in Congress. In this fact, so unpalata- 
 ble to the Northern Republicans, Stevens found a great 
 source of support for his cause. The representation 
 for non-voting people of color in the South was then 
 thirty-seven. The South had seventy representatives 
 in Congress, having twenty- four for three-fifths of 
 their slaves. Add the other two-fifths of the blacks 
 now free, and they would have thirteen more, making 
 eighty-three. If colored people were not to be allowed 
 to vote, Stevens wished not only not to add these 
 thirteen to the South's representation, but to take away 
 the twenty- four which had been allotted to them on ac- 
 count of three-fifths of the slaves. This would reduce 
 their representation to forty-six, — a material reduction 
 in political power. If the basis remained unchanged 
 the eighty-three Southern members, with the Demo- 
 crats that will in the best of times be elected from the 
 North, will always give them a majority in Congress 
 and in the Electoral College. " At the first election," 
 
352 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 said Stevens, " they will take possession of the White 
 House and the halls of Congress. I need not depict the 
 ruin that would follow. Assumption of the rebel debt ; 
 repudiation of the Federal debt, oppression of the freed- 
 men, reamendment of their state constitutions, and the 
 reestablishment of slavery would be the inevitable re- 
 sult. They would scorn and disregard their present 
 constitutions forced upon them by martial law while 
 in duress, — which would be but natural action on their 
 part." 
 
 The party motive prompting this proposal was 
 frankly avowed by Stevens. He resorted to no subter- 
 fuges and made no concealments. The support of 
 Johnson's plan by the Northern " Copperhead De- 
 mocracy " in combination with Southern leaders was 
 condemnation enough for Stevens. He believed John- 
 son had in view a party scheme for uniting these ele- 
 ments, together with the conservative elements of the 
 Republican party, to the undoing of the country and 
 the sacrifice of the results of the war. The men in 
 the North who had stood most stoutly against slavery 
 and for the Union were to be thrust from power. It 
 was up to the radical leaders to circumvent the scheme. 
 Stevens boldly declared his opinion that the ascen- 
 dency of the Union Republican party was essential 
 to make secure the great results of the war and that 
 if these results were not made safe by amendments 
 before the states were restored they never could be. 
 His amendment did not impose negro suffrage on the 
 Southern States, but if these states refused to admit 
 the blacks to suffrage, their representation would be 
 so reduced as to render them powerless for evil ; while 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 353 
 
 if they granted the suffrage to the negroes there would 
 always be Union white men enough aided by the 
 blacks to divide the representation and continue Re- 
 publican ascendency. 
 
 Stevens closed his appeal for a more radical policy 
 with a bold advocacy of the equality of all men before 
 the law. He held firmly to the great democratic prin- 
 ciple of the Declaration of Independence upon which 
 our fathers created a revolution and build the republic. 
 He never quailed nor failed in his defense of the great 
 enduring principles of democracy. He urged that the 
 republic should be made to stand on the principles of 
 the fathers, otherwise it could have " no honest foun- 
 dation and the Father of all men will still shake it to 
 its center. If we have not yet been sufficiently 
 scourged for our national sin to teach us to do justice 
 to all God's creatures, without distinction of race or 
 color, we must expect the still more heavy vengeance 
 of an offended Father. 
 
 " This is not a ' white man's government.' To say 
 so is political blasphemy, for it violates the funda- 
 mental principles of our gospel of liberty. This is 
 man's government, the government of all men alike. 
 Equal rights to all the privileges of the government 
 is innate in every mortal being, no matter what the 
 shape or color of the tabernacle which it inhabits. . . . 
 Sir, this doctrine of a white man's government is as 
 astrocious as the infamous sentiment that damned the 
 late chief justice to everlasting fame and I fear to 
 everlasting fire." * 
 
 1 Globe, December 18, 1865. 
 _ That Stevens was supported in his course by the public sen- 
 timent of his party and by many who would now be re- 
 
354 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 This speech went to the country as an attack on the 
 policy of the administration. Mr. Henry J. Ray- 
 mond, of New York, an administration Republican, 
 replied to it urging a liberal policy toward the South, 
 
 garded as moderate and conservative men, is attested by the 
 numerous letters that poured in upon him in approval of this 
 speech. The lack of space forbids the use of these indorse- 
 ments, but a few may be cited as typical of many. 
 
 The following is from Judge Alphonso Taft, father of Presi- 
 dent Taft, written from Cincinnati, December 28, 1865 : " I 
 read your speech on reconstruction, as I read all your speeches, 
 with great interest and pleasure. With the President against 
 you I suppose it is impossible to accomplish all that should be 
 accomplished. I suppose you can not accomplish negro suffrage 
 except in the District, where I would fight for it to the last. 
 But I trust you may be able to get a constitutional amendment 
 making the Federal power of every state proportional to its 
 number of voters. That and the taxing of exports are so just 
 and necessary that they must be insisted on and fought for. 
 Negro prejudice does not stand in the way of these two meas- 
 ures. The task of this Congress is all the more arduous as the 
 President is so precipitate in his reconstruction policy. I hope 
 he will not prove obstinate. Persevere ! The true people will 
 applaud you. God bless your efforts ! " 
 
 Hon. John L. Ketcham writes from Indianapolis, December 
 24, 1866 : " Beyond all controversy yours is the true ground. 
 . . . The states that went into rebellion are now only con- 
 quered provinces. Their state governments are dead and 
 buried and damned, and ought to be. To waste words about 
 whether they are in the Union or out of the Union is all tom- 
 foolery. And the men who talk so know it well. Andy John- 
 son knows it. And he knows the people of the South are not 
 fit to exercise political rights. When I read your speech over 
 (as I did twice, every word of it) I could not but think if my 
 father-in-law, Samuel Merrill, were only living, how proud he 
 would be over this speech ! I tell you it has the right ring 
 about it, and if Congress will go right forward the people will 
 sustain them. But if they hesitate and are timid all is lost. 
 The people love bold leaders and bold action, especially in the 
 right. I pray God your life may be spared to establish freedom 
 everywhere and to bring into disgrace treason and traitors." 
 
 Alfred Conkling, of Genesee, New York, commended this 
 " noble speech." " I can not forbear to tender to you the tribute 
 of my admiration and thanks. It will secure to you an im- 
 mortality of enviable fame." 
 
 O. A. Brownson, the publicist, wrote from Elizabeth, New 
 Jersey, December 19, 1865, to thank Stevens for his " admirable 
 speech." " Your general views I hold to be sound and politic. 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 355 
 
 in harmony with Johnson's message, 1 which urged am- 
 nesty and Southern representation and restoration of 
 local control to the South at the earliest day consistent 
 with public safety. The debate became general both 
 in the House and the Senate. Mr. Sumner, of Mas- 
 sachusetts, was particularly hostile in the Senate to 
 Johnson's plan. He urged the importance of suf- 
 frage and civil rights for the negroes and he painted 
 in vivid colors what he called the " rebel barbarism " 
 and outrages of the Southern whites against the help- 
 less freedmen. The report of General Carl Schurz on 
 the political temper and conditions in the South was 
 called for by the Senate and used with great effect to 
 sustain the case against the President. Johnson was 
 irritated and his combativeness was aroused. 
 
 Congress, proceeding to legislate for the protection 
 of the emancipated blacks, passed the Freedmen's 
 Bureau Bill, extending the powers and enlarging the 
 staff of that bureau. Johnson was not ready to ac- 
 cept this modification of his work and on February 
 
 To pretend that the Confederate States are and have been in 
 the Union is utterly absurd and mischievous. They have no 
 state character and no political rights ; they are territories sub- 
 ject to the Union. But I especially indorse your assertion of 
 the congressional prerogative. The President has been dabbling 
 with reconstruction for eight months without constitutional or 
 legal warrant-" 
 
 Reverend Doctor H. T. Cheever wrote from Worcester, Massa- 
 chusetts, January 10, 1866: "You have the thanks of every loyal 
 American not a trimmer for the noble stand you have taken in 
 the House. Massachusetts likens you to her ' Old Man Elo- 
 quent.' May God grant that Congress may not recede a hair 
 from its position," and he commended Stevens as " one whom 
 the people delight to honor for his eloquence and devotion to 
 the rights of man as man. That God may sustain and make 
 you immortal till your work is done is the prayer of myself and 
 of many here." 
 
 1 December 5, 1865. 
 
356 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 19, 1866, he vetoed this bill, — a veto that officially 
 opened the breach between the two departments of the 
 government. 
 
 This veto was obviously not based altogether on 
 the merits, or the demerits, of the bill. The President 
 was evidently prompted by his combativeness and by 
 his resentment of personal attacks that had been made 
 upon him. He was a born fighter; he had been fight- 
 ing all his life, and he was not of the kind readily to 
 yield to criticism or opposition. He had said, and 
 he now proposed to stand up for it, that Congress had 
 no right under the Constitution to exclude states from 
 representation. On this rock he proposed to establish 
 his plan. While the congressional leaders were per- 
 versely keeping the eleven states out of the Union 
 and were thus disregarding this fundamental principle 
 of reconstruction the President did not intend that 
 their legislation should go by unchecked. 
 
 The veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was John- 
 son's declaration of war, or his acceptance of the gage 
 of battle, between him and Congress, which was des- 
 tined to lead to a long and uncompromising struggle. 
 The first victory in this long fight rested with Johnson, 
 as the Senate, by a narrow margin of two votes, sus- 
 tained the veto amid the applause and hisses of its 
 gallery. But the President's first victory was his last, 
 for upon the very day on which the Senate sustained 
 his veto, the Flouse, under the leadership of Stevens, 
 adopted a concurrent resolution declaring that no Sena- 
 tor or Representative should be admitted from any 
 insurrectionary state until Congress should have de- 
 clared the state entitled to representation. This reso- 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 357 
 
 lution the Senate adopted on March 2, 1866, and the 
 two houses thus stood openly committed in opposition 
 to the President's constitutional doctrine of reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 This resolution has been called the " counter-stroke " 
 to the veto. The respective positions assumed by the 
 two departments of the government were directly an- 
 tagonistic and irreconcilable. One had to give way or 
 be overcome. The Executive might bar the passage 
 of measures which Congress wished to enact, but the 
 Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction 
 " carried on its girdle the keys of the Union," as 
 Senator Cowan said, and unless it unlocked the doors 
 " the wayward sisters could not get in." 1 
 
 Antagonistic personalities as well as opposing prin- 
 ciples tended to promote the breach between the Presi- 
 dent and Congress. The veto of the Freedmen's Bureau 
 Bill became the occasion of a public speech by John- 
 son in which he indulged in unbecoming personalities, 
 tending still further to aggravate the situation. To 
 a serenading party that came to the White House on 
 February 22, 1866, to congratulate the President on 
 the success of his veto, Johnson spoke at considerable 
 length. He referred to the Reconstruction Committee 
 of Congress as an " irresponsible central directory," 
 that was assuming nearly all the powers of Congress 
 in disregard of the Constitution. " You have been 
 struggling for four years to put down a rebellion. 
 You contended at the beginning of that struggle that 
 a state had not a right to go out. That question has 
 been settled. ... I am opposed to the Davises, the 
 
 1 Dewitt, Impeachment of Johnson, p. 58. 
 
358 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Toombses, the Slidells, and the long list of such. But 
 when I perceive on the other hand men [a voice, " call 
 them off"] I care not by what name you call them — 
 still opposed to the Union, I am free to say to you that 
 I am still with the people.'' Some one from the crowd 
 called for the names of the members of Congress to 
 whom the President alluded. " Suppose I should name 
 them to you,'' replied Johnson, " those whom I look 
 upon as being opposed to the fundamental principles of 
 this government and as now laboring to destroy them. 
 I say Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania; I say Charles 
 Sumner, of Massachusetts; I say Wendell Phillips, of 
 Massachusetts. [A voice, " Forney."] I do not waste 
 my fire on dead ducks. I stand for the country and 
 though my enemies may traduce, slander, and vituper- 
 ate, I may say that has no force." 1 
 
 It has been said that from the moment of this speech 
 " personal rancor against the President filled the heart 
 of Stevens, at least, if not of others." 2 It is certainly 
 true that forgiveness and conciliation and the sweet 
 spirit of personal charity for his opponents were not 
 traits for which Stevens was especially distinguished. 
 Johnson's coarse speech had brought a feeling of shame 
 and humiliation to the country. It is not likely, how- 
 ever, that Johnson's rage and his rash language toward 
 Congress and its leaders seriously influenced Stevens' 
 public policy in reconstruction. Johnson's veto of 
 the Freedmen's Bureau Bill gave him a momentary 
 triumph. But Stevens was now more easily able, on 
 account of Johnson's personalities and rude and tact- 
 
 1 McPherson, Reconstruction. 
 
 2 Burgess, Reconstruction, p. 67. 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 359 
 
 less speech on February 22nd, to arouse opposition to 
 the President and his plan. On March 10, 1866, Stev- 
 ens improved his opportunity in his second notable 
 speech on reconstruction. He restated his former 
 position, that of considering the Southern States as 
 in the status of conquered provinces. 
 
 One may well disapprove of Stevens' motives and. 
 purposes, but it may be safely asserted that in the 
 political thinking of the time, judged either by the 
 canons of political science or of constitutional law, no 
 one excelled Stevens, or answered him successfully in 
 argument. The position that he assumed was clear, 
 straightforward, consistent from beginning to end, and 
 he presented his cause with a force and ability that 
 made his position seem unassailable. He was again 
 accused of admitting by his doctrine the efficacy of 
 secession. He denied this, and asserted that the or- 
 dinances of secession amounted to nothing either in 
 law or in fact. It was the formation of a regular 
 hostile government, and the raising and supporting of 
 large armies, and for a time maintaining their declara- 
 tion of independence that made the South a belligerent 
 and the contest a war. . . . He stood on the fact, 
 recognized of all men. " Who is simple enough to 
 believe that the assertion of a fact is the justification of 
 it? The people are astute enough to discern between 
 the right and the fact." 
 
 Stevens held that the war had not disorganized the 
 rebel states. They had continued under state govern- 
 ments and their relation to the United States did not 
 affect that question. Others contended that the loyal 
 people formed the state ; he thought that all the people 
 
360 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 within its jurisdiction who are legal citizens have an 
 equal part in making up the state, without regard to 
 character; the control of republics depends on the 
 number not on the quality of voters. " This is not 
 a government of saints," he said ; " it has a large sprin- 
 kling of sinners. The Confederate States continued to 
 be well-organized states out of the Union, under laws, 
 it is true, different from those of the United States. 
 If they were not out of the Union the logical position 
 would be, as some contend, that they might at any 
 time send representatives here and demand admission 
 without asking leave of any one. ... In what de- 
 plorable guilt does it involve the President to declare 
 that the states were never out of the Union! What 
 rank usurpation has he practised in intermeddling 
 with the domestic affairs of the state! All states in 
 the Union are equal. How long could the President 
 stay in the White House if he should attempt in New 
 York or Pennsylvania what he had done in South 
 Carolina and Alabama? If I believed as the gentle- 
 men do I should deem it the duty of Congress forth- 
 with to present articles of impeachment." 
 
 He contended that what the President had done he 
 had done not to states in the Union, but to conquered 
 provinces, and that, not under any power in the con- 
 stitution, but as a commander exercising military 
 authority. The President appoints a Governor in Ten- 
 nessee, authorizes him to call a constitutional conven- 
 tion, fixes the qualification of voters and finally orders 
 certain things for the convention to adopt in the con- 
 stitution. Obedience was instantaneous, thanks to the 
 virtue of martial law and fixed bavonets! What a 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 361 
 
 free, republican, constitutional restoration this is! So 
 with the other states. Johnson's government of Vir- 
 ginia was even worse. There " the free representa- 
 tives of fragments of about eleven townships out of 
 one hundred and forty-two counties, elected in spots 
 between the contending armies on disputed ground, 
 twelve men, who met within the Federal lines, called 
 itself a convention, formed a constitution, ordered elec- 
 tions for the whole state, and Governor Pierpont re- 
 ceived about thirty-three hundred votes for Governor 
 (half Yankee soldiers, I suspect) and was proclaimed 
 in the market house of Alexandria, the Governor of 
 imperial Virginia, the mother of statesmen ! . . . This 
 is one of the twenty-seven states that adopted the con- 
 stitutional amendment ! I am fond of genteel comedy, 
 but this low farce is too vulgar to be acted on the 
 stage of nations. Are these the free republics such as 
 the United States is bound to guarantee to all the states 
 in the Union? Should these swindlers, these impos- 
 tors, bred in the midst of martial law, without author- 
 ity from Congress, be acknowledged here? " 
 
 In reply to the suggestion that the Southern com- 
 munities had been sufficiently punished, he said that 
 one might search the whole records of crime from the 
 rebellion of the angels and the first transgression of 
 man to the present day, and " you can find nowhere so 
 great a crime so inadequately punished." They were 
 
 punished only in the pugilistic sense of having been 
 knocked out in a fight. Did any respectable govern- 
 ment ever before allow such high criminals to escape 
 with such shameful impunity? I have never desired 
 bloody punishments to any great extent, even for the 
 
362 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 sake of example. But there are punishments quite as 
 appalling, and longer remembered than death. They 
 are more advisable because they would reach a greater 
 number. Strip a proud nobility of their bloated es- 
 tates; reduce them to a level with plain republicans; 
 send them forth to labor, and teach their children to 
 enter the workshops or handle the plow and to respect 
 labor, and you will thus humble the proud traitors." 
 
 He named again the reforms he expected to see in- 
 corporated in the Constitution. He had no fear that 
 the people would surrender the fruits of victory. Only 
 a few in Congress would grow weak in the knees at 
 the footstool of power. " You can easily designate 
 them by their shuffling, cringing, fawning manner. 
 They never stand erect when manhood is required. 
 But the great majority will stand by their own honor 
 and their country's welfare. If these reforms are not 
 accomplished, then in three short years this whole gov- 
 ernment will be in the hands of the late rebels and 
 their Northern allies." He would put the conquered 
 territory under territorial governments and let them 
 know that in adopting amendments their aid would be 
 neither invited nor permitted, and when they came 
 again to enter the Union they would swear allegiance 
 to a constitution remodeled without their consent. 
 
 It was in a diversion in the midst of this speech 
 that Stevens uttered his notable mock eulogy of Presi- 
 dent Johnson, in which we find a specimen of Stev- 
 ens' scathing satirical invective. For ability and ef- 
 fectiveness in this line of attack it is probable that, in 
 all the annals of American politics, Stevens stands 
 without an equal. It is difficult to believe, in view of 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 363 
 
 the context, as Air. McCall seems to do, that Stev- 
 ens uttered even any part of his tribute to the Presi- 
 dent with a candid and serious purpose. He did say 
 in the beginning of his personal allusion what seemed 
 to be serious words, and no doubt he spoke in grave 
 and solemn tones. He asserted that he had no feel- 
 ing of enmity toward the President but respect rather, 
 and " honor for his integrity, patriotism, courage, and 
 good intentions." He disclaimed any personal hos- 
 tility to the President, but he proposed to oppose and 
 denounce his policy ; as it would be to forget the ob- 
 loquy that he had calmly borne for thirty years in 
 the war for liberty, if he should turn craven now. Mr. 
 Price, of Iowa, appeared to accept this personal allu- 
 sion to the President as a candid and intentional com- 
 pliment on the part of Stevens and he interrupted the 
 latter to ask whether it were possible that the " Thad'' 
 Stevens " now eulogizing the President could be the 
 same as the " Thad Stevens " referred to in the late 
 White House speech. The question might have been 
 anticipated, or prearranged. At any rate it gave 
 Stevens his opportunity, and he turned from his mild 
 tone of compliment and conciliation toward the Presi- 
 dent to one of mean and satirical abuse. It may be 
 that the passage of coarse and abusive invective, in 
 which Stevens now indulged and which his friends 
 may well wish had been omitted from an otherwise 
 worthy speech, may have come from the impulse and 
 taunt of the moment, without premeditation or personal 
 malice aforethought. However that may be, he pro- 
 ceeded to express surprise that the learned gentleman 
 should refer to the White House speech as if it were 
 
364 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 a fact. He then offered to make a confidential com- 
 munication and he hoped none present would violate 
 his confidence, for fear his motives might be mis- 
 understood. He desired the tlouse and the country to 
 understand that the so-called speech of the President 
 was one of the grandest hoaxes ever perpetrated, more 
 successful than any except the moon hoax which had 
 deceived so many astute astronomers. He was glad of 
 the opportunity to exonerate the President from ever 
 having made that speech. " It is a part of the cunning 
 contrivance of the Copperhead party who have been 
 persecuting our President since the fourth of March 
 last " to make the people believe that the President ever 
 made such a speech. " Why, sir, taking advantage of 
 an unfortunate incident which happened on that occa- 
 sion * [laughter] they have been constantly denouncing 
 him as addicted to low and degrading vices." To 
 prove the truth of this hoax and his view, Stevens sent 
 to the desk and had read and put on record an editorial 
 of March 7, 1865, from the Democratic New York 
 World, which was now supporting Johnson's policy 
 on reconstruction. This editorial compared Johnson 
 to " the drunken and beastly Caligula, the most prof- 
 ligate of the Roman emperors," and referred to the 
 disgrace that he had brought upon an honorable office 
 once held by an Adams and a Jefferson, a Calhoun and 
 a Van Buren. And " now," the editorial ran, " to 
 see the office filled by this insolent drunken brute," 
 and " only one frail life between this clownish drunk- 
 ard and the presidency ! " Jiaving brought this 
 
 1 Referring to the drunken condition of Johnson at the time 
 of his inauguration as Vice-President- 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 365 
 
 editorial to the publicity of the record, Stevens then 
 proceeded to denounce it as a slander, and as a proof 
 that this Copperhead party had been persecuting the 
 President. " We never credited it but looked with in- 
 dignation upon the slander which was thus uttered 
 against the President of our choice. My friend be- 
 fore me * if he were trying in court a case dc lunatico 
 inquirendo, and if, the outside evidence being doubt- 
 ful, leaving it questionable whether the jury would 
 adopt the view that insanity existed, he should cau- 
 tiously lead the alleged lunatic to speak upon the sub- 
 ject of the hallucination, and if he could be induced 
 to gabble nonsense, the intrinsic evidence would make 
 out the case of insanity. So if these slanderers can 
 make the people believe that the President uttered that 
 speech they have made out their case. But we all 
 know that he never did utter it. The people may have 
 been deceived but we who knew the President knew it 
 was a lie from the start." Having exposed this 
 mendacious libel, he then expressed the hope that he 
 might be permitted to occupy the same friendly posi- 
 tion with the President that he had held before. 
 
 Here is revealed one of the most untoward events 
 in our history, namely, that while facing a problem 
 of great complexity, the country was vexed by a per- 
 sonal quarrel and a party brawl that were calculated to 
 inflame the passions and to obscure the judgment of 
 all concerned. It was most unfortunate that the issue 
 of reconstruction should have been determined, or in 
 any way impaired, by a personal contest between two 
 such men as Johnson and Stevens. Both were honest 
 
 1 Bingham, of Ohio. 
 
366 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 and patriotic men, but both had intensely passionate 
 and combative dispositions. They were unyielding in 
 temper, and were without that deeper statesmanlike 
 wisdom that leads men to look above themselves to the 
 higher ends of the state. After these personal insults 
 had been bandied between them it was hardly possible 
 that they could be brought to work together in harmony 
 toward a common end. They were not reconcilable. 
 
 It has been said that this bitter personal speech of 
 Stevens had for its purpose the goading of Johnson 
 to veto the Civil Rights Bill that was soon to come 
 before him. Johnson's acceptance of that bill would 
 have brought him great support in Congress and 
 in the country. It was not inconsistent with his 
 scheme of reconstruction, and he might have ac- 
 cepted it without the surrender of a single principle 
 that he had professed. His veto of it left him without 
 hope, and gave Stevens and the radicals the right of 
 way. From the time of that veto the breach between 
 Congress and the President was complete and seem- 
 ingly irreparable. More and more, from that time, the 
 temper of the congressional leaders became personally 
 antagonistic toward Johnson. They felt that he was 
 insincere and prone to treachery; that he had broken 
 faith and betrayed the party that had elevated him to 
 power; that he was obstinate, ungentlemanly, coarse, 
 and ill-tempered, and that, having changed his mind, 
 he was angry and vengeful toward all others who 
 would not change theirs. There followed charges and 
 countercharges, threats and counter-threats. Johnson 
 professed to see in the suggestion of the congressional 
 leaders that the " presidential obstacle would have to 
 
THE BREACH WITH JOHNSON 367 
 
 be removed," a threat of assassination, while the radical 
 leaders constantly manifested a growing disrespect of 
 the President, jeering at his name, putting aside his 
 messages unread, and referring to him as " only acting- 
 President by right of assassination." They professed 
 to believe that the President was capable of attempting 
 a bold military usurpation by a coup d'etat, in that he 
 might refuse to recognize Congress as a legitimate body 
 and, instead, recognize a Congress of his own making, 
 and thus plunge the country into a new civil war. This 
 suspicious fear had its basis partly in the fact that 
 the President was constantly referring to Congress 
 as "only a part of Congress" and to its Joint Com- 
 mittee on Reconstruction as " an irresponsible direc- 
 tory," and partly because of certain rash and startling 
 utterances of some of the President's supporters in 
 Congress. Senator Garrett Davis, of Kentucky, said 
 in the Senate that the President had a right to decide 
 what body of men constituted Congress, since he had 
 to communicate with the two houses. " Whenever 
 Andrew Johnson," said Davis, " chooses to say to the 
 Southern Senators, ' Get together with the Dem- 
 ocrats and the conservatives of the Senate, and if you 
 constitute a majority, I will recognize you as the Senate 
 of the United States,' what then will become of you 
 gentlemen ? You will quietly come in and form a part 
 of the Senate." * 
 
 There was thus engendered a situation full of dis- 
 trust, suspicion, and soreness. It was, at best, a state 
 of political war, to which were added many features of 
 a partisan and personal wrangle. The issue was 
 
 1 Globe, App., pp. 300-304, cited by Dewitt, p. 57. 
 
368 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 joined. The question was whether the policy of John- 
 son or that of the radicals, led by Stevens and Sumner, 
 should prevail. On that issue appeal was to be made 
 to the country and the congressional leaders set about 
 to formulate their plan. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 
 
 WE have noticed the reasons that led to the re- 
 jection of Johnson's reconstruction. When the 
 breach with the President had become irretrievable 
 Congress addressed itself to providing a plan of its 
 own, such as would safeguard the interests that the 
 congressional leaders felt had been flagrantly disre- 
 garded in the plan of the President. 
 
 Their first efforts were directed to providing ade- 
 quate protection for the negro. The first agency em- 
 ployed for this purpose was the Freedman's Bureau. 
 The original act establishing this bureau was passed 
 on March 3rd, 1865. It was made an arm of the war 
 department, was established under conditions of war, 
 and the act was to expire one year after the termina- 
 tion of hostilities. Its object was to protect and sup- 
 port the freedmen within the territory controlled by 
 the Union forces. Clothing and fuel were to be given 
 to the destitute. Vacant lands were to be parceled 
 out to freedmen and refugees, — not more than forty 
 acres to any one individual, and protection in the use 
 of the land was promised for three years. 
 
 The Southerners charged that this bureau had a 
 bad effect ; that it led the blacks to believe that the gov- 
 ernment was going to support them ; that good old 
 
 369 
 
3/0 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 plantation darkies were turned into vagabonds and 
 loafers, each looking for the happy day when " de land 
 was goin' fur to be dewided " and every darky would 
 have his " forty acres and a mule." Such considera- 
 tions were urged as an apology for the black codes 
 of the South. 
 
 There may have been mistakes or bad management 
 in the local administration of the bureau. But the mo- 
 tive of the act was that of mercy and charity for the 
 freedmen, and General O. O. Howard, who was at the 
 head of the bureau, was a man of generous and benev- 
 olent impulses, whose services to the South were of 
 the highest order. Common humanity demanded that 
 the ignorant and helpless negroes, without money and 
 without homes, should not be left helpless upon the 
 world. " Without the bureau," said the congressional 
 committee, " the colored people would not be permitted 
 to labor at fair prices and could hardly live in safety. 
 It was impossible to abandon them. The whole civ- 
 ilized world would have cried out against such base 
 ingratitude, and the bare idea is offensive to all right 
 thinking men." * 
 
 The Freedmen's Bureau Act which Johnson vetoed 2 
 extended the time and enlarged the effective force of 
 this bureau. Military protection was provided for 
 its officers and agents. In addition to the " forty 
 acres," schoolhouses and asylums were to be provided 
 and protection was to be afforded in all criminal cases 
 when equal civil rights were denied. Johnson's veto 
 was based on the ground that this was a war measure 
 
 1 Report of the Cong. Com., June 18, 1866. 
 
 2 February 19, 1866. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 371 
 
 in time of peace, indefinite in time, and operative over 
 territory where the civil authority of the United States 
 was undisputed. The President held that a state of 
 war no longer existed, and that the great army of of- 
 ficials provided for in the act involved too great an 
 expense, and that it conferred too much patronage and 
 power for any one man to wield. The act, he as- 
 serted, was unconstitutional, as by it the United States 
 government was to assume functions on behalf of 
 negroes that it had never been authorized to assume 
 on behalf of white men. It was calculated to coddle 
 the negro to his detriment. And besides, and this was 
 of the highest importance in Johnson's mind, this leg- 
 islation was undertaken while the eleven states that 
 were most affected were unrepresented in Congress. 
 Johnson's veto compassed the defeat of this measure, 
 greatly to the disappointment and displeasure of the 
 Northern advocates of the freedmen's interests. 1 
 / The second attempt of Congress to secure the rights 
 'and protection of the freedmen was involved in the 
 Civil Rights Bill. The purpose of this bill was to 
 establish equality of citizenship, to place the negro on 
 the same civil footing as the white man, and it in- 
 volved substantially the provisions afterward inserted 
 in the fourteenth amendment on that subject. It pro- 
 vided that all persons born in the United States and 
 not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians 
 not taxed, were to be recognized as citizens of the 
 United States. On all these, of whatever class or 
 
 1 On July 16, 1866, after the breach with Congress had be- 
 come complete, a new Freedmen's Bureau Bill was passed over 
 the veto of the President, containing the essential features of 
 the bill that was vetoed in February. 
 
372 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 color, were to be conferred the rights to sue; to make 
 and enforce contracts; to give evidence; to inherit; to 
 buy, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal 
 property, and to have the benefit of equal laws for 
 security of life and liberty. This protection was to be 
 secured, not, as under the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, by 
 the operation of military power, but by the usual 
 operation of the civil courts. Pains and penalties 
 were provided for violation of the act against any one 
 who, under color of state laws,! might discriminate 
 against any citizen on account of race, color or pre- 
 vious condition of servitude. 1 
 
 This legislation marks a departure in the juris- 
 prudence of the United States. Not until then had the 
 central government assumed to define and protect civil 
 equality within the states. " But it was a change," 
 says Professor Burgess, " which history had forced 
 upon the country," and it was but a recognition of the 
 vital fact that " real civil liberty is always national." 2 
 It was ably contended by the supporters of this bill 
 that the nation had legalized the change by the adop- 
 tion of the fourteenth amendment, and the issue that it 
 presented may be recognized as one of the most funda- 
 mental in the history of American constitutional law. 
 Shall the state or shall the nation be the guardian of 
 civil liberty in America? 
 
 Johnson's veto of this bill on March 29, 1866, is a 
 landmark in the struggle over reconstruction. It 
 raised the direct issue between the President and Con- 
 
 1 The penalty might be a fine of one thousand dollars, or a 
 year's imprisonment, or both. 
 
 2 Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 70. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 373 
 
 gress, and made it apparent that either he or the con- 
 gressional leaders must give way or be overridden. 
 Johnson was insistent upon two points : first, that 
 there should be speedy recognition and readmission of 
 his reconstructed states; and, second, that the blacks 
 should be left to state control. That Congress re- 
 fused to accept his reconstructed states was to John- 
 son a personal offense, and his veto of the Civil Rights 
 Bill showed his combative and petulant spirit. The 
 measure was not inconsistent with his plan of recon- 
 struction. 1 Johnson had not indicated that he had any 
 objection to the Civil Rights Bill until after its pas- 
 sage. The veto was a part of his struggle of deter- 
 mined oppostion to a Congress that had refused to 
 accept what he had done. V This bill was framed in 
 harmony with what he himself professed to have been 
 doing to protect the freedmen in their civil rights 
 throughout the rebellious states. It was strictly limited 
 to the protection of the civil rights belonging to every 
 free man, the birthright of every American citizen, 
 and it carefully avoided conferring, or interfering 
 with, political rights or privileges of any kind. It 
 conferred no rights, and abridged no rights. It sim- 
 ply declared that in civil rights there should be an 
 equality among all classes of citizens, and that all shall 
 be subject to the same punishments and the same pro- 
 tection. Each state might grant or withhold such 
 civil rights as it pleases; all that the nation was re- 
 
 a "The measure did not militate against the President's plan 
 of reconstruction. He could have accepted it without compro- 
 mising that plan in the slightest, and it was a monumental 
 blunder on his part that he did not do so." Burgess, Recon- 
 struction and the Constitution. 
 
374 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 quiring in the Civil Rights Act was that in this respect 
 the laws shall be impartial. 1 
 
 The general government in thus defining citizen- 
 ship, in saying who should be citizens of the United 
 States, and in requiring that state laws should treat 
 all citizens with equal and impartial justice, was un- 
 doubtedly within its legal rights. The path of its duty 
 was as clearly manifest. There is no more sacred 
 nor fundamental function for a nation to perform than 
 to secure justice among men and to require, in the dis- 
 pensation of justice, that men of all kinds and ranks 
 and creeds shall be treated without discrimination. 
 
 Over against the assertion of national power and 
 duty, Johnson set the rights of equal states. The late 
 insurrectionary states, according to his view, were now 
 in the Union, and South Carolina was entitled to 
 all such rights, privileges, and immunities as Massa- 
 chusetts or any other state. He regarded it as an 
 assumption of power in Congress to attempt to make 
 freedmen into citizens while eleven states were unrep- 
 resented. Such an act, moreover, was a discrimina- 
 tion in favor of the ignorant negroes against unnatu- 
 ralized foreigners. The exercise of power by the cen- 
 tral government to secure civil equality within the 
 states, he asserted, would destroy the Federal system, 
 and would be degrading to the states and their offi- 
 cials, while the proposed military enforcement of the 
 law by national power was unconstitutional. 
 
 There was much fear among the Republicans that 
 
 1 Trumbull, April 4, 1866, Globe, p. 1760. Trumbull's able 
 exposition of tbe purpose and scope of this act seemed to leave 
 no tenable grounds for its opponents to stand on. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 375 
 
 Johnson's veto might be sustained. The struggle in 
 the Senate in order to get the necessary two-thirds 
 vote to overcome the veto is one of the most memorable 
 parliamentary struggles in our history. The radical 
 cause was at stake and the congressional leaders felt 
 that if they were defeated here and the President's 
 veto were sustained they might be defeated ultimately. 
 It has been charged that Senator Stockton's seat in the 
 Senate was contested and declared vacant from this 
 motive; that Senator Morrill, of Maine, was induced 
 to relieve himself unfairly of a pair for the sake of a 
 vote, and that Stevens brought about delay in the con- 
 gressional vote on the veto in order to gain time to 
 enable Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, to qualify and 
 be seated in place of Senator Foote, who had just died. 1 
 There were fifty Senators. Eleven of these were 
 Democrats. Four of the Republicans were out-and- 
 out supporters of the President, while three others were 
 inclined that way. The attitude of Willey, of West 
 Virginia, and Morgan, of New York (who had been 
 under the influence of Seward), was uncertain, and it 
 was therefore seen that the result was in jeopardy. 
 On the evening of April 5th, the minority proposed 
 that the vote on the veto be postponed till the morrow 
 in order that two of the President's supporters, Dixon, 
 of Connecticut, and Wright, of New Jersey, who were 
 ill in the capital, might be able to attend. Wright, an- 
 swering the urgent call of his party, had arrived in the 
 capital in a feeble condition, in the care of his son. 
 Dixon was ready to be carried in that he might cast 
 
 1 See Dewitt's Impeachment of Johnson and Flack's Fourteenth 
 Amendment. 
 
376 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 his vote to sustain the President. It was under these 
 circumstances that Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, speak- 
 ing for the Democrats, asked, as a matter of comity, 
 for a postponement of the vote, saying that if the sick 
 Senators were not able to come on the morrow at the 
 time fixed no further delay would be asked. 
 
 It appears that the testing time was at hand in the 
 struggle for the two-thirds. It was at this time, when 
 " the suspense was so heavy that business was inter- 
 rupted and Senators were gathering in buzzing groups 
 or moving to and fro with hurried mien " * that Ben 
 Wade, of Ohio, the undaunted radical, gave forth one 
 of his heated and partisan outbursts against the Presi- 
 dent and his policy and in favor of the bill. " I view 
 this," he said, " as one of the greatest and fundamental 
 questions that ever came before the Senate. The 
 President has no power to interpose his authority to 
 prescribe the principle upon which these states shall 
 be admitted to the Union. He is to execute the laws 
 that we make. We are to judge the forms of govern- 
 ment under which the states shall exist. We are not 
 to be wheedled out of this power by the President. — 
 The great question of congressional power and author- 
 ity is at stake here, and I shall yield to no importunities 
 on the other side. I will not yield to these appeals to 
 comity on a question like this ; but I will tell the Presi- 
 dent and everybody else that if God Almighty has 
 stricken one member so that he can not be here to up- 
 hold the dictation of a despot, I thank Him for His in- 
 terposition and I will take advantage of it if I can." 2 
 
 1 Dcwitt, Impeachment of Johnson, p. 8l- 
 
 2 Globe, April 5, 1866, p. 1786. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 377 
 
 On the other hand, Democrats like Saulsbury, of 
 Delaware, equally imbued with the spirit of partisan- 
 ship and afflicted with an unreasoning" prejudice against 
 the free negro, declaimed against the purpose to pass 
 this bill as a scheme to inaugurate revolution and to 
 " plunge the country again into the horrors of civil 
 war." He warned the people of the country that they 
 should set their house in order to resist the radicals who 
 were perpetrating this great wrong and who were 
 " trampling into dust the bleeding, mangled body of the 
 Constitution of their country lying in their pathway." 
 He thought that if a state legislature passed a law dis- 
 criminating between white and black the people of the 
 state would never allow their legislature to be dragged 
 from their legislative halls by free-negro agents sent 
 by free-negro commissioners; nor did he suppose that 
 an honest judiciary in a state would observe " an act 
 so flagrantly unconstitutional." * 
 
 Rather than undergo an all night's session the Sen- 
 ate adjourned; but on April 6, 1866, the struggle for 
 the two-thirds was won by a single vote, and the Presi- 
 dent's veto was overridden. 2 
 
 Shorter work of the veto was made in the House. 
 The bill was passed there under the management of 
 Stevens by the application of the previous question, 
 without debate, by a vote of one hundred and twenty- 
 two to forty-one, — twenty-one members not voting. 
 v Stevens was like Wade. He had no scruples about 
 disregarding comity for the sake of his cause. He 
 
 1 Saulsbury in the Senate, April 6, 1866, Globe, p. 1809. 
 
 2 Yeas, 23'< nays, 15; Dixon absent; Morgan and Willey voting 
 against the President. 
 
378 THE LIFE OF. THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 was no doubt ready to resort to whatever strategic 
 measures the politics of the situation seemed to make 
 necessary in order to compass the defeat of the Presi- 
 dent. He spared no pains nor energy to that end. He 
 believed that Johnson's vetoes and his opposition to 
 Congress were leading ex-Confederates to think that 
 the administration, with its power and patronage, in 
 combination with the conservative Republicans and the 
 whole Democratic party in the North, would finally 
 enable them to determine for themselves their own po- 
 litical status as well as that of the freedmen. In Stev- 
 ens' mind, the leaders of the South were still alive to 
 the same old struggle as in the days before the war, — 
 the purpose with them was to control the government. 
 It was a struggle for power, and the defeated Con- 
 federates, instead of accepting such conditions as a 
 conquering nation saw fit to impose, were now expect- 
 ing that, on Johnson's terms, they would be restored 
 to control not only in their own states but in the af- 
 fairs of the nation. This, Stevens thought, must be 
 prevented at every hazard. Stevens regarded the per- 
 sistent contention of Johnson that these Southerners 
 should have seats in Congress, as an " arrogant de- 
 mand." It was intolerable that the men of the North 
 should be asked to admit to the seats of power the very 
 men who had led the Rebellion for four years against 
 the laws and sovereignty of the United States. The 
 Republican war party in the North, now in absolute 
 control in Congress, looked upon these Southern men 
 as " rebels " and " traitors," whom they had had to 
 fight for four years in order to save the Union from 
 destruction. The leopard's spots had not been 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 379 
 
 changed within a year and the purposes of these 
 " rebels " were still unchanged. They had shown no 
 change of heart nor humbleness of spirit. Was it 
 reasonable to suppose that this Republican majority 
 while they had the power to prevent it, would permit 
 these men to come back into political privileges and 
 power through a combination with Johnson and the 
 Northern Democrats? These Northern Democrats, 
 these Southerners demanding their seats, and Johnson 
 from his high office, — all had denounced the Civil 
 Rights Bill as unconstitutional. If that were true, it 
 was the bounden duty of the Republicans to see to it 
 that before the Southern States were restored to their 
 political privileges there should be such changes in the 
 organic law of the nation as would guarantee civil 
 rights forever to the freedmen and would make secure 
 and permanent the great results of the war. 
 
 The Civil Rights Bill was passed over the President's 
 veto by the narrowest margin. There were others, 
 however, aside from Johnson and his supporters, who 
 believed it was unconstitutional. John A. Bingham, 
 of Ohio, an able lawyer and himself one of the radical 
 leaders, made a long and able argument against it, — 
 not against its principle, but against the constitutional 
 power of Congress to pass it. He believed that, under 
 the " Constitution as it was," Congress had no power 
 to declare that there should be no discrimination of 
 civil rights among citizens in any state; that political 
 righ ts, such as suffrage, were embraced in the term civil 
 rights: and it was known that there was hardly a state 
 in the Union but what made some discrimination in its 
 laws on account of race or color; that the enforcement 
 
380 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of the Bill of Rights, the protection of life, liberty and 
 property, within the states was not one of the dele- 
 gated powers of Congress, but had been reserved to the 
 states. Bingham was easily able to show that the de- 
 cisions of the Supreme Court were in harmony with his 
 argument; that while the United States government 
 was forbidden to make any discrimination or deprive 
 any person of life, liberty or property without due 
 process of law, this limitation did not apply to the 
 states. 1 
 
 Other opponents of Johnson and friends of the 
 freedmen, like Bingham, had grave doubts concerning 
 the final outcome of this legislation. They believed 
 that the principle of the bill should be embraced in the 
 law of every state, and lived up to, and as it was per- 
 fectly obvious that the Southern States would not give 
 equal rights to the freedmen of their own accord, they 
 should be compelled to do so by expressly prohibiting 
 every state from violating this principle. But the rem- 
 edy, they contended, was not in assuming a power not 
 delegated, but rather in an amendment to the Constitu- 
 tion. While they recognized that it might be reason- 
 ably contended that such powers pertained to Congress 
 under a broad construction of the thirteenth amend- 
 ment, on the principle that slavery was nothing more 
 than extreme inequality in civil rights and that under 
 the power to enforce its abolition all inequality might 
 be prevented, yet it was by no means certain that the 
 courts would take this broad view, and the Civil Rights 
 Act, if not subsequently repealed by a hostile Congress, 
 might be declared void by the courts. 
 
 1 Barron vs. Baltimore, Globe, March g, 1866. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 381 
 
 It was these considerations that led to the first clause 
 of the fourteenth amendment. Stevens in discussing 
 it * emphasized these considerations. He recognized 
 that the Constitution limited only the power of Con- 
 gress to deny civil rights and was not a limitation on 
 the states. The amendment would supply that defect 
 and provide that the law that operates upon one man 
 shall operate equally upon all ; that which affords pro- 
 tection to the white man shall equally protect the black. 
 No law shall have respect to the color of the skin. 
 Stevens called the attention of the House to the fact 
 that the Civil Rights Bill did not make these rights 
 secure. " I need hardly say that the first time that 
 the South with their Copperhead allies obtain the com- 
 mand of Congress it will be repealed. The veto of 
 the President and their votes are conclusive evidence 
 of that. The amendment once adopted can not be 
 annulled without two-thirds of Congress and that 
 they will hardly get. Yet some were guilty of the 
 madness of proposing to readmit these states before 
 this becomes a part of the Constitution." 2 
 
 There can be no doubt that the principle underlying 
 the Civil Rights Bill and here incorporated in the Con- 
 stitution, was in harmony with fundamental democracy 
 and righteous law. It means merely that the law 
 should be no respecter of persons. It served notice 
 that the whites of the South were not to be given spe- 
 cial privileges nor the blacks to be visited with special 
 penalties. It was passed to secure legal protection to 
 the black man, but its underlying purpose was broader 
 
 1 May 8, 1866. 
 
 2 Globe, Vol. 73, p. 2459, May 8, 1866. 
 
382 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 than that. It sought to secure to every man within 
 the pale of national citizenship and under the egis of 
 national law, equality of rights and opportunities. It 
 proclaimed civil liberty throughout the land to all the 
 inhabitants thereof, any law or custom in any state to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. It was democratic in 
 its spirit, sound in its political science, righteous in its 
 morality, since civil equality is the first principle of 
 public justice. It is poor apology or palliation for the 
 black codes of the South to plead that they sought 
 merely to " set the freedmen apart as a special class 
 with a status at law corresponding to their status in 
 fact," * as if the law may justly recognize a varying 
 or diverse social status among men. Under hateful 
 governments and in hateful times, the law had recog- 
 nized distinctions in social classes. But in setting up a 
 new government in the world, our fathers had made 
 it their plea that they sought to escape from such con- 
 ditions and from aristrocratic systems under which 
 some men were recognized as having been born booted 
 and spurred ready for riding, while others were sad- 
 dled and bridled ready to be ridden; under which the 
 raiment of the toilers was prescribed in law, and the 
 toe of the peasant must not come too near the heel of 
 the courtier whose garments, as well as whose privi- 
 leges, were special and distinct. Democracy in Amer- 
 ica, as everywhere in the world, stood for a different 
 principle, — of equal and exact justice to all men alike 
 before the law. That was the principle of the first 
 section of the fourteenth amendment. It was writ- 
 ten in the Declaration of Independence and in the 
 1 Dunning, Reconstruction, p. 63. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 383 
 
 American Bill of Rights, — that the law is for all alike, 
 high or low, rich or poor, white or black, Greek or 
 Barbarian, Jew or Gentile, and for men of all races, 
 conditions and creeds. 1 
 
 This was the principle of the Civil Rights Amend- 
 ment to the Constitution. To secure it was but to 
 carry to its natural fruition and completion the great 
 humanitarian movement for the emancipation of the 
 slaves. The two movements were one. With Thad- 
 deus Stevens, this principle of human equality was im- 
 bedded in the marrow of his bones. He was a demo- 
 crat. To the cause of fundamental democracy he had 
 shown undoubted loyalty throughout a long and stormy 
 political life, and for that cause, it may readily be be- 
 lieved, he stood ready to show forth the last full meas- 
 ure of devotion. It was a noble cause, and in the hard 
 fighting for it, which the men of his day and genera- 
 tion witnessed, no man struck harder blows nor proved 
 more faithful and efficient than Thaddeus Stevens. 
 He thought the time had come in rebuilding the shat- 
 tered nation, to write that principle into the funda- 
 mental law of the land, as it had been originally pro- 
 claimed in the immortal Declaration of Independence. 
 He believed that our fathers intended this great prin- 
 ciple of the Declaration of Independence to lie at the 
 foundation of our government, and if they had been 
 able to base their Constitution upon it, it would have 
 needed no amendment, as every human being would 
 have had his rights and would have been equal to 
 
 _ 1 As Horace Greeley expressed it, there should be " equal 
 rights for all alike, regardless of color, — white, black, red, 
 brown, ring-streaked or speckled." 
 
384 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 every other before the law. " But it so happened 
 when our fathers came to reduce the principles on 
 which they founded this government into order, in 
 shaping the organic law, an institution hot from hell 
 appeared among them, which has been increasing in 
 volume and guilt ever since. This obstructed their 
 movements and caused postponement and compromise. 
 But now the time has come when this black popula- 
 tion are to be treated as our fathers declared by solemn 
 declaration they ought to be treated, or to be op- 
 pressed by us as insolent tyrants, by which we shall 
 deserve the execration of the human race. . . . The 
 time has come when we can make the Constitution 
 what our fathers desired to make it, when through 
 blood every stain has been washed out unless we 
 choose to reestablish it." 1 
 
 Referring to " the utterance of one at the other end 
 of the avenue " to the effect that the Constitution 
 needed no amendment, Stevens said he had rather not 
 live than live and be disgraced by such a sentiment. 
 He wished that we should not continue to crush be- 
 neath our feet four millions of immortal men. 2 
 
 In presenting the fourteenth amendment to the 
 House and opening debate upon it (May 8, 1866), 
 Stevens gave renewed expressions of devotion to these 
 principles. For a century he said the public mind had 
 been educated in error which it was difficult to unlearn. 
 In rebuilding it was necessary to clear away the rotten 
 and defective portion of the old foundations. He 
 would sink the new piles deep to rock bottom, and the 
 repaired edifice should stand upon the firm foundation 
 1 Globe, January 31, 18C6. - Globe, January 31, 1866. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 385 
 
 of eternal justice. His plea was for just treatment 
 to every human being upon the continent, for the great 
 democratic principle announced by Jefferson, — " equal 
 rights to all and special privileges to none." 
 
 The second object in view in the congressional plan 
 was the readjustment of political power by changing 
 the basis of representation. Stevens' first proposal of 
 an amendment on this subject, offered in December, 
 provided that representation should be based on legal 
 voters, none to be named as legal voters except natural 
 born citizens and naturalized foreigners. The object 
 of this was either to secure for the negro the right of 
 suffrage or to reduce the South's proportion of political 
 power. There were two alternatives to this proposi- 
 tion having the same root idea and the same object in 
 view. One was to deprive the states of all power to 
 discriminate politically on account of race or color; the 
 second, to leave every state perfectly free to decide 
 for itself who should vote and belong to its political 
 community, but in so deciding it should by the same 
 choice decide who shall enter into its basis of repre- 
 sentation and who shall be shut out. " What a state 
 should decide for itself in its own affairs it should de- 
 cide for itself in its national affairs.'' * 
 
 Objection soon developed to basing representation 
 on voters. It might open the door to inequalities. 
 California might let her Chinese and half-breeds vote, 
 Oregon, her Indians, and any state, its aliens. Even 
 if state legislation were uniform, some injustice 
 might be worked toward those states in which the 
 women outnumber the men, from which the young 
 
 1 Conkling, in the House, January 22, 1866. 
 
386 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 men were going west in quest of fortune. It was 
 thought that New England would lose heavily by the 
 change and it was charged that " the real objection to 
 the male suffrage basis was the fear of taking away 
 power from fanatical New England." x Mr. Blaine, 
 of Maine, thought the incidental evils of the amend- 
 ment too great to permit of its adoption. He at- 
 tempted to show that the ratio of voters to population 
 differed widely in different sections, from a minimum 
 of nineteen per cent, to a maximum of fifty-eight per 
 cent, and he asserted that the changes which this fact 
 would work in the relative representation of certain 
 states would be " monstrous." By the apportionment 
 .on the census of i860, Vermont and California each 
 had three members of the House. On the basis of 
 voters, if Vermont retained three, California would 
 have eight. Ohio, with seven and a half times the 
 population of California, would have little more than 
 two and a half times the representation, while New 
 York, with eleven times the population, would have 
 but five times the representation. On the new basis, 
 if Massachusetts retained her ten votes in the House, 
 Indiana would have fifteen instead of eleven, while if 
 Indiana retained eleven, Massachusetts would have but 
 seven. 
 
 Mr. Blaine disclaimed offering his objection on ac- 
 count of the interest of his section, but it is difficult 
 to believe that this consideration did not enter in. Mr. 
 Blaine argued also that the first proposal of Stevens 
 would tend to cheapen the suffrage everywhere. The 
 
 1 Conkling, in the House, January 22, 1866. This is not 
 quoted as Conkling's opinion. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 387 
 
 states would scramble to increase their voters ; all con- 
 servative restrictions would be stricken down, and the 
 ballot would be demoralized and disgraced. Mr. 
 Blaine professed anxiety to accomplish the end in view, 
 that is, to deprive the South of representation, but he 
 thought it could be done without imposing these of- 
 fensive inequalities among the other states. He in- 
 sisted that population should be retained as the basis 
 of representation, and he proposed a wording for the 
 amendment to the effect that the population should be 
 determined " by taking the whole number of persons 
 except those to whom civil or political rights are denied 
 or abridged by the Constitution, and laws of any state 
 on account of race or color." Mr. Conkling showed 
 by elaborate tables that Mr. Blaine's calculation was 
 without foundation, that it had no practical bearing 
 and that the preponderance of men over women in any 
 state (except California, whose population was ab- 
 normal and exceptional) was too small seriously to 
 affect the result. 1 
 
 The discussion in public and in conference of the 
 committee of fifteen showed that the states would not 
 accept the voting basis and Stevens was compelled to 
 surrender it, though he said it was " dear to his heart." 
 It would have been practically self-executing and 
 would more certainly have accomplished its purpose 
 than the provision that was finally adopted, as later 
 experience has shown. 
 
 The second alternative, that of prohibiting the states 
 from denying suffrage and political rights, on account 
 of race to any class of persons within their borders 
 
 1 Globe, January 22, 1866. 
 
388 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ran counter to the wish of the states to regulate their 
 own affairs in their own way. Most of the Northern 
 states did not permit negroes to vote, some having re- 
 peatedly and lately pronounced against it. It was 
 futile to ask three-fourths of the states to assent to 
 such an amendment. They would not do it. In con- 
 sequence of this obvious fact, the congressional lead- 
 ers on the Reconstruction Committee resorted to the 
 third alternative. They would base representation on 
 population, but they would count out the blacks in the 
 representation if any of them were counted out in the 
 voting. On behalf of the committee, Mr. Conkling, 
 of New York, first presented the amendment to the 
 House, providing that representatives and direct 
 taxes should be apportioned among the several states 
 " according to the whole number of persons in each 
 state, provided, that whenever the elective franchise 
 shall be denied or abridged in any state on account of 
 race or color, all individuals of such race or color shall 
 be excluded from the basis of representation." If any 
 were cut out of voting on account of race, the whole 
 race should be omitted in determining the basis of 
 representation. 
 
 The principle of this amendment, as Mr. Conkling 
 defined it in his very able speech, was that representa- 
 tion does not belong to those who have no political 
 existence, but to those who have, and it therefore pro- 
 vides that whenever any state finds within its borders 
 a race of beings unfit for political existence, that race 
 shall not be represented in the federal government. 
 Every state was left free to extend or withhold the 
 elective franchise on such terms as it pleases and this 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 
 
 without losing anything in representation if the terms 
 are impartial as to all. 1 
 
 On January 31, 1866, Stevens spoke at considerable 
 length in support of the amendment in this form. He 
 held it to be the right of the states, as it always had 
 been, to fix the qualifications for suffrage. He af- 
 firmed that the amendment neither granted nor took 
 away any privilege from any state in this matter. It 
 did, however, punish the abuse of that privilege. If 
 Congress should attempt to fix the qualification for 
 voters " instead of getting nineteen states, which is 
 necessary to ratify this amendment, I venture to say 
 you could not get five in this union." ... It says to 
 the Slave States, " True, we leave, where it has been 
 left for eighty years, the right to fix the elective fran- 
 chise, but you must not abuse it; if you do the Con- 
 stitution will impose a penalty, and will continue to 
 impose it till you have corrected your actions." If a 
 state abused the suffrage and kept it from " the only 
 loyal people there," the Constitution says to such a 
 state, " You shall lose power in the halls of the nation, 
 and you shall remain where you are, a shriveled and 
 dried up nonentity instead of being the lords of crea- 
 tion, as you have been, so far as America is concerned 
 for years past." Reduce their power from eighty- 
 three to forty-five votes in this hall, and then " let 
 them have all the Copperhead assistance they can get, 
 liberty will still be triumphant." He preferred this to 
 immediate enfranchisement of the negroes and he 
 thought " no more severe punishment could be in- 
 flicted." For if you make them all voters and let 
 
 1 Colliding, January 22, 1866. 
 
39o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 them into this hall not one beneficial act for the benefit 
 of the freedmen or for the benefit of the country could 
 ever be passed. Their eighty-three votes, " with the 
 Representatives of the Five Points ' and other dark 
 corners, would be sufficient to overrule the friends of 
 progress here, and this nation would be in the hands 
 of secessionists at the very next election." 
 
 He would not impose the suffrage on the freedmen 
 for some years to come, until Christian men had gone 
 among them to teach them the principles and duties 
 of citizenship, and until " Congress had done the great 
 work of regenerating the Constitution and laws of the 
 country according to the principles of the Declaration 
 of Independence." He objects to allowing the blacks 
 to be counted as fast as they were admitted to the suf- 
 frage 2 on the ground that the ex-Confederates would 
 admit only their menials and such as they could control. 
 But when they were ready to say to all freedmen, 
 " You are men and shall be represented," then let 
 them come here. " I shall not be here to see them as 
 I did their masters, who a few years since drew pis- 
 tols and daggers upon me when I was making such a 
 speech as this, yet a free people will be here repre- 
 sented and they will take care of themselves." 3 
 
 This second cause for which Congress was standing, 
 though not so fundamental, was yet like a corollary 
 to the first. It was entirely defensible from the point 
 of view of the men who had conducted the war for the 
 Union. To them, having gone through a terrible 
 
 1 The slums in New York. 
 
 2 According to the proposal offered by Mr. Schenck, of Ohio. 
 
 3 Globe, January 31, 1866. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 391 
 
 struggle against men who had misused their power to 
 destroy the unity of the nation, it was very natural to 
 ask, " Shall a premium be placed upon rebellion ? " 
 The master class of the South, having appealed to the 
 sword when they were voted out of power, — should 
 these now be allowed, as the result of the war, to come 
 back into the Union with more political power than 
 they had before? If it be said that this readjustment 
 was inspired by a party motive to secure party power, 
 it may very well be asked if any political party could 
 reasonably be expected to make a voluntary surrender 
 of power to its opponents. The prospective combina- 
 tion of Southern and Northern Democrats, each wing 
 of the party supporting Johnson's reconstruction, was 
 apparent. Could the Republicans of the North be ex- 
 pected to say to the men of the South, " Come back 
 into the Union and you shall enjoy a larger voice and 
 a greater weight in the councils of the nation than you 
 have ever known " ? On the basis of white population, 
 South Carolina was entitled to but two representatives 
 in Congress. If all the blacks were counted for rep- 
 resentation while the whites exercised all the political 
 power, then two white voters in that state would equal 
 in political weight at Washington five white voters 
 at the North. Was it reasonable to expect that " one 
 pardoned rebel of South Carolina who may have 
 fought for four years against the government shall, in 
 political power, alike on the floor of Congress, and in 
 electing a President, outweigh three returned Union 
 soldiers" in New Jersey or Ohio? 1 Should 127,000 
 white people in New York have but one voice and one 
 1 Kelley, in the House, January 22, 1866, Globe, p. 354. 
 
392 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 vote in Congress, while the same number in Mississippi 
 should have three? Shall twenty-eight votes be cast 
 in the Electoral College by the white men of the 
 South on behalf of those whom they are unwilling to 
 admit to any part or lot in their own government? 
 " Shall the death of slavery add two-fifths to the en- 
 tire power which slavery had when slavery was liv- 
 
 ing?" 1 
 
 To the Northern mind these questions carried their 
 own answers. There was absolutely no defense for 
 such proposals. The Union soldiers and the people 
 of the North had some opinions upon that subject, and 
 it was to the effect that if Congress permitted such an 
 injustice, it would be guilty of such recreancy as would 
 deserve the severest anathemas that even a vocabu- 
 lary as hot as that of Thaddeus Stevens ever made it 
 possible for man to utter. Nothing can be plainer 
 than that upon that subject Stevens and the radicals 
 voiced the public sentiments of the North. Their ac- 
 tion responded to the fundamental sense of justice em- 
 bedded in the heart of every man. 2 The principle 
 that the leaders of the House were thus seeking to 
 establish was clear. The government of every politi- 
 cal society belonged to its members. If the South 
 would enlarge the membership of its political so- 
 cieties, it could have the increased power; otherwise 
 not, and on that proposition the congressional leaders 
 
 1 Conkling, January 22, 1866, Globe. 
 
 2 This is still true of Northern sentiment, and it is perhaps 
 more pronouncedly so than when the passions of war were still 
 warm. "At the present day," says Mr. Rhodes, "the strength 
 of the argument and the essential justice of the measure will 
 at the North be hardly questioned." History of United States, 
 Vol. V, p. 609. 
 
ERT COSTER 
 
 Charles Sumner, 1811-18*! I . 
 
 Senator from Massachusetts. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 393 
 
 were ready to appeal to the country. It was one of 
 the mistakes of reconstruction, though it was no fault 
 of Thaddeus Stevens, that the congressional policy of 
 preventing an unjust apportionment of representation 
 and political power was not made permanently effect- 
 ive by a constitutional provision that would have been 
 self-operative and not dependent upon the coopera- 
 tion of the states or the subsequent will of Congress. 
 This end could have been accomplished if representa- 
 tion had been based as Stevens desired upon the voting 
 strength of the respective states. 
 
 Following Stevens' speech on January 31st the 
 House passed the amendment by a vote of one hundred 
 and twenty to forty-six, sixteen members not voting. 
 The resolution was defeated in the Senate on March 
 9th, 1 largely through the opposition of Sumner who 
 spoke repeatedly, and on one occasion for four hours, 
 against it. He arraigned it in excited and exaggerated 
 rhetoric, denouncing it as " utterly reprehensible," 
 " unpardonable," " worse than the crime against Kan- 
 sas or the Fugitive Slave Law," " obnoxious to reason 
 and justice." Sumner knew " no language adequate 
 to depict its character." Its words were " words of 
 defilement." It " violated the national faith," " dis- 
 honored the name of the republic," " imperiled the na- 
 tional peace." It was " bad as bad could be," " treach- 
 erous," " shocking to the moral sense," a " master- 
 piece of ingratitude," and a wrong to the freedman 
 who had defended the republic in arms. 
 
 The amendment was all this, in Sumner's mind, be- 
 cause it did not directly guarantee suffrage to the negro 
 1 Yeas, 25; nays, 22; falling considerable short of two-thirds. 
 
394 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 by national authority. It fell short of his ideal, his 
 theory about the rights of man. He, therefore, held 
 it up to execration as another " compromise " and con- 
 cession, still permitting the states to oppress the negro, 
 admitting the idea of inequality of rights founded on 
 race and color, sanctioning " the tyranny of taxation 
 without representation," recognizing an oligarchy of 
 aristocracy and caste, unduly conceding state rights, 
 and fostering the arrogant pretension of a white man's 
 government. As a means of inducing the Southerners 
 to enfranchise the blacks, it was but a bribe that would 
 not prove alluring; and as a means of depriving the 
 South of power, it would prove deceptive as there were 
 tricks of evasion that would be effective. 
 
 Sumner preferred to base representation on suffrage, 
 as Stevens had at first suggested. This, as he con- 
 tended, would admit to the Constitution none of the 
 base concessions now proposed. He had introduced 
 a proposition for the suffrage basis into the previous 
 Congress, to be accompanied with a guarantee of civil 
 and political equality of all persons before the law. If 
 the suffrage basis should transfer power from the 
 Eastern to the Western States, as some of his New 
 England colleagues had contended, Sumner felt that it 
 " were better to suffer wrong ourselves than to do 
 wrong to others." 
 
 Sumner's empyrean idealism was more obstructive 
 than consistent. Later he was compelled to accept a 
 form of this amendment more objectionable than that 
 which he was now seeking to talk to death, while he 
 showed how sadly lacking he was in that common sense 
 and sagacity that leads a statesman to accept progress 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 395 
 
 toward his goal though he may not reach the end at 
 a single bound. Stevens appears both wiser and nobler 
 by comparison in this conflict of plans and purposes 
 between these two extreme radical chieftains in Sen- 
 ate and House. 1 
 
 After its failure in the Senate, the amendment was 
 recast by the committee, and the next time it appeared 
 in the House it was in the form of the second section 
 of the fourteenth amendment. Stevens reported this 
 amendment to the House on April 30, 1866, and on 
 May 8th, he spoke at some length on it. He called 
 attention to the hard labors the committee had had to 
 undergo. He referred to the amendment on repre- 
 sentation as it had passed the House in January, and 
 had gone to the other end of the Capitol, " there to be 
 mortally wounded in the house of its friends." This 
 second form of the amendment was not so good as 
 the first that Stevens had offered in December. The 
 third form that now appeared was still worse. The 
 first form, basing representation on votes, would have 
 been self -executing and effective. The second form, 
 which was sent to its death in the Senate, provided that 
 if one of the injured race was excluded, the state was 
 to forfeit the right to have any of that race counted 
 in representation. That would more likely have has- 
 tened the freedmen's enfranchisement. 
 
 1 This conflict between Stevens and Sumner will serve to 
 illustrate how the diverse and composite sections of the four- 
 teenth amendment came to be incorporated by Congress into 
 one article. Probably no one article by itself would have been 
 acceptable to a two-thirds majority in Congress and the requi- 
 site number of states ; combined, or as a series of measures like 
 the parts of the Omnibus Bill of 1850, they were able to secure 
 the necessary support. 
 
396 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The section in its third form allowed the states to 
 discriminate and to receive credit in representation in 
 proportion to the number admitted to the suffrage. 
 This Stevens disliked. The language in which he re- 
 viewed the struggle must have made Sumner wince, 
 as he heard or read the biting words. Stevens recog- 
 nized even the last form of the amendment as a short 
 step forward, and he was ready to take it. But " the 
 large stride," he said, " which we in vain proposed, is 
 dead ; the murderers must answer to the suffering race. 
 I would not have been the perpetrator. A load of 
 misery must sit heavy on their souls." He came upon 
 Sumner directly for his agency in the defeat of the 
 former amendment, saying that it had been " slaugh- 
 tered by a puerile and pedantic criticism, by a perver- 
 sion of philological definition which, if when I taught 
 school, a lad who had studied Lindley Murray had as- 
 sumed, I would have expelled him from the institu- 
 tion as unfit to waste education upon. But it is dead, 
 and, unless this shall pass, its death has postponed the 
 protection of the colored race perhaps for ages. I 
 confess my mortification at its defeat. I grieved 
 especially because it almost closed the door of hope 
 for the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen. 
 But men in pursuit of justice must never despair. Let 
 us again try and see whether we can not devise some 
 way to overcome the united forces of self-righteous 
 Republicans and unrighteous Copperheads. It will not 
 do for those who for thirty years have fought the 
 beasts at Ephesus to be frightened by the fangs of 
 modern catamounts." * 
 
 ] Globe, May 8, 1866, Vol. 73, p. 8. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 397 
 
 Stevens was a practical legislator. He made no 
 parade of his conscience nor heralded his superior vir- 
 tue, as Sumner seemed prone to do. He would not, 
 any more than Sumner, surrender a principle vital to 
 justice. But in an attack on an intrenched enemy, 
 he would resort to flanking tactics rather than march 
 full in the face of a destructive fire merely to exhibit 
 his conscience and his courage. If he could not at 
 once get all he desired, he was willing to take all he 
 could get. His method was clearly the part of prac- 
 tical statesmanship. In this last rampart to which he 
 was driven by the repeated changes of the amend- 
 ment that was so near to his heart, he was ready still 
 to defend the cause for which he was striving. He 
 expected that under the clause in its final form, the 
 rebel states would be greatly reduced in power. He 
 thought that the Southern pride would not long brook 
 being reduced to a hopeless minority. It might take 
 " two, three, possibly five, years before they conquer 
 their prejudices sufficiently to allow their late slaves 
 to become their equals at the polls." In the meantime 
 the freedmen would become more enlightened and 
 more fit for the duties of citizenship. Meanwhile, 
 also, these states could be reconstituted and within 
 them, " the muniments of freedom may be built high 
 and firm ; " and until their states are loyal they can 
 have no standing here. 1 
 
 1 Globe, May 8, 1866, p. 2460. Any amount of evidence could 
 be adduced to show that the country was much more radical 
 than their representatives in Congress, — that that body was 
 lagging behind and needed the prod that Stevens was disposed 
 to apply to keep it abreast of the people. Wendell Phillips 
 wrote to Stevens under date of April 30, 1866 : " I see the 
 report of the Reconstruction Committee. It is a fatal and total 
 
398 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The third object that Congress had in view in re- 
 jecting the plan of the President, was to exclude from 
 office and power the leaders of the Confederacy. The 
 congressional leaders, and in this they clearly reflected 
 the sentiment of the North, were not satisfied to have 
 the ex-Confederates immediately resume the functions 
 of government in state or nation. It was felt that 
 the Rebellion was a great crime and that its guilty 
 leaders should suffer punishment. Indemnity for the 
 past, security for the future, — this seemed only a rea- 
 sonable demand. The wrong to the negro had been 
 righted as far as possible in the provisions described. 
 How could the future be made secure, if the very men 
 who had committed the wrong were to be restored to 
 honor and power? Accordingly, another amendment 
 was proposed which was punitive and preventive in 
 purpose and character. This section of the fourteenth 
 amendment, as first reported by Stevens, 1 provided 
 that until July 4, 1870, " all persons who voluntarily 
 adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and com- 
 fort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for rep- 
 resentation in Congress," and for President and Vice- 
 President. This was a political punishment for a po- 
 litical crime. The amendment did not disqualify those 
 
 surrender. The South carries off enough of the victory to en- 
 able her to control the nation, mold its policy and shape its 
 legislation for a dozen years to come. Twenty years of admir- 
 ing trust in your anti-slavery devotion must be my apology for 
 urging you to protest against this suicidal step. It is not neces- 
 sary. The country is ready for its duty. It only needs leaders. 
 Do not let the Republican party desert its post. Or, if that 
 must be, let the statesmen, the ' practical statesmen ' of the 
 nation, be true to their duty. . . . The people are ready to sup- 
 port all necessary measures. With leaders they will open no 
 door which does not admit all races." Stevens' Letters. 
 1 April 30, 1866. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 399 
 
 who had aided the Confederacy from holding federal 
 or state office, nor from voting in state, county, or 
 town elections. But for four years they were to be 
 barred from taking part in choosing the national rulers. 
 
 Stevens saw that there would be some difference of 
 opinion within his own party on this subject. His 
 only objection to the provision was that it was too len- 
 ient. He would increase its severity by extending the 
 time of exclusion to 1870 and by letting it apply to all 
 elections, local as well as national. In wonted sar- 
 casm he decried such severity as had lately been de- 
 nounced upon the " traitors " by a certain executive 
 officer, referring to " the late lamented Andrew John- 
 son of blessed memory." He regarded the proposed 
 punishment as the " mildest ever inflicted on traitors," 
 and he deplored " the morbid sensibility sometimes 
 called mercy, which affects a few of all classes from 
 the priest to the clown, which has more sympathy for 
 the murderer on the gallows than for his victim." " I 
 hope I have," he said, " a heart as capable of feeling 
 for human woe as others. I have long since wished 
 that capital punishment were abolished. But I have 
 never dreamed that all punishment could be dispensed 
 with in human society. Anarchy, treason, and vio- 
 lence would reign triumphant." 1 
 
 In the course of the debate on this part of the 
 amendment, a division developed on the Republican 
 side of the House over the wisdom of this section. 
 John A. Bingham, of Ohio, expressed the opinion that 
 it brought no strength to the amendment, that it might 
 endanger adoption by the states, that it would be dif- 
 
 1 Globe, May 8, 1866. 
 
400 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ficult of execution and would be distasteful to have 
 Federal officers controlling elections within the states. 
 " Each state," says the Constitution, " shall appoint 
 electors in such manners as the legislature thereof 
 may direct." It was urged by Bingham that until this 
 clause of the Constitution was stricken out, the third 
 section of the proposed amendment was useless and 
 could never be executed. To retain it would be sim- 
 ply to " furnish demogagues a pretext for raising the 
 howl that we exclude rebels for four years only that 
 we may control the next presidential election." 
 
 Bingham was an ardent supporter of the amend- 
 ment as a whole, and the force of his attack on this 
 objectionable section, and the source from which it 
 came, aroused the fire of Stevens. In closing the de- 
 bate he came to a vigorous defense of the proposal, 
 which he pronounced " the vital proposition of them 
 all." He was not gratified to see " division among 
 our friends." If the third section be stricken out he 
 said he "cared not the snap of the finger whether the 
 amendment be passed or not," for in that case, before 
 the amendment can be put into operation, " that side 
 of the House will be filled with yelling secessionists 
 and hissing Copperheads. Give us the third section 
 or give us nothing." 
 
 As to the party motive, he had no compunction nor 
 hesitation, — he would rally to his party to save the 
 Union. " I do not hesitate to say it at once, — that 
 section is there to save or destroy the Union by the 
 salvation or destruction of the Union party. Gen- 
 tlemen tell us this provision is too strong. ... It is 
 too lenient for my hard heart. Not only to 1870 but 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 401 
 
 to 18,070 every rebel who shed the blood of loyal men 
 should be prevented from exercising any power in this 
 government." He believed that the men who had fos- 
 tered and led in rebellion deserved humiliation and 
 degradation, that none ever deserved it more. He 
 would not welcome them back as brothers immediately, 
 but they should come as supplicants in sackcloth and 
 ashes. He would have a period of probation and for- 
 give only when forgiveness had been asked. The 
 Great Dispenser of mercy forgives only on those con- 
 ditions ; why should the rulers of the republic do more? 
 The common jailbirds who had committed such little 
 acts as arson and larceny were not half so bloody and 
 had not committed half so many crimes as these " reb- 
 els," whom Johnson and his supporters were urging 
 should be immediately readmitted to seats in Congress. 
 " For my part I am willing they shall come in when 
 they are ready. But do not, I pray you, admit those 
 who have slaughtered half a million of your country- 
 men until their clothes are dried, and until they are 
 reclad. I do not wish to sit side by side with men 
 whose garments smell of the blood of my kindred. 
 Gentlemen seem to forget the scenes that were enacted 
 here years ago, . . . when the men that you propose 
 to admit occupied the other side of the House, when 
 the mighty Toombs, with his shaggy locks, headed a 
 gang who with shouts of defiance on this floor, ren- 
 dered this a hell of legislation. 
 
 " Ah, sir, it was but six short years ago when they 
 were here, just before they went out to join the armies 
 of Catiline, just before they left this hall. Those of 
 you who were here then will remember the scene in 
 
4 02 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 which every Southern member, encouraged by their 
 allies, came forth in one yelling body, because a speech 
 for freedom was being made here, when weapons were 
 drawn and Barksdale's bowie-knife gleamed before our 
 eyes. Would you have these men back again so soon 
 to reenact those scenes ? Wait until I am gone, I pray 
 you ; I want not to go through it again." 
 
 When asked by Thayer, of New York, if he thought 
 of building a penitentiary large enough to hold eight 
 million people, he said he would keep them from the 
 halls of Congress by the bayonet if need be, and "if 
 they undertake to come here we will shoot them " as 
 they deserve, — so incredible and incongruous did it 
 seem to him that these men should offer credentials as 
 legislators for the nation against which they had been 
 so lately in arms. "If the gentleman had remembered 
 the scenes twenty years ago, when no man dared to 
 speak without risking his life, when but few men did 
 do it — for there were cowards in those days as there 
 are in these — you would not have found them asking 
 to bring these men in, and I only wonder that my 
 friend from Ohio (Mr. Bingham) should intimate a 
 desire to bring them here." When Bingham protested 
 that he had no such desire and that the section under 
 discussion did not touch the question of their coming, 
 since it disqualified them only as voters, Stevens re- 
 joined, — " Then why do you oppose it? If it is going 
 to hurt nobody, in God's name let it remain. If it is 
 going to hurt anybody it will be the men that deserve 
 it." » 
 
 The amendment passed the House in the form pro- 
 
 1 Globe, May 10, 1866. 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 403 
 
 posed, on May 10, 1866. 1 Stevens' onslaught had 
 pressed down opposition in the House. But when the 
 amendment came to the Senate this clause was changed 
 to the form, substantially, as it now appears in the 
 fourteenth amendment. That is, instead of disqual- 
 ifying for suffrage for four years the rank and file of 
 those engaged in the Confederacy, it made their lead- 
 ers ineligible to office, with the provision that Congress 
 by a two-thirds vote of each house might remove such 
 disability. 
 
 Such was the final form of the punitive clause pro- 
 posed for the fourteenth amendment, the only punish- 
 ment proposed by a triumphant government on those 
 who for four years of war had attempted the dismem- 
 berment of the Union and the overthrow of its power. 2 
 
 A fourth section of the new amendment sought one 
 other guarantee for the future, which indicates the 
 fourth feature of the congressional plan. As it passed 
 the House it guaranteed that neither the United States 
 nor any state should ever assume or pay any debt con- 
 tracted in aid of the Rebellion, nor any claim for an 
 emancipated slave. The Senate added that all such 
 debts, obligations and claims should be illegal and void, 
 and added a guarantee of the validity of the public 
 debt of the United States, including the debts for pen- 
 sions and bounties contracted for services in suppress- 
 ing the Rebellion. The Senate also added to the first 
 section the well-known definition of citizenship, — that 
 " all persons born or naturalized in the United States, 
 
 1 By a vote of 128 to 37; 19 members not voting. 
 
 2 " It is difficult to see how the Confederate leaders could 
 have been required to suffer less and have been rebuked at all 
 for their acts." Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution. 
 
404 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of 
 the state wherein they reside." 
 
 Such was the congressional plan, — the fourteenth 
 amendment added to the conditions that Johnson had 
 imposed. It was on these four guarantees, to be in- 
 corporated into the fundamental law of the land, that 
 Congress joined issue with the President, — civil rights 
 to all citizens of the republic, just equality of repre- 
 sentation, protection against claims founded in rebel- 
 lion, and exclusion from positions of public trust of 
 certain leaders of those who had proved hostile to the 
 Union. Like all great measures of government that 
 emerge from constitutional struggles the fourteenth 
 amendment was a compromise between conflicting- 
 ideas, — an adjustment obtained by mutual concessions 
 among the radical and conservative dispositions repre- 
 sented in the Committee. The plan gave the ballot to 
 no negro and took it from no white man who would 
 swear to support the Constitution. It carried no 
 reprisals, no executions, no exile, no imprisonment, no 
 confiscation of property. It guaranteed to the South- 
 ern States control of their own local affairs subject 
 to the great democratic law of equal rights for all and 
 special privileges for none. There was not a clause 
 in the proposed amendment that was not fully justified 
 by the circumstances of the times, and the historian of 
 the period but expresses the common sense of men 
 when he describes it as " marked by even-handed jus- 
 tice." 1 It is reasonably certain, if these terms of re- 
 union had been accepted in as reasonable and conserva- 
 tive a spirit as that in which they were offered, that 
 1 Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. V., p. 609. 
 
 
THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PLAN 405 
 
 Congress would not have advanced to the more radical 
 and drastic policy that was subsequently imposed. Re- 
 :onstruction could have been accomplished on the basis 
 of the fourteenth amendment. The races in the South 
 
 light then have been spared the bitter alienation that 
 followed, and both the North and South might have 
 been saved much of the failure, humiliation, and suffer- 
 ing that came from later reconstruction experiences. 
 
 "he responsibility for the outcome by no means lies 
 
 molly with the Republican party of the North. 1 
 [ohnson and his Democratic and conservative support- 
 ers by their partisan resistance to this reasonable basis 
 of adjustment, misled the South, and together these 
 elements played directly into the hands of Stevens and 
 the radicals. 
 
 The resentful and misguided conduct of the South 
 in answer to the terms proposed was an important 
 factor in promoting radical control in Congress and 
 in the public opinion of the North. The same vindic- 
 tive and hateful spirit for which Thaddeus Stevens has 
 been so constantly arraigned, vented itself against him 
 
 md his coadjutors in this struggle. That spirit was 
 certainly as dominant in the South as in the North and 
 both sections must share alike the responsibility for its 
 unhappy results. The vital and unfortunate fact was 
 that it was in this passionate spirit of war that an ap- 
 peal was made to the people on this, one of the great- 
 est issues of civil government ever presented to the 
 American electorate. 
 1 Consider Blaine, II, p. 266. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 ' I V HE issue was now joined. The decision between 
 -*■ the two plans, that of the President and that of 
 Congress, was to be left with the people. Both parties 
 to the contest prepared for the referendum. For once 
 in our history, upon a dissolution of Congress, the Ex- 
 ecutive was to appeal to the electorate against the Leg- 
 islative body that refused to sustain him. The people 
 were to break the deadlock between the two depart- 
 ments of their government. Would the people in the 
 election of a new Congress serve notice that that body 
 should retrace its steps, undo what it had done, and 
 proceed to sustain the President in restoring the union 
 of the states on the basis that he had proposed? Or, 
 would the popular mandate direct Congress to go ahead 
 with the work, disregard the " rights " of the " states " 
 that Johnson had set up and insist upon the addi- 
 tional guarantees that Congress had proposed ? 
 
 Fortunately, in the presentation of the issue there 
 could be no confusion in the minds of the voters. 
 There were no side issues or minor questions to dis- 
 tract their attention. The issue was clear, simple, 
 overshadowing. Will you sustain Congress or will 
 you elect a Congress that will sustain the President? 
 "If the result showed a majority in the next Congress 
 
 406 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 407 
 
 against the President, his policy would be doomed; if 
 the majority proved to be with him, the policy of Con- 
 gress would be doomed." * It was a fortunate situa- 
 tion, conducive to political education and to vigor and 
 efficiency in government. In such a case the appeal 
 may be made with force and a verdict given that no 
 man may doubt. 
 
 The popular referendum on reconstruction made 
 the election of 1866 unique in our political history. 
 It was an " off year "; no President and but few Gov- 
 ernors were to be elected, and usually in such years 
 there is apathy or a waning interest in politics and elec- 
 tions. But probably no political stakes were ever more 
 hotly contested and no campaign ever excited a livelier 
 interest than the struggle over the congressional elec- 
 tions in the summer and fall of 1866. The contest 
 gave rise to the congressional campaign committee to 
 organize and direct the righting for the congressional 
 cause within the states. 2 
 
 Though there were no national nominations to be 
 made there were not fewer than four national con- 
 ventions assembled for the purpose of appealing to the 
 people and creating and influencing public sentiment. 
 Each side held a " Soldiers and Sailors Convention " 
 to appeal for support, and each held a political conven- 
 tion to set forth the platform and principles of its ap- 
 peal. The first of these conventions was called by the 
 supporters of the President, led by Seward, Weed, and 
 
 1 W. A. Dunning, Reconstruction, p. 71. 
 
 2 This party agency has continued from that day to this as a 
 permanent part of the party machine to look out for the in- 
 terest of the party cause in the contested congressional dis- 
 tricts. 
 
408 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Raymond, and was known as the " National Union " 
 Convention. It met at Philadelphia, on August 14th. 
 There was representation from every state of the 
 Union, South as well as North. The convention was 
 to speak for a restored Union, and to voice a demand 
 for a speedy return of the Southern States to full har- 
 mony and privilege with their sister states, a return 
 that was to mark a happy reunion between the North 
 and the South. Former secessionists who had pro- 
 voked the war, Northern Democrats who had opposed 
 the war, and old time Republicans, who had prosecuted 
 the war, were meeting in an effort to unite North and 
 South in support of the President's policy. To typify 
 the national and united character of the gathering the 
 Northern and Southern delegates walked into the wig- 
 wam arm in arm. President Johnson later described 
 how deeply he was moved on receiving the telegram 
 telling him that when Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, and 
 General Couch, of Massachusetts, entered together, 
 " arm in arm " at the head of their delegations, " every 
 eye was suffused with tears." The congressional 
 leaders were not slow to turn this tearful and dramatic 
 scene into ridicule, and their speakers and papers were 
 soon describing the Philadelphia " Wigwam " as 
 " Noah's Ark," into which " the animals entered two 
 by two, the elephant and the kangaroo, of clean beasts 
 and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls and of 
 every thing that creepeth upon the earth." So far as 
 we know, this analogy has not been attributed to Stev- 
 ens, but it was quite Stevenesque and in harmony with 
 his style. 
 
 The congressional party also charged that in the 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 409 
 
 r Arm-in-Arm " Convention the Southern delegates 
 were not permitted to speak out their true sentiments 
 and purposes. Thomas Nast, the popular cartoonist 
 of Harper's Weekly, represented the President of the 
 convention, Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, as pad- 
 locking the mouths of the ex-Confederates lest their 
 honest and candid speech might reveal their real feel- 
 ing toward the f reedmen and Union men in the South 
 and thus disturb the " unbroken harmony " that the 
 convention was appointed to proclaim between the 
 sections. 1 
 
 A Congressional or Republican Convention, meeting 
 early in September, was presided over by ex-Attorney 
 General Speed, lately a member of Johnson's Cabinet, 
 who, with others, wished no longer to be responsible 
 for the opposition of the administration to the four- 
 teenth amendment. The convention arraigned the 
 President's plan, and denounced the President as 
 "traitor to his party" and "a friend of the rebels," 
 and it urged the fourteenth amendment as the par- 
 amount issue of the campaign, the adoption of which 
 was regarded as essential to peace and reunion. 
 
 Johnson himself entered the campaign for his cause. 
 To the committee that brought him a report of the 
 Philadelphia convention, he spoke of Congress with 
 characteristic bad taste, as " a body called, or which as- 
 sumes to be, the Congress of the United States, while, 
 in fact, it is a Congress of only a part of the states, 
 hanging, as it were, upon the verge of the govern- 
 ment." Such an utterance gave the intimation of a 
 danger that the country might have to confront. It 
 
 1 Rhodes, V, p. 616. 
 
410 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 gave some ground for fear that if Johnson's plan found 
 sufficient support in the Northern and Border States, 
 he might recognize the representation from these 
 states who supported him, together with the repre- 
 sentation from the South for whom he was demanding 
 seats in Congress, as the Congress of the United States, 
 and attempt to use his military power to turn Thad- 
 deus Stevens' rump of a Congress out of doors. In 
 his later speeches Johnson repeatedly referred to his 
 lifelong devotion to the Constitution as the chief re- 
 straining influence between the country and himself as 
 a dictator. The danger may not have been a serious 
 one, but it had a bearing upon the election. 
 
 But the worst of Johnson was yet to come. He 
 started through the country on his notable " swing 
 around the circle," and by his undignified and unseemly 
 speeches, in which he bandied coarse epithets with the 
 crowd, he injured his cause and disgraced his office. 
 At Cleveland, as he appeared on the balcony of a hotel 
 to speak to the people, he was too drunk to speak with 
 sense, and his high office was brought to " the lowest 
 depth of degradation." * He referred to the radical 
 Congress as having begun another rebellion and as 
 seeking to " break up the government." He declared 
 (and thoroughly proved it by his conduct) that he 
 " cared not for dignity." " I would ask you why not 
 hang Thaddeus Stevens and Wendell Phillips? I tell 
 you, my countrymen, I have been righting the South, 
 and they have been whipped and crushed and they ac- 
 knowledge their defeat and accept the terms of the 
 Constitution ; and now as I go round the circle, having 
 
 1 Rhodes, V, p. 618. 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 411 
 
 fought traitors at the South, I am prepared to fight 
 traitors at the North. . . . He who is opposed to the 
 reunion of the states is as great a traitor as Jeff Davis 
 or Wendell Phillips," and " though the powers of hell 
 and Thaddeus Stevens and his gang were by, they 
 could not turn me from my purpose." 1 If he had 
 played the part of Judas, as his enemies had charged, 
 he wanted to know who had been the Christ that he 
 had played Judas with. " Was it Thaddeus Stevens ? 
 Was it Wendell Phillips? Was it Charles Sumner? " 
 In vituperative language that would have disgraced a 
 common stump-speaker he spoke of " the nefarious 
 and diabolical policy " of these leaders. 2 Upon John- 
 son's return to Washington, it was said of him that 
 no political orator in our history ever accomplished 
 so much for his opponents as Johnson did in this fort- 
 night of speaking. 3 
 
 Anti-negro riots in the South in the summer of 1866 
 conspired with this unhappy exposure of Johnson and 
 his cause to promote the success of the congressional 
 party. In the early days of May there had been riots 
 at Memphis in which twenty-four negroes had been 
 killed. On July 30th, two days after Congress ad- 
 journed for the summer, a bloody " riot " occurred in 
 New Orleans, at a political convention in which the 
 negroes were attempting to take part. Thirty-seven 
 negroes and white assailants were killed and over one 
 hundred were wounded. The ex-Confederate police 
 had not attempted to restrain the murderous whites. 
 
 1 Speech at Cleveland, Sept. 3, 1866, McPherson, p. 135. 
 
 2 Speech at St. Louis, Sept. 8, 1866, McPherson's Political 
 Manual, 1866. 
 
 3 New York Nation, Sept. 27, 1866, cited by Rhodes, V, p. 620. 
 
4 i2 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 General Sheridan telegraphed to Grant that it was 
 " not a riot but a massacre." Only one white man lost 
 his life in this affair. The congressional leaders said 
 that this was the way freedmen would be treated under 
 Johnson's reconstructed governments, that negroes 
 could not obtain the equal protection of the laws; and 
 they charged that the life and property of Union men 
 in the South were unsafe and that at least a thousand 
 had been murdered within the year. 
 
 It is obvious that the congressional cause was des- 
 tined to win by sheer default of the opposition. But 
 the cause of Congress was not lacking in positive and 
 constructive support. That cause was presented to the 
 country in one of the most notable documents of the 
 reconstruction era. This was the majority report of 
 the Reconstruction Committee, submitted to the two 
 houses of Congress after the passage of the amend- 
 ment and not long before the adjournment for the 
 summer recess. 1 Congress ordered to be printed sev- 
 eral thousand copies of this report. It presented an 
 able statement of the congressional case and it proved 
 to be an effective campaign document. Its author- 
 ship has been attributed to Fessenden but like the 
 fourteenth amendment, it was no doubt a composite 
 document. No one can read it without recognizing in 
 all its parts the impress and political lineaments of 
 Thaddeus Stevens. It describes Johnson's recon- 
 structed governments merely as temporary, as intima- 
 tions of the Commander-in-chief that he would with- 
 draw military rule in proportion as the people showed 
 a disposition to preserve order, to establish govern- 
 
 1 June [8, 1866. 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 413 
 
 lents denoting loyalty to the Union and to exhibit a 
 willingness to return to their allegiance, leaving it with 
 le law-making power to fix the terms of their final 
 restoration to their rights and privileges in the Union, 
 mere was no evidence of loyalty in those who had 
 )articipated in making these new state governments, 
 neir elections " had resulted in the defeat of candi- 
 lates who had been true to the Union, and in the elec- 
 tion of notorious and unpardoned rebels who made no 
 secret of their hostility to the government and people 
 of the United States. Was it safe to admit such men 
 at once to a full participation in the government they 
 had fought four years to destroy ? They had yielded 
 after four years of malignant war only because they 
 could no longer resist. Within the limits of humanity 
 the conquered rebels were at the mercy of the conquer- 
 ors. That a government thus outraged had a perfect 
 right to exact indemnity for the injuries done and se- 
 curity against the recurrence of such outrages in the 
 future would seem too clear for dispute. The nature 
 of the security, the proof of allegiance, the time to 
 elapse before the restoration of rights and privileges, 
 — these are matters for the law-making power to de- 
 cide. To apply the theory of immediate restoration 
 as if the war were to count for nothing, was to leave 
 the government of the United States powerless for its 
 own protection, and " flagrant rebellion carried to the 
 extreme of civil war, would then be but a pastime 
 which any state may play at, not only certain that it 
 can lose nothing in any event, but may even be the 
 gainer by defeat. If rebellion succeeds it accomplishes 
 its purpose and destroys the government. If it fails 
 
4 i4 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the war has been barren of results and the battle may 
 still be fought out in the legislative halls of the coun- 
 try. Treason defeated in the field has only to take 
 possession of Congress and the Cabinet." The theory 
 that the late Confederate States are still states in the 
 Union was "a profitless abstraction, about which so 
 many words had been wasted. It is more than idle, 
 it is mockery to contend that a people who have thrown 
 off their allegiance, destroyed the local government 
 which bound their states to the Union, defied its author- 
 ity, refused to execute its laws, and abrogated every 
 provision which gave them political rights within the 
 Union, still retain, through all, the perfect and entire 
 right to resume at their own will and pleasure all their 
 privileges within the Union, and especially to partici- 
 pate in its government and to control the conduct of its 
 affairs. To admit such a principle for one moment 
 would be to declare that treason is always master and 
 loyalty a blunder." The report asserted that the Con- 
 stitution acts, not upon the states, but upon the peo- 
 ple. The people can not escape its authority, but the 
 states, through the act of their people, may cease to 
 exist in an organized form, and thus dissolve their 
 political relations with the United States. 
 
 The paper then reviews and restates with force the 
 cause for which Congress stood : that the f reedmen 
 should be protected; that rebellion should not result 
 in increased political power to the rebellious states; 
 that in freeing the slaves political advantage should not 
 come to their former masters, who had fought against 
 the Union while it was withheld from those who had 
 fought for it ; that political power should be possessed 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 415 
 
 in all the states exactly in proportion as the right of 
 suffrage should be granted, without distinction of color 
 or race. A forcible picture was drawn of the unhappy 
 conditions in the South and of the disunion and dis- 
 loyal disposition of the people, where without the 
 freedmen's bureau " the colored people would not be 
 permitted to labor at fair prices and where Union men 
 though not of Northern origin, without the protection 
 of the troops, would be obliged to abandon their 
 homes." The deep-seated prejudice against persons 
 of color would prevent their ever being placed on 
 terms of civil equality, if left to the tender mercies of 
 the Johnson governments. Intense hostility to the 
 Union and intense love for the late Confederacy was 
 decisive. Northern men going South are detested 
 and proscribed while " Southern men who adhered to 
 the Union are bitterly hated and relentlessly perse- 
 cuted." What government would leave the protec- (. 
 tion of its defenders to the mercy of its foes? 
 
 The conciliatory measures of our government have 
 not been met half-way. " The bitterness and defiance 
 exhibited toward the United States under such cir- 
 cumstances is without a parallel in the history of the 
 world. In return for our leniency we receive only an 
 insulting denial of our authority. In return for our 
 kind desire for the resumption of fraternal relations 
 we receive only an insolent assumption of rights and 
 privileges long since forfeited." 
 
 The claim that these states are entitled as a matter 
 of right to immediate and unconditional representa- 
 tion in Congress and that to exclude their Senators and 
 Represenatives is oppressive and unjust, as well as un- 
 
4 i6 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 wise and impolitic, — in opposition to that claim the 
 committee set forth a plain statement of familiar 
 facts: That the seats of these Senators and Represen- 
 tatives were voluntarily vacated in 1861, by the direc- 
 tion of their states. This was done as a hostile act 
 against the United States government with an avowed 
 intent to overthrow that government and to form an- 
 other. To that end a four-years' war was levied by 
 sea and land " within which period the rebel army be- 
 sieged the national capital, invaded the loyal states, 
 burned their towns and cities, destroyed more than 
 250,000 loyal soldiers, and imposed an increased na- 
 tional burden of not less than $3,500,000,000." Dur- 
 ing this war the mass of these people were insurgents, 
 rebels, traitors, and all of them occupied the political, 
 legal and practical relations of enemies of the United 
 States. The war obliterated every vestige of state 
 and Confederate government and their people are re- 
 duced to the condition of enemies conquered in war, 
 entitled only by public law to such rights, privileges, 
 and conditions as might be vouchsafed by the con- 
 queror." x Against such rebellions in the future there 
 must be guarantees satisfactory to the government 
 against which this gigantic Rebellion was directed. 
 
 The question, then, before the country is whether 
 conquered enemies have the right and shall be permit- 
 ted at their own terms to participate in making laws 
 for their conquerors; whether conquered rebels may 
 change their theater of operations from the battle-field 
 where they were defeated and overthrown, to the halls 
 
 1 Report of Majority Committee on Reconstruction. Mc- 
 Pherson's Reconstruction. 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 417 
 
 of Congress, and through their representatives seize 
 upon the government which they fought to destroy ; 
 whether the national treasury, the army of the nation, 
 its navy, its forts and arsenals, its whole civil admin- 
 istration, its credit, its pensioners, the widows and or- 
 phans of those who perished in the war, the public 
 honor, peace, safety, — shall all be turned over to its 
 recent enemies without delay, and without imposing 
 such conditions as, in the opinion of Congress, the se- 
 curity of the country and its institutions may demand. 
 The history of mankind exhibits no example of such 
 madness and folly. The instinct of self-preservation 
 protests against it. Surrender in the field would have 
 been less disastrous, for new armies could have been 
 raised, new battles fought and the government would 
 have been saved. The anti-coercive policy which, un- 
 der the pretext of avoiding bloodshed, allowed the Re- 
 bellion to take form and gather force, would be sur- 
 passed in infamy by the matchless wickedness that 
 would now surrender the halls of Congress to those 
 so recently in rebellion until proper precautions shall 
 have been taken to secure the national faith and the 
 national safety. 1 
 
 Congress therefore appealed to the country that be- 
 fore representation should be allowed to the late Con- 
 federate States there should be adequate security for fu- 
 ture peace and safety, by such changes in the organic 
 law as shall determine the civil rights and privileges of 
 all citizens in all parts of the republic, shall place rep- 
 resentation upon an equitable basis, shall fix a stigma 
 upon treason, and protect the loyal people of the 
 
 1 Report of Reconstruction Committee, XLcPherson. 
 
418 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 United States against future claims for the expenses 
 incurred in support of the Rebellion and for manu- 
 mitted slaves, — that peace and harmony may be re- 
 stored to the country and our republican institutions 
 placed on a stable foundation. 1 
 
 Stevens' chief part in this campaign was played be- 
 fore the adjournment of Congress by his getting before 
 the country a more radical proposal and a powerful 
 speech in its support. Stevens accepted and supported 
 the fourteenth amendment without reservation, but he 
 was by no means satisfied with it as a basis of re- 
 union. He wanted more in the way of securities and 
 punishments. It has been said that he no sooner se- 
 cured one set of conditions than he began to contrive 
 for others. 2 At any rate, he sought to prevent Con- 
 gress from definitely committing itself to the condi- 
 tions proposed, as if they were final and complete. 
 When Stevens submitted to the House the four guar- 
 antees of the fourteenth amendment, April 30, 1866, 
 he submitted a bill under instruction from the Joint 
 Committee on Reconstruction. This provided that 
 whenever these guarantees had " become a part of 
 the Constitution of the United States and any state 
 lately in rebellion shall have ratified the same and 
 shall have modified its constitution and laws in con- 
 formity therewith, the Senators and Representatives 
 from such states may be duly admitted to Congress." 
 Stevens was decidedly opposed to the proposition. 
 He regarded it as the result of confused and ab- 
 surd error. He scorned the idea that these rebel 
 communities, the " defunct states," were to be counted 
 
 1 Report of Committee. - Rhodes, V, p. 609. 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 419 
 
 or consulted in adopting the amendment. They had 
 no right to be considered. He disapproved of Secre- 
 tary Seward's policy of submitting the amendment to 
 the Southern States, thus recognizing their statehood. 
 When nineteen of the loyal states had ratified the 
 amendment (it would have required twenty-seven if 
 the Southern States were to be counted), Stevens 
 would have Congress consider it as adopted and bind- 
 ing. Then the " states " lately in rebellion when they 
 were made ready, could do as they chose, come in, or 
 stay out under the new and amended Constitution 
 which would be binding in all the states alike. 
 
 The highest authorities to-day will recognize this as 
 both good public law and sound political science. It 
 would have avoided giving the opportunity to the 
 Southern States to reject the amendment and it would 
 have avoided the inconsistency on the part of Congress 
 of appearing to regard the Southern communities as 
 states for the amending purposes while they were not 
 recognized as states for purposes of representation. 
 If Congress had adopted outright Stevens' theory on 
 this point, it would have been both clearer in its po- 
 litical thinking and more consistent in its political con- 
 duct. Stevens was by no means alone in the radical 
 desire to exact other terms, especially to secure man- 
 hood suffrage among all citizens regardless of race or 
 color, 1 and the radicals were able, through his leader- 
 ship, to bring about the adjournment for the summer 
 without an official promise that no other terms would 
 
 1 See amendment proposed by Boutwell, of Massachusetts, 
 May 1st; Wilson, of Iowa, May 15th, and Kelley, of Pennsyl- 
 vania, June nth, Globe. 
 
4 20 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 be imposed. He was ready to bide his time, and it was 
 for time that he was now playing. He believed that 
 the country was more radical than Congress in its atti- 
 tude toward reconstruction. Perhaps he was relying 
 on the obstructive and mole-sighted policy of his op- 
 ponents as a means of bringing his Republican col- 
 leagues in Congress up to what he considered the 
 proper standard. At any rate he was not willing to 
 give up the field without one more effort. 
 
 On the day of adjournment, before the case was 
 sent to the jury, Stevens submitted a plan in the form 
 of a bill that contained what he considered suitable 
 terms and process of reconstruction. The Southern 
 States were to be regarded as having forfeited their 
 rights and were to be reinstated only through the action 
 of Congress. The Johnson governments were to be 
 recognized de facto for municipal purposes only, till 
 such changes were made as were necessary to set up 
 valid state governments. The President might direct 
 conventions to be called to form legitimate constitu- 
 tions, to be submitted to a vote of the people, and to 
 be ratified by a majority of the legal voters. All male 
 citizens above the age of twenty-one were to be legal 
 voters, and to be eligible to seats in the convention. 
 All persons who held office, civil or military, under the 
 so-called Confederate government, or who had sworn 
 allegiance to said government, were declared to have 
 forfeited their citizenship and to have renounced their 
 allegiance to the United States, and should not be en- 
 titled to vote or hold office till three years after they 
 had filed an expression of desire to be reinvested with 
 civic rights, and had sworn allegiance to the United 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 421 
 
 States and renounced their allegiance to all other gov- 
 ernments. All laws should be impartial, without re- 
 gard to race or color, and no constitution should be 
 presented to Congress denying equality of citizenship ; 
 and if this guarantee were ever altered or denied, the 
 state should lose its representation in Congress ; — that 
 whenever a constitution complying with these condi- 
 tions was presented to Congress the state might be 
 restored as a member of the Union. p--' 
 
 In supporting these proposals Stevens acknowledged 
 some discouragements, but he said he would not be 
 weary in well-doing and he would make one more, per- 
 haps an expiring, effort to do something that might 
 be useful to his fellow men. When he reflected " with 
 how few acts of justice, with how few wise enact- 
 ments most of us seem content to close our labors 
 and disperse to the periphery of the nation in search of 
 tool shades, purling trout streams, and to see our bulls 
 and beeves," he could not feel that Congress had done 
 anything " worthy of its glorious opportunity, worthy 
 of its duty to the immortal beings whose destinies for 
 good or evil, for weal or woe, it holds in its hands." * 
 He claimed no right to reproach others, especially when 
 he considered his own life, " too much of which has 
 been spent in idleness or frivolous amusement ; " and 
 while he found himself " almost ready to yield before 
 every man is secured equal rights and impartial priv- 
 ileges, I can not avoid feeling humbled, I can not es- 
 cape the pangs of self-condemnation." We have but 
 poor results of the labors of an assembly clothed with 
 the sovereignty of the republic. Congress had done 
 
 1 Globe, July 28, 1866. 
 
422 THE LIFE OF. THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 something to aid the white man, if he chose, to pro- 
 tect the poor of all races and colors. " But nothing 
 has been done to enable any but the white man to pro- 
 tect himself. ... In a peaceful well-governed repub- 
 lic the only protection consists in the right to partici- 
 pate in the government. . . . They must have the bal- 
 lot, or they will continue, virtually, to be slaves ; they 
 will be the servants and tools of the rich. But give 
 them political power and they will find friends who 
 will recognize their manhood. Republics must stand 
 upon the basis of universal suffrage. All who choose 
 to deal fairly by all men may thus be represented in 
 this body in the next Congress. Those who do not 
 choose to give equal rights to all men will, with my 
 consent, never enter this hall except as delegates. . . . 
 No man of common sense and common honesty pre- 
 tends that the present governments at the South have 
 any features of the legitimate governments. Their old 
 constitutions were not of their own choice, but were 
 imposed in the midst of arms, when the laws were si- 
 lent, by a military ruler playing the part of a mighty 
 conqueror. Not one of their organic laws was ever 
 submitted to the judgment of the people. Let us now 
 authorize the outlawed states to become republican 
 by freely forming their constitutions by the action of 
 all their freemen. Then loyal men will be protected. 
 They are now proscribed without regard to color. If 
 we leave the colored race without the protection o.f the 
 ballot box they will be the mere serfs and victims of 
 their former masters." l 
 
 1 These quotations contain not the exact and full form of 
 words, but the essence of Stevens' speech of July 2S, i866- 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 423 
 
 Stevens affirmed that there was an objection to in- 
 serting a provision in the Constitution for equal man- 
 hood suffrage that did not apply to such a bill as he 
 was proposing. In the Constitution it would operate 
 in all the states alike, and in many of the Free States 
 Stevens recognized " a deep-seated prejudice, the off- 
 spring of ignorance and habit, that obstructed the 
 cause of justice." In Copperhead States where jus- 
 tice to the colored race has no domicile, and in states 
 nearly balanced, such reform was thought to be im- 
 practicable at present. Those states had done nothing 
 to forfeit their rights and authorize the nation to im- 
 pose such new conditions. To deprive a few of the 
 elective franchise there, though a great wrong, was 
 not thought to be dangerous or intolerable. But in the 
 rebel states the conditions were different. There the 
 concentration of the whole political power in the hands 
 of a few tyrannical and disloyal men has shown itself 
 dangerous to liberty, and unless restrained must again 
 soon produce bloody insurrections. Their right to 
 dictate the terms of their participation in national af- 
 fairs has been forfeited. To that men of all parties 
 agree — " whether Republicans, Copperheads, Apos- 
 tates, or that unamiable, hermaphrodite race called 
 Conservatives." As the conditions of readjustment 
 are to be fixed by the government none can deem it 
 too severe if we put the loyal freedmen on an equal 
 footing at the polls with the disloyal white men. 
 
 When these people again become states, Congress 
 can not alter or amend their constitutions. The only 
 way to reach the end in view is by enabling acts, and 
 as Congress can dictate any mode of reconstruction it 
 
424 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 deems best, it may pass such acts authorizing these out- 
 lawed districts to form republican state governments 
 fit to partake in the government of the nation. He 
 would exclude none from the government " but the 
 most guilty rebels," and that was necessary " in order 
 to enable the loyal men to live in the land of their birth ; 
 otherwise the proud persecuting rebels will exile them 
 from their native land. 
 
 " When this is done we shall have done but partial 
 justice to the descendants of an oppressed race. God 
 may yet visit us with further punishments. Certainly 
 we deserve it. Why have we not given them home- 
 steads? Their rebel masters owe it to them. As to 
 the punishment proposed, they may thank the tender 
 mercy of Congress that it is so light. 
 
 " I have done in this matter," he concluded, " what 
 I deemed best for humanity. ... I know it is easy to 
 protect the interests of the rich and powerful, but it 
 is a great labor to guard the rights of the poor and 
 downtrodden; it is the eternal labor of Sisyphus for- 
 ever to be renewed. I know how unprofitable is all 
 such toil. But he who is in earnest does not heed 
 these things. I know, too, what effect it has on per- 
 sonal popularity. But if I may be indulged in a little 
 egotism, I will say that if there be anything for which 
 I have entire indifference, perhaps I may say contempt, 
 it is that public opinion which is founded on popular 
 clamor. 
 
 " In this, perhaps my final action on this great ques- 
 tion, upon a careful review, I can see nothing in my 
 political course, especially in regard to tiuman freedom, 
 which I could wish to have expunged or changed. I 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 425 
 
 believe that we must all account hereafter for deeds 
 done in the body, and that political deeds will be among 
 these accounts. I desire to take to the bar of that final 
 settlement the record which I shall this day make on 
 the great question of human rights. While I am sure 
 it will not make atonement for half my errors, I hope 
 it will be some palliation. 
 
 " Are there any who will venture to take the list, 
 with their negative seal upon it, and will dare to unroll 
 it before that stern Judge who is the Father of the im- 
 mortal beings whom they have been trampling under 
 foot, and whose souls they have been crushing out? " * 
 
 " This speech," says Mr. McCall, " made a profound 
 impression, having the tone of a farewell message." 2 
 It was effective campaign material for the radical cause, 
 an appeal to the country that no backward step should 
 be taken. In the campaign proper the state of Stevens' 
 health did not permit him to take part. At the close of 
 the session he was all but worn out by labors and dis- 
 ease. His physician directed him to take absolute rest, 
 neither to think nor speak nor read, if he would regain 
 his strength by the next session of Congress. John- 
 son's " swing around the circle " tempted him from his 
 rest. In an impromptu speech to his constituents just 
 before the election, he said he had obeyed the injunc- 
 tion of his physician almost literally. He had made 
 but one speech, at Bedford, and as to reading, he had 
 amused himself with only " a little light frivolous read- 
 ing. For instance, there was a serial account from 
 day to day of a very remarkable circus that traveled 
 through the country from Washington to Chicago and 
 
 1 Globe, July 28, 1866. - Life of Stevens. 
 
426 THE LIFE OF. THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 St. Louis, and from Louisville back to Washington. 
 I read that with some interest, expecting to see in so 
 celebrated an establishment, — one which from its 
 heralding was to beat Dan Rice and all the old cir- 
 cuses that ever went forth, — I expected great wit from 
 the celebrated character of its clowns. [Laughter.]. 
 They were well provided with clowns; instead of one, 
 there were two. One of these clowns was high in of- 
 fice and somewhat advanced in years ; the other was a 
 little less advanced in office, but older in years. They 
 started out with a very respectable stock company. In 
 order to attract attention they took with them, for in- 
 stance, a celebrated general; they took with them an 
 eminent naval officer, and they chained him to the rig- 
 ging so that he could not get away, though he tried to 
 do so once or twice. But the circus went on all the 
 time, — sometimes one clown performing and some- 
 times the other. For instance, the younger clown told 
 them, in the language of the ancient heroes who trod 
 the stage, that he had it in his power, if ' he chose, to 
 be a dictator.' The elder clown pointed to the other 
 one, and said to the people, ' Will you take him for 
 President or will you take him for King?' [Laugh- 
 ter.] He left you but one alternative. You are 
 obliged to take him for one or the other, either for 
 President or King, if ' My policy ' prevails. 
 
 " I am not following them all round. I shall not 
 describe to you how sometimes they cut outside the 
 circle, and entered into street broils with common 
 blackguards ; how they fought at Cleveland and In- 
 dianapolis. But, coming round, they told you, or one 
 of them did, that he had been every thing but one. 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 427 
 
 He had been a tailor, — I think he did not say drunken 
 tailor, — no, he had been a tailor. [Laughter.] He 
 had been a constable. [Laughter.] He had been city- 
 alderman. [Laughter.] He had been in the legisla- 
 ture. God help that legislature ! [Great merriment.] 
 He had been in Congress ; and now he was President. 
 He had been everything but one, — he had never been 
 a hangman, and he asked leave to hang Thad Stevens." 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 The speech at Bedford, referred to above, was one 
 of more serious purpose and more important in con- 
 tent. It was made on September 4, 1866, and is 
 well worth attention and preservation. In that speech 
 Stevens reviewed the difficulties of Congress for the 
 five years just passed, the doubts and difficulties in the 
 way when " their elected chief apostatized." He as- 
 serted that the work of reconstruction would have 
 been easy if the Executive had confined himself to his 
 proper sphere, since " the rebels were submissive and 
 asked only to be allowed their forfeited lives." He 
 retraced Johnson's usurpations, approving Justice Ruf- 
 fin, of North Carolina, in his denunciation of the Presi- 
 dent's dictating what the Southern States should do. 
 Not one of these governments, said Ruffin, had a law- 
 ful government. Stevens arraigned Johnson for using 
 the patronage of office to corrupt the people, and he 
 spoke with special fierceness against the doctrine set 
 up by Raymond, editor of the New York Times, for 
 " the President's squad," that the " awful horrors and 
 losses and wrongs of the war had made no difference 
 in the constitutions or institutions of the South ; and 
 that the nation had no power, in the South, territorial 
 
428 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 or civil, not possessed before the war broke out." 
 This idea Stevens denounced as " a strange, wild and 
 wicked doctrine." " Was there ever before a human 
 brain frenzied enough to engender such folly, or a hu- 
 man front brazen enough to utter it? The war had 
 changed everything, — old treaties and leagues had 
 ceased. They cry out against confiscation for crime 
 as if it were inhuman. God willing, I shall try it again 
 and see if they do not pay part of the cost and damages 
 of the war before they help to make our laws." 
 
 But the great issue, as he recognized it, was that of 
 negro rights. He would not dodge, nor flinch from 
 the Copperhead cry, " Nigger, Nigger, Nigger ! 
 Down with the Nigger party, we are the White Man's 
 party, we are urged to save the daughters of the whites 
 from negro husbands ! " " These unanswerable argu- 
 ments," said Stevens, " will be uttered by unprincipled 
 demagogues possessed of some cunning but no con- 
 science, and they will ring in every low barroom and 
 be printed in every blackguard sheet throughout the 
 land." 
 
 Stevens did not shrink from the issue presented by 
 the claims of the negroes, and he announced for the 
 Republicans the doctrine of equal rights, — the im- 
 mortal democratic creed which asserts that every hu- 
 man being should have equality before the law; that 
 " the laws should apply alike to every mortal, Ameri- 
 ican, Irish, African, German or Turk." 
 
 " I need not be admonished," he said, " that the sup- 
 port of this doctrine on the eve of an election is dan- 
 gerous, especially in counties bordering on the Slave 
 States. A deep-seated prejudice against races has dis- 
 
THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE 429 
 
 figured the human mind for ages. For two centuries 
 it has oppressed the black man and held him in bondage 
 after white salvery had ceased to exist. Now it de- 
 prives him of every right in the Southern States. We 
 have joined in inflicting these wrongs. How has the 
 Father of this blameless race rewarded this prejudice 
 and treated this despotism? Let the scarfs upon your 
 garments and the gory graves that dot a thousand 
 bloody battle-fields give the sad answer. 
 
 " This doctrine of human equality may be unpopu- 
 lar with besotted ignorance. But, popular or unpop- 
 ular, I shall stand by it until I am relieved of the 
 unprofitable labors of earth. Being the foundation of 
 our Republic I have full faith in its ultimate triumph. 
 I may not live to see it. I may not be worthy of such 
 happiness. If it is to be finally defeated and the hopes 
 of man thus extinguished, I pray God that when it 
 happens I may be insensible to human misery ; that my 
 senses may be locked in ' cold obstruction and in 
 death.' " 
 
 Is there anything in all of Stevens' long life incon- 
 sistent with this noble confession of political faith? 
 Though he stood facing great odds he dared to defy 
 the deep popular prejudices surrounding him, and his 
 campaign message sounded forth like a clarion note 
 or a high call to arms in defense of the rights of man, 
 — of black men as well as white. No man ever stood 
 with a more unswerving or a bolder front for this 
 fundamental article of democracy, — the equal rights 
 of all men beneath the law. In that cause his militant 
 courage never wavered, and his spirit was immortal. 
 
 The result of the election was an overwhelming de- 
 
430 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 feat for the President. The Republicans elected one 
 hundred and forty-three members to the House of 
 Representatives, the Democrats but forty-nine. This 
 gave the Republicans a three-fourths majority in the 
 House. They had carried every Union state with the 
 exception of Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. In 
 the Senate they had more than a two-thirds majority, 
 and it was evident that the congressional party would 
 be able to do as it chose in the matter of reconstruc- 
 tion, regardless of the opinions and vetoes of the Pres- 
 ident. The people had spoken in unmistakable tones 
 on the subject of reconstruction. The policy of the 
 President had been discredited; the policy of Con- 
 gress had been sustained. The popular will had been 
 made clear. It was now to be seen how the popular 
 mandate would be interpreted and observed by those 
 in places of power and responsibility. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 TX7'HEN Congress met in December, 1866, John- 
 * * son's policy of reconstruction was regarded as 
 res ad judicata. The country had sat in judgment upon 
 it and had thrown it out of court. It had been fully 
 explained to the people and as fully repudiated, while 
 Congress had received an endorsement that was em- 
 phatic and complete. If ever we needed in America 
 responsible ministerial government we needed it then. 
 We needed a working system by which the Executive, 
 after such a defeat upon an appeal to the people, would 
 have been forced to resign, and the administrative and 
 legislative branches of the government could have been 
 brought into unity and harmony upon the pressing is- 
 sue before the country. 
 
 After such a crushing defeat before the electorate, 
 Johnson should have resigned or modified his course. 
 He did neither. In his message of December, 1866, 
 he again boldly defended his policy. He asserted that 
 his convictions had undergone no change, but their 
 correctness had been confirmed by time; that the ten 
 political communities at the South " are nothing less 
 than states of this Union," and that " their right to 
 representation is as strong now as it will be ten years 
 hence." He renewed expression of his regret that 
 loyal Senators and Representatives from his recon- 
 
 431 
 
432 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 structed states had not been admitted to their vacant 
 seats in Congress, and the chief recommendation of 
 his message was for the speedy admission of Southern 
 members, which would, as he said, " consummate the 
 work of reconstruction." 
 
 This seemed like an obstinate reiteration of old 
 ideas, already discredited by the country, and it is not 
 surprising that Congress, refusing to pay any further 
 heed to Johnson, proceeded with plans of its own. It 
 was now known that the Fortieth Congress would 
 have a greater majority against the President and 
 would be more radical than the Thirty-ninth had been, 
 and it was hardly to be expected that, in the closing 
 session of the latter body, much respect or patience 
 would be shown toward Johnson's proposals. 
 
 Johnson had said at Cleveland that nothing could 
 turn him from his purpose " but the people and the 
 God who spoke me into existence." The people had 
 done what they could, but since no heed was given to 
 their voice, it was not to be wondered at that the con- 
 gressional leaders acted upon the theory that the voice 
 who had " spoken him into existence " had as little 
 weight in determining Johnson's course as the voice of 
 the people who had spoken in such unmistakable tones 
 at the ballot box; that if Johnson were guided by any 
 spiritual revelation apart from this world, it was a 
 revelation that came up, not down. A pious old 
 Scotchman had fervently prayed that he might be put 
 right at the outset, because, the Lord knows, if ever 
 he got wrong heaven and earth could not change him. 
 So it was with Johnson, the Obstinate, who had de- 
 termined in all respects what reconstruction should be, 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 433 
 
 and no verdict of earth or heaven was to be allowed 
 to change it. 
 
 For a President in such a state of mind there was 
 no further use. Since he could not be made to resign 
 he could be ignored. Hereafter Johnson is to be 
 looked upon merely as an obstacle to the work of mod- 
 erate and conservative reconstruction, or as one of the 
 factors on which the radicals might rely to promote 
 their ends. His obstinate and persistent refusal to co- 
 operate with Congress in reconstruction, and the un- 
 happy results that followed, will ever serve to remind 
 the student of this period of the great loss and calamity 
 that came to his country in the death of Abraham 
 Lincoln. 
 
 The people had commanded Congress to advance, 
 not to retreat. Moderate congressional leaders now 
 recognized and openly declared that the people had 
 demanded at the ballot box that an additional condi- 
 tion of reconstruction should be imposed. This meant 
 negro suffrage. 1 Reunion on the basis of the four- 
 teenth amendment might have been, but it was now too 
 late for that. Events were serving Stevens well, and 
 things were coming his way. The fall elections ; the 
 persistent attitude of Johnson in spite of the popular 
 mandate ; and the action of the Southern Legislatures 
 in rejecting the fourteenth amendment, — all these 
 played directly into the hands of the radical leader. 
 He now used Johnson's obstinacy and his discredited 
 policy for purposes of party discipline. If he could 
 convict any lingering weak-kneed Republican of be- 
 
 1 See Blaine, in the House, Dec. ioth, 1866, and Fessenden and 
 Edmunds, in the Senate, Dec. 19th and 20th. 
 
434 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ing tinged with " Andy Johnsonism," it was sufficient 
 for his purpose. 
 
 But a most powerful weapon in his hand, for his 
 radical work, was the attitude of the South toward 
 the fourteenth amendment. It has been charged that 
 Stevens and the radicals neither desired nor expected 
 that the South would ratify the fourteenth amendment, 
 and that the punitive clause of that amendment was 
 inserted with the deliberate purpose of preventing its 
 ratification by the South, and thus defeating its adop- 
 tion. 1 It is impossible to see how this could be be- 
 lieved concerning Stevens, whose outspoken opinions 
 on the subject were known of all men. He was un- 
 willing to have the South consulted in the matter. If 
 his opponents urged that policy, that was their busi- 
 ness, not his. If this charge were believed by John- 
 son and his political advisers in the North, common 
 political sagacity would have suggested that they should 
 seek to circumvent the radicals by throwing their sup- 
 port to the amendment. If the President with the 
 Democratic party at the North had, at any time after 
 the amendment were offered, advised the people of the 
 South to accept it and come into the Union on the 
 terms that it offered, as Tennessee had been permitted 
 to do, it could have been accomplished. 2 
 
 Johnson and his followers pursued exactly the op- 
 posite course. The President advised the Southern 
 
 1 " This seems to have been inserted for the express purpose 
 of preventing the adoption by the Southern States of any of the 
 amendments proposed. It may not be the -motive of the com- 
 mittee, but it will be the result of their action." Raymond, in 
 the House, May 9, 1866. See, also, Dewit's Impeachment of 
 Johnson, pp. 93^96, and Rhodes, V, p. 609. 
 
 2 Garfield, in the House, Feb. 12, 1867, Globe. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 435 
 
 Legislatures to reject the amendment. He would yield 
 nothing to Congress. He denied the right of Con- 
 gress to pass the amendment while some of the states 
 were unrepresented, and he led the South to hope that 
 a new Congress might offer easier terms. Samuel J. 
 Randall, Democratic member from Pennsylvania, said 
 it were better to punish the Southern leaders by ban- 
 ishment, or otherwise, and not put a stigma upon a 
 whole people; they would not belie their natures by 
 " writing themselves down as slaves at the bidding of 
 this central directory." 1 Randall quoted a fierce de- 
 nunciation of the fourteenth amendment from an ed- 
 itorial in the New York Times that was calculated to 
 further arouse and stiffen resistance in the South. Ac- 
 cording to the Times the amendment was but a " bur- 
 lesque and a farce," and its proper designation should 
 be, " a plan to prolong indefinitely the exclusion of the 
 South from Congress, by imposing conditions to which 
 the Southern people would never submit." Raymond, 
 of New York, a Johnson Republican, asserted in the 
 House that the Southern States would not seek rep- 
 resentation on the conditions proposed ; they " would 
 not purchase the mockery of representation at such a 
 price." They would take their chances on a new dis- 
 pensation, and would wait to see whether in three 
 short years the government would not come into 
 the hands of " the late rebels and their Northern 
 allies." 2 Senator Dixon, of Connecticut, also a John- 
 son Republican, spoke to the same effect. He pre- 
 
 1 House, May 10, 1866. This was said of the first form of 
 the third section of the amendment. 
 
 2 Globe, May 9, 1866. 
 
436 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 dieted (the wish obviously being father to the 
 thought) that the South would wait to see what the 
 next elections would develop, and he said it was 
 " hardly worth while to discuss the merits of measures 
 which to be valid must be accepted by communities 
 which are sure to reject them." 1 
 
 Stevens' plan, of course, would have been wiser, — 
 to have adopted the fourteenth amendment without 
 asking the consent of the Southern States. It must 
 be confessed that Congress showed a lack of common 
 sense and sagacity in asking the Southern leaders and 
 their people deliberately to consent to their own pun- 
 ishment, — a punishment that was made to appear to 
 a proud people like a humiliation. It was said that 
 they were asked to be the instruments of their own 
 dishonor, and to put a stigma upon the men whom they 
 had elected to lead their cause. But that was not 
 Stevens' policy, and in the light of the repeated en- 
 couragements that Johnson and his Northern sup- 
 porters gave to the South to reject the plan that Con- 
 gress saw fit to impose, it is hardly reasonable to 
 charge upon Stevens and the radicals responsibility 
 for that rejection. 2 That responsibility lay else- 
 where. 
 
 True, Stevens expected the Southern States to act 
 as they did. The offer of the fourteenth amendment 
 to the South, against his will, merely gave him an 
 
 1 Globe, May 2, 1866, p. 2332. 
 
 2 Some of the Johnson State Legislatures in the South would 
 very probably have ratified the fourteenth amendment if it had 
 not been for the President's direct interference and advice. He 
 was constantly urging, by letter and telegram, that " there 
 should be no faltering " in the sustainment of " my policy," and 
 holding out false promises as to what they might expect. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 437 
 
 added advantage ; he could now plausibly assert that 
 its rejection and the testimony of his opponents in en- 
 couraging its rejection, exactly confirmed what he had 
 said all along, namely, that the ex-Confederates were 
 not disposed to submit to the national authority any 
 further than they were compelled to by the necessity 
 of force; that if left to a free choice their spirit would 
 be that of defiance. Now that they had had a chance 
 to show their temper, the proof was positive. By the 
 close of 1866 all but three of the Southern Legisla- 
 tures, following the advice of Johnson and the North- 
 ern Democratic party, had rejected this amendment, 
 and it was known that the other three would soon fol- 
 low in the same policy. In many cases this rejection 
 was almost unanimous, in some cases peremptory. 
 " The most votes they got for it were four," as Stevens 
 said, while combating Bingham's policy of waiting 
 still further for the adoption of the fourteenth amend- 
 ment. This certainly seemed like an attitude of de- 
 fiance, if not of contempt. The radicals could now 
 urge w r ith force that terms had been offered that were 
 moderate, reasonable, and fair; that the terms had 
 been rejected with arrogance, and that these spates 
 with increased political power, should never again en- 
 ter the halls of Congress, until " they had changed 
 their tone and manner." * 
 
 The way this action appeared to the people of the 
 North was repeatedly reflected in Congress. ' The 
 last one of the sinful ten," said Garfield, " has at last, 
 with scorn and contempt, flung back into our teeth, 
 the magnanimous offer of a generous nation. It is 
 
 x Wade, Senate, Dec. 14, 1866. 
 
438 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 now our turn to act. They would not cooperate with 
 us in rebuilding what they had destroyed. We must 
 remove the rubbish and rebuild from the bottom." 1 
 Congress had, in good faith, offered the plan of the 
 fourteenth amendment to the country, and it was un- 
 derstood, though there was no express pledge to that 
 effect, that the great turning point in the readmission 
 of the states was its adoption by the South. What 
 motive was there in its rejection but a spirit of dis- 
 loyalty, or a partisan purpose for the recovery of 
 power in the hope of being able later to dictate terms 
 that would suit themselves? This was the way the 
 matter appeared to nine-tenths of the victorious Re- 
 publicans of the North. 
 
 Under the circumstances it was not difficult for 
 Stevens and his fellow radicals to convince their party 
 colleagues in Congress that it was the expectation and 
 purpose of their opponents, by a combination of the 
 President, the Democratic party of the North, and the 
 solid unreconstructed South, to restore the " rebels," 
 not only to their rights, but to political power within 
 the Union. New provisions and guarantees must be 
 had to prevent this consummation. 
 
 No one could doubt the honesty of Stevens' pur- 
 pose, nor his deep convictions. His qualities as a 
 party leader now stood out preeminently. Flis leader- 
 ship had been potent before; the party situation now 
 made it absolute. 2 Stevens deemed it his bounden 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 6, 1867. 
 
 2 " Stevens and Sumner were now to see the triumph of their 
 doctrines which had long been treated with contumacy and 
 ridicule. Stevens, truculent, vindictive, and cynical, dominated 
 the House of Representatives in the second session of this Con- 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 439 
 
 duty to do all that in him lay to circumvent and con- 
 found the party politics of his opponents, and secure 
 the dominance of his own, the only true party of the 
 Union. He believed that negro suffrage would help 
 his party to retain power; he therefore favored negro 
 suffrage. He did not urge it as an abstract proposi- 
 tion, nor as necessary to a fair equality of human 
 rights. 1 Though he believed devotedly in the equality 
 of all men before the law in their right to life, liberty 
 and happiness, yet he did not regard voting, regardless 
 of qualification, as a natural right, and in urging un- 
 qualified negro suffrage at this time, he was governed 
 chiefly by his party interests. He was no hypocrite 
 and he made no concealment of his purpose. 
 
 " I believe upon my conscience," he said, " that on 
 the continued ascendency of that party depends the 
 safety of this great nation. If impartial suffrage is 
 excluded in the rebel states every one of them is sure 
 to send a solid rebel delegation to Congress and cast a 
 solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred 
 Copperheads in the North will elect the President and 
 control Congress." 2 
 
 In this Stevens merely voiced the opinion of an 
 overwhelming majority of his countrymen. Those 
 who deplore the mistakes of reconstruction — and 
 those mistakes were many, — and those who are ac- 
 
 gress with even less opposition than in the first. A keen and 
 relentlessly logical mind, an ever ready gift of biting sarcasm 
 and stinging repartee, and a total lack of scruple as to means 
 in the pursuit of a legislative end, secured him an ascendency in 
 the House which none of his party associates ever dreamed of 
 disputing." Dunning, Reconstruction, pp. 86-87. 
 
 1 See p. 389. 
 
 2 Globe, Jan. 3, 1867. 
 
440 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 customed to think of Thaddeus Stevens as a partisan 
 and vindictive reprobate, who was personally respon- 
 sible for all the ills of those unhappy times, would do 
 well to remember that the partisanship of Stevens was 
 merely the partisanship of his day. He undoubtedly 
 had the endorsement, if not the clear and direct man- 
 date, of his party constituency in the North, as well 
 as the backing of his party majority in Congress. 
 What he did, he did by their approval and consent. It 
 is also well to reflect that for the two cardinal errors 
 in the early history of reconstruction, — those relating 
 to the great amendment that was generously offered 
 as a basis of reunion, — Thaddeus Stevens was cer- 
 tainly not responsible. The first of these errors was 
 in submitting the amendment to the Southern States; 
 the second was in their defiant rejection of it upon its 
 submission, — an action which was one of the most 
 potent and most fatal factors in the whole history of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 It is, of course, no tribute to Stevens to suggest that 
 if these errors had been avoided his further purposes 
 would have been thwarted. But if better things came 
 to worse it should be recognized that others were re- 
 sponsible as well as he, and fairness requires that this 
 be appreciated properly, as we come to view the un- 
 fortunate policy of reconstruction in which Stevens 
 now becomes the prime promoter. 
 
 At the close of 1866, Johnson's plan having been 
 eliminated, there were open to the congressional lead- 
 ers two possible modes of dealing with the problem of 
 the South. One was to adopt a waiting policy that 
 would let the Southern States alone, recognize them 
 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 441 
 
 as organized states with federal rights suspended, but 
 refuse them representation until they were ready to 
 reconsider their action, and, of their accord, accede 
 to the terms that Congress had proposed in the four- 
 teenth amendment. The other mode pointed to a pol- 
 icy of national interference and control that would 
 supersede the governments set up by President John- 
 son, and set up new governments that would be ac- 
 ceptable to Congress, in the meantime governing the 
 South by national authority until such time as Con- 
 gress saw fit to restore statehood. 
 
 The more radical policy was adopted and Congress 
 began the work of reconstruction anew, — " clearing 
 away the rubbish and building from the bottom up," 
 as Garfield expressed it. This was, on the whole, 
 probably the wiser of the two courses for Congress to 
 adopt, but a combination of untoward circumstances 
 seemed destined to prevent Congress from adopting a 
 scheme of reorganization that was moderate and wise. 1 
 There was no longer any hope of cooperation between 
 President and Congress; the rejection of the four- 
 teenth amendment showed that the problem had to be 
 met in the midst of sectional passion and resentment; 
 the frequent and cruel Southern outrages — or the be- 
 lief in the Northern mind that such outrages were of 
 common occurrence — toward the negroes and Union 
 
 1 Professor Burgess, an eminent political scientist and a stu- 
 dent of this period of American history, says that " there can 
 be no question in the mind of any sound political scientist and 
 constitutional lawyer, that Congress was in the right in brush- 
 ing aside the results of Executive reconstruction in 1S67, and in 
 beginning the work itself from the bottom up. It ought to have 
 done so in 1865. . . . While it is strange that Congress did not 
 follow this course in 1865 it is simply astounding that it made 
 such a mess of it in 1867." Reconstruction. 
 
442 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 men of the South, leading to the belief that there must 
 be immediate national protection; the feeling that the 
 ballot might be a weapon of self-protection for the 
 negro; Republican bitterness toward Johnson on ac- 
 count of his partisan removals; serious divisions 
 within the councils and among the leaders of the Re- 
 publican party, — these circumstances, combined with 
 the fact that the problem had to be met in the short 
 session of a few weeks, amid other pressing business 
 of importance, will serve to explain, if not to excuse, 
 what has been considered the culpable shortcoming of 
 the final congressional plan of reconstruction. 
 
 These extenuating circumstances, the conflicts and 
 cross-purposes in the midst of haste and hurry, as well 
 as Stevens' agency in the progress of events, are re- 
 vealed in the record of the last session of the Thirty- 
 ninth Congress. 
 
 At the opening of Congress in December, 1866, the 
 Joint Committee on Reconstruction was reappointed, 
 the life of the old committee having expired with the 
 previous session. 1 One of the earliest matters to 
 which Congress directed its attention was that of fix- 
 ing a day for the meeting of the Fortieth Congress. 
 Johnson was not to be left again to direct affairs alone 
 during a recess of Congress. The latter body was de- 
 termined to regulate the times of its own sessions, that 
 it might be in position to regulate and control in mat- 
 ters of reconstruction. Accordingly, on December 3, 
 1866, Schenck, of Ohio, introduced a bill providing 
 for the meeting of the Fortieth Congress immediately 
 upon the expiration of the Thirty-ninth, — so distrusts 
 
 1 December 4, 1866. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 443 
 
 ful and antagonistic was Congress toward the Execu- 
 tive. This bill passed both houses and became a law 
 on January 10, 1867. 
 
 At the opening of the session the problem of re- 
 construction was pending before Congress under two 
 forms. One proposal was the bill of April 30, 1866, 
 promising restoration on the basis of the fourteenth 
 amendment and the establishment, in the Southern 
 States, of a republican form of government. This 
 had come before Congress by the order and sanc- 
 tion of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. It 
 recognized the Southern communities as organized 
 states, competent to ratify an amendment. It in- 
 volved the submission of the amendment to those 
 states and the recognition of the validity of Johnson's 
 work in reconstruction to a large extent. 
 
 This was the policy of waiting, of patience, of giv- 
 ing the South another chance at the conservative offer 
 already rejected. This was the policy still favored by 
 the more moderate Republicans led by John A. Bing- 
 ham, of Ohio. It is hardly necessary to say that this 
 was not the policy of Stevens. He set himself, as he 
 had been in the previous session, in stout opposition to 
 it, and the difference of view on this policy led to a 
 breach, if not to bitterness, between Stevens and 
 Bingham, two of the ablest of the congressional lead- 
 ers. 
 
 The other proposal before Congress was a substi- 
 tute offered by Stevens, on January 3, 1867, not on 
 behalf of the committee, but for himself. He offered 
 this as a substitute, also, for the bill that he had in- 
 troduced and discussed in the closing days of the pre- 
 
444 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ceeding session. 1 Stevens' substitute asserted that the 
 Southern States had forfeited their rights under the 
 Constitution; that they could be reinstated only by 
 action of Congress, and it prescribed a method by 
 which those states were to be permitted to form valid 
 state governments. The Johnson governments were 
 recognized as valid, not as state governments, but for 
 municipal purposes only, and provisions were set forth 
 for holding new state conventions and forming and 
 adopting new constitutions. In the process of new 
 state-making a new electorate was created. The ne- 
 groes were included, — " all male citizens above the age 
 of twenty-one years " ; but all persons who held office, 
 civil or military, under the Confederacy, were declared 
 to have " forfeited their citizenship " and were not to 
 be allowed to vote until five years after they had de- 
 clared their desire to be reinvested with the rights of 
 citizenship, and, renouncing allegiance to all other 
 governments, had sworn allegiance to the United 
 States. 
 
 This was virtually an enabling act providing for the 
 making of new states in the South on the basis of 
 negro suffrage, and the exclusion of the leading ex- 
 Confederates. 
 
 On these two policies, or proposals, an extended de- 
 bate occurred, lasting until the last of January, 1867, 
 till so late in the session that if anything were done at 
 all by the Thirty-ninth Congress it had to be done in a 
 hurry. Such a diversity of opinion developed on the 
 Republican side that Stevens himself was disposed to 
 have his measure laid on the table, and to let the prob- 
 1 See p. 420. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 445 
 
 lem of reconstruction go over to the Fortieth Con- 
 gress. 1 In proposing his bill, Stevens made an ex- 
 tended speech, on January 3, 1867. He urged early 
 action, as he deemed it important that some conclu- 
 sion should be arrived at as to what should be done 
 with the rebel states. They were getting worse and 
 worse, and action was now all the more necessary on 
 account of the late decision of the Supreme Court in 
 the Milligan case. In this case the Court had decided 
 that military commissions and trials by courts martial 
 were unconstitutional, except where a state of war pre- 
 vented the civil courts from acting. ' That decision," 
 said Stevens, " although in terms perhaps not as in- 
 famous as the Dred Scott decision, is yet far more 
 dangerous in its operation upon the lives and liberties 
 of the loyal men in the rebel states. . . . That decision 
 has unsheathed the dagger of the assassin, and places 
 the knife of the rebel at the throat of every man who 
 dares to proclaim himself to be now, or to have been 
 heretofore, a loyal Union man. If the doctrine enun- 
 ciated in that decision be true, never were the people of 
 any country, anywhere or at any time, in such terrible 
 
 1 The strained relation between Stevens and Bingham is re- 
 vealed in the debates. Bingham sought to have Stevens' bill 
 referred to the Reconstruction Committee, to delay its passage 
 or materially to modify it. Stevens believed that this would be 
 to send it to its grave. His former bill had been sent to this 
 "tomb of the Capulets," and he wished that whatever amend- 
 ments the House saw fit to propose in the process of perfecting 
 the bill, should be offered in the House without reference to 
 the committee. Bingham remarked that he did "not concur 
 in the declaration of the venerable gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 vania, that the recommitment of the bill is equivalent to its 
 death," whereupon Stevens retorted that he had not asked his 
 concurrence, and in "all this contest about reconstruction I do 
 not propose either to take his counsel, recognize his authority, 
 or believe a word he says." Globe, Jan. 28, 1867, p. 816. 
 
446 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 peril as are our loyal brethren at the South." Unless 
 Congress acts speedily for the protection of the freed- 
 man and Unionist at the South " against the barba- 
 rians who are daily murdering them," he asked every 
 man who loved liberty whether " we shall not be liable 
 to the just censure of the world for our negligence or 
 cowardice." 
 
 His bill w r as designed to enable loyal men to form 
 governments that would be in loyal hands, by which 
 they might protect themselves from these outrages. 
 The Johnson governments " would not convict the 
 murderers that were being turned loose under the Mill 
 ligan decision," saved from trial by United States 
 military authorities; and provision must be made that 
 such construction should not open the door to greater 
 injuries. 
 
 " Congress must not allow the revolution through 
 which the country had been passing to subside until the 
 nation has been erected into a perfect republic. But 
 little had been done toward establishing the govern- 
 ment on the ti*ue principles of liberty and justice. We 
 have broken the material shackles of four million 
 slaves. We have unchained them from the stake and 
 allowed them locomotion, provided they do not walk in 
 paths that are trod by white men. . . . We have im- 
 posed upon them the privilege of fighting our battles, 
 of dying in defense of freedom, of bearing their equal 
 portion of taxes, but where have we given them the 
 privilege of ever participating in the formation of the 
 laws of the government of their native land? By 
 what civil weapon have we enabled them to defend 
 themselves against oppression and injustice? Call 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 447 
 
 you this liberty, where four millions are subjects, but 
 not citizens ? Then Persia with her kings and satraps 
 was free; then Turkey is free! Their subjects had 
 liberty of motion, but the laws were made without and 
 against their will. . . . Think not I would slander my 
 native land ; I would reform it. Twenty years ago I 
 denounced it as a despotism; then twenty million 
 while men enchained four million black men. I pro- 
 nounce it no nearer a true republic now when twenty- 
 five million of a privileged class exclude five million 
 from all participation in the rights of government." 1 
 
 Then Stevens again set forth at length his theory as 
 to the belligerent states of the South. He denied to 
 the President, the mere servant of the sovereign people, 
 who issue their orders to him through Congress, any 
 power to create new states, or to dictate organic laws, 
 or to fix the qualification of voters, or to determine 
 that states are republican. " Though the President is 
 Commander-in-chief, Congress is his commander, and, 
 God willing, he shall obey. He and his minions shall 
 learn that this is not a government of kings and 
 satraps, but a government of the people, and that 
 Congress is the people." Congress has all power but 
 what is executive and judicial. 
 
 He reviewed the shortcomings of the President's 
 policy that had been condemned by the country. In 
 opposition he demanded that the conquered belligerent, 
 according to the law of nations, should pay at least a 
 part of the damages and expenses of the war; and es- 
 pecially that the loyal people who were plundered and 
 impoverished by rebel raiders, should be fully indemni- 
 
 1 Globe, January 3, 1867. 
 
448 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 fied. Treason should be made odious, not by bloody 
 executions, but by other adequate punishments. 
 
 These states are now without governments. They 
 must have enabling acts. They must be placed under 
 the guardianship of loyal men, or the blood and treas- 
 ure of the war would have been spent in vain. He 
 would waive at the time the matter of punishment, 
 though wisdom prompted, in future, moderate confisca- 
 tions both as reproof and example. Impartial suf- 
 frage was to be the rule. That principle had been 
 fixed in regard to the territories and the District of 
 Columbia, and there is more reason why the colored 
 voters should be admitted in the rebel states, being 
 the great bulk of the loyal people. Otherwise these 
 states would be ruled by traitors, and loyal men 
 would be oppressed, exiled, or murdered. Loyal 
 blacks had a better right to choose rulers and make 
 laws than rebel whites. It is necessary to the protec- 
 tion of the loyal white men. The blacks and the loyal 
 whites would act in a body, and, united, they would 
 form a majority, control the states, and protect them- 
 selves. 
 
 Such a measure as the one for which he was plead- 
 ing had been urged by the late convention of Southern 
 loyalists at Philadelphia ; without it these Union men 
 would be the victims of daily persecutions. 
 
 He then spoke of the party purpose. 1 " You must," 
 he said, " divide the South between loyalists, without 
 regard to color, and disloyalists, or you will be the per- 
 petual vassals of the free-trade, irritated, revengeful 
 South. For these, among other reasons, I am for the 
 
 1 See p. 391. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 449 
 
 negro suffrage in every rebel state. If it be just, it 
 should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be 
 adopted; if it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve 
 it. 
 
 " But it will be said, ' This is negro equality ! ' 
 What is negro equality, about which so much is said 
 by knaves, and some of which is believed by men who 
 are not fools? It means, as understood by honest re- 
 publicans, just this much and no more : Every man, 
 no matter what his race or color; every earthly being 
 who has an immortal soul, has an equal right to justice, 
 honesty and fair play with every other man; and the 
 law should secure him those rights. The same law 
 which condemns or acquits an African, should con- 
 demn or acquit a white man. The same law which 
 gives a verdict in a white man's favor should give a 
 verdict in a black man's favor on the same state of 
 facts. Such is the law of God, and such ought to be 
 the law of man. This doctrine does not mean that a 
 negro shall sit on the same seat or eat at the same 
 table with a white man. That is a matter of taste 
 which every man must decide for himself. The law 
 has nothing to do with it. If there be any who are 
 afraid of the rivalry of the black man, let them meet 
 their competitors in a fair field, and there will be no 
 danger that their white neighbors will prefer the Afri- 
 cans to themselves. But there will be danger that 
 those will be distanced in the race who are influenced 
 by this senseless cry of negro equality, for I have 
 never seen even a contraband slave who had not more 
 sense than such men." 
 
 Suffrage for the negro is a step forward. It is " an 
 
45o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 assault upon ignorance and prejudice, and timid men 
 shrink from it. Are such men fit to sit in the places 
 of statesmen? There are periods in the history of na- 
 tions when statesmen can make themselves names for 
 posterity; but such occasions are never improved by 
 cowards. In the acquisition of true fame courage is 
 just as necessary in the civilian as in the military hero. 
 It was courage that made Luther the great man of the 
 Reformation, around whom the others revolve as 
 satellites and shine by his light. We may not aspire 
 to fame. But great events fix the eye of history on 
 small objects and magnify their meanness. Let us at 
 least escape that condition." 1 
 
 Between this radical program of Stevens' and the 
 more conservative spirits on the Republican side of the 
 House, there was to be another trial of strength. 
 Bingham, leader of the conservative Republicans, 
 made a plea for the " grander qualities of magnanimity 
 and mercy " rather than " stern, relentless, even- 
 handed justice," and Mr. Rhodes expresses the opinion 
 that despite the irritation caused by the rejection of the 
 amendment by the Southern States, such were the 
 differences which cropped out when the details of any 
 measure were considered, that no further act of re- 
 construction would probably have been passed at this 
 session had it not been for the able and despotic parlia- 
 mentary leadership of Stevens. 2 
 
 1 In this extract I have made some condensation without 
 always indicating omissions, but I think I have faithfully re- 
 flected the substance, meaning, and temper of Stevens' utter- 
 ance. 
 
 2 Rhodes says further of Stevens in this passage: "The old 
 man's energy was astonishing. Vindictiveness seemed to ani- 
 mate his frame. Already bitter enough in his personal antago- 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 451 
 
 Early in the session, 1 Spalding, of Ohio, prompted 
 by Bingham, as Stevens believed, offered a resolution 
 requesting the Committee on Reconstruction to con- 
 sider the propriety of again proposing to receive the 
 Senators and Representatives from the South, if they 
 would ratify the fourteenth amendment. Spalding, 
 who could speak of Stevens as his " only senior in this 
 House," complained that he could never take the floor 
 " without being subjected to the caustic criticism of 
 the learned gentleman from Pennsylvania." Spald- 
 ing sought to explain his position and to defend him- 
 self and his more conservative proposal against 
 Stevens' attacks. He pleaded for time before other 
 and more violent measures were adopted. " Let the 
 fourteenth amendment be in the train of adoption 
 where it now is till the fourth of March, then if we 
 find the measure is repudiated with contempt, and 
 flung back in our faces," he pledged himself to go with 
 Stevens and his bill. He urged Congress to proceed 
 with caution, to " listen to the counsels of reason 
 rather than the impulses of passion." Congress was 
 now being urged to impeach the President and to con- 
 fer the franchise on the freedmen. " What will our 
 people at home think of these rank and radical meas- 
 ures? " 2 asked Spalding. 
 
 Bingham supported Spalding in this policy. He 
 
 nism to Johnson and the Southern people, he added to this 
 bitterness by frequent consultations with those whom he termed 
 'loyal men from the South' who hated 'the national leaders of 
 opinion,' the men of brain and education in their section, and 
 who aimed at supplanting them in political influence and power."' 
 History of the United States, Vol. VI, p. 14. 
 
 1 December 10, 1866. 
 
 2 Globe, Jan. 5, 1867. 
 
452 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVEXS 
 
 wished not to recede from the principles of the four- 
 teenth amendment. This amendment had been offi- 
 cially recognized by the committee, and had been given 
 out by Congress as the best basis for future reconstruc- 
 tion. Stevens' more radical proposal had been of- 
 fered, as Bingham contended, in a spirit of hostility to 
 this amendment, " in the spirit of a distinguished man 
 of this country [referring to Johnson] who had been 
 making war on the amendment, and asking Congress 
 to fling the swindling amendment out of the window." 
 An effort was being made, Bingham asserted, to get 
 the people to reject this amendment as a basis of resto- 
 ration, — the firm enduring basis of fundamental law 
 for a repealable act in assumption of powers not be- 
 longing to Congress. Bingham contended that Con- 
 gress had power to propose the pending amendment to 
 the Johnson states organized as they were ; that the 
 people of these states might recognize their local 
 state governments and ratify the amendment. He 
 sought to sustain his position by the analogy of North 
 Carolina and Rhode Island in 1789 and 1790. 
 " These states, not in the Union nor of the Union, did 
 ratify and accept the Constitution, and thereupon were 
 admitted to representation in Congress. ... So I sub- 
 mit, the people of the insurrectionary states may pro- 
 ceed with the work of reorganizing, the formation of a 
 constitution, the election of a legislature, and the for- 
 mal ratification of a constitutional amendment, and all 
 they do in that behalf may by subsequent act of the 
 national sovereignty, by resolution, be made valid." j 
 Bingham's argument was a mass of inconsistent 
 1 Congressional Globe, Jan. 16, 1867. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 453 
 
 cies and could lead to nothing but confusion in political 
 thought, and inefficiency in political action. Stevens 
 was perfectly right in denouncing it as absurd and per- 
 nicious, and it was a position which a man of Stevens' 
 keen and relentless logic found it quite easy to demol- 
 ish. In one passage Stevens' opponents in this con- 
 troversy would assert that " to ratify a constitutional 
 amendment is the exercise of the power of a state of 
 the Union " ; 1 in another it would be distinctly affirmed 
 that " those states have no power whatever as states 
 of this Union," and that they could not prevent the 
 other states from adopting the fourteenth amendment 
 and making it valid. 2 Bingham recognized that the 
 executive and judicial departments of the government 
 were arrayed against this latter view, and he went so 
 far as to assert that if the Supreme Court should ven- 
 ture to declare the adoption of the fourteenth amend- 
 ment by this process unconstitutional and invalid, the 
 people might see fit to abolish the court itself, — an ut- 
 terance so radical in its suggestion as to put to shame 
 anything that Stevens had ever proposed toward a 
 coordinate department of the government. For one 
 purpose it was asserted that these Southern communi- 
 ties were states for self-direction and control in de- 
 termining their relation to the Union, and their deci- 
 sion on questions of their fundamental law; for an- 
 ther purpose it was affirmed that " these disorganized 
 Southern States have no power to legislate on any 
 subject touching life, liberty or property, save by the 
 sufferance of the nation represented in Congress, 
 whose legislative power is absolute and exclusive with- 
 1 Bingham, January 16. - Bingham, January 16. 
 
454 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 in these regions that have by rebellion ceased to 
 possess the legal co-active force for local state govern- 
 ment." Congress should hold out the olive branch 
 of peace once more, in the shape of the amendment, 
 to states legally competent to accept it; but if they 
 did not accept they were to be thrown over as illegal 
 states, and valid and legitimate states were to be set 
 up in their stead, to be composed of loyal Union men. 
 
 The more one reads of these confused and confusing 
 utterances, the more one understands the valid reason 
 for Stevens' unquestioned leadership. He had the un- 
 clouded mind to see things clearly and to think 
 through the problem of constitutional restraints with 
 logical accuracy. He knew his solution and the 
 ground for it. He had a doctrine that was consistent, 
 and he was without fear of successful attack upon it. 
 He was at times defeated, often on important proposi- 
 tions, and had to accept less than what he contended 
 for; but from the hour the struggle opened he neither 
 doubted nor wavered as to what he wanted, and dur- 
 ing all the long struggle he never laid down a propo- 
 sition in debate on which he could be convicted of ob- 
 scurity or inconsistency. He never had to retract, 
 but repeatedly he had the satisfaction of seeing his 
 tardy Republican colleagues come forward to occupy 
 the position that he had held from the start. It was 
 these qualities, — firmness of purpose, clearness of 
 vision and the absence of all doubt and fear — that 
 now enabled him again to overcome his inconsistent 
 and more wavering Republican colleagues. 
 
 Stevens was in the habit of calling things by the 
 names that he thought applied to them. Is he to be 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 455 
 
 censured greatly for denouncing the argument of 
 Bingham and his conservative coadjutors, as absurd 
 nonsense ? Was not such a contention a " pernicious 
 obstruction to sound work " in reconstruction? Was 
 the position of his opponents any thing short of self- 
 stultification on the part of Congress? If Johnson's 
 states were to be declared illegal it should have been 
 because they were illegal. If they were illegal they 
 had no right to act on the amendment. So far Con- 
 gress had not recognized these states by any deliberate 
 act; but to submit the amendment would be to admit 
 their legality, and then, how could Congress proceed 
 to overthrow them on the ground that they had no 
 legal right to be? 
 
 Toward those whom Stevens regarded as weak and 
 wavering Republican opponents on this proposition, 
 he was, as usual, unsparing in his severity. He de- 
 nounced the idea that the fourteenth amendment was 
 to be the final action of Congress with reference to 
 the readmission of the states, as the most " pernicious 
 heresy ever promulgated anywhere by any party. It 
 left us open, if adopted, to the influx from the South 
 of all the unreconstructed rebels that chose to come 
 here. When three-fourths of the loyal states have 
 ratified that amendment it becomes a part of the Con- 
 stitution. What, then, is there for the, Southern 
 States to do but to send their representatives here? If 
 that doctrine is to prevail there is no power to keep 
 them out. . . . What rebel sympathizer could propose 
 a more pernicious action ? " " Now, sir, I think I saw 
 this tadpole before it had its present shape." Its pres- 
 ent form is due to Bingham. — a soft invitation, a feel- 
 
456 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ing the way. It distinctly invites and legalizes the 
 action of those states on the amendment; while we 
 deny that they have any power or legal right to act as 
 states. Could anything more effectually stultify this 
 body? "The gentleman (Mr. Spalding) did not in- 
 tend to stultify us, but he would have done it un- 
 doubtedly." 
 
 As to his animus in urging the policy that he wished 
 adopted, Stevens asserted that while dealing boldly 
 and fearlessly with principles, he wished to deal fairly 
 and justly with all individuals of all parties. He 
 claimed that the adoption of the fourteenth amend- 
 ment had no bearing whatever on reconstruction, ex- 
 cept by providing in its vital feature, " that they shall 
 not overwhelm us by a representation based upon the 
 negroes who are not voters." 
 
 Instead of placing before these communities a 
 proposition that none but states could act upon, Stev- 
 ens proposed to repudiate their pretended governments, 
 erected under a " bastard reconstruction " ; to regu- 
 late them, and direct them to go on and form such 
 governments as Congress should order them to form. 
 He had voted for the admission of Tennessee, not be- 
 cause that state had ratified the fourteenth amend- 
 ment, which was of no importance, except as an evi- 
 dence of loyalty, but because that state had adopted a 
 republican form of government and its new constitu- 
 tion had been ratified by the people. He insisted that 
 Congress should hold the ground he had held from the 
 first : that " these disloyal states are not states known 
 to us, but are captive provinces with certain municipal 
 
 .■ 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 457 
 
 institutions which we do not propose yet to disturb, 
 but which are referred to in my enabling acts." 
 
 In voting to admit Tennessee he had shut his eyes 
 to the fact that " a loyal negro had been put on the 
 same footing with a rebel, in being excluded from the 
 ballot, and he gave notice that he would never vote for 
 the admission of another state without negro suf- 
 frage. When Maynard, of Tennessee, reminded him 
 that if a rebel should go to Pennsylvania he would find 
 political fellowship there, while a loyal negro could 
 not, Stevens replied that Pennsylvania ought to blush, 
 and many others of the Free States ought to blush for 
 the infamous exclusion to which the gentleman refers. 
 But will our blushes whiten the countenance of Ten- 
 nessee? " 1 
 
 1 Congressional Globe, Jan. 5, 1867. 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION {continued) 
 
 N spite of Stevens' objection, his substitute bill, to- 
 gether with the original measure of the committee, 
 was referred to the Joint Committee on Reconstruc- 
 tion, January 28, 1867. Ten days later (February 
 6th), by the instruction of the committee, one Repub- 
 lican dissenting, 1 Stevens reported a new bill to the 
 House. This involved the plan for military recon- 
 struction that resulted in the famous Reconstruction 
 Act of March, 1867. The bill set aside " the pre- 
 tended state governments of the late so-called Con- 
 federate States, since they were set up without the 
 authority of Congress or the sanction of the people; 
 it divided these states into five military districts 
 and made them subject to military rule; the Gen- 
 eral of the army (Grant) was to assign to the com- 
 mand of each district a regular army officer not be- 
 low the rank of Brigadier General, with soldiers suffi- 
 cient to enforce his authority; the commanders were 
 to protect all persons in their rights of person and 
 property, to suppress insurrection, disorder and vio- 
 lence, to punish all criminals and disturbers of the 
 peace, either by the use of civil tribunals or by the 
 employment of military tribunals if deemed necessary, 
 
 1 Probably Bingham. 
 
 458 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 459 
 
 without interference by any officer or proceeding of 
 the pretended state government; and the courts and 
 judicial officers of the United States were forbidden to 
 issue writs of habeas corpus on behalf of persons in 
 military custody. 
 
 The day after offering the bill Stevens explained its 
 purpose in a brief speech and called for immediate ac- 
 tion. Already there had been several weeks of dis- 
 cussion, and as he did not see that anything w T as to be 
 gained by further debate, he felt bound on the mor- 
 row to call for a vote. For nearly two years, he 
 asserted, these states had been lying in a disorganized 
 condition, and they have now no governments that are 
 known to the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States. Lack of harmony in the councils of the 
 dominant party has caused this delay. The Executive 
 has attempted to enact new laws and to authorize the 
 conquered territory to be represented in Congress with- 
 out the action of the sovereign power of the nation. 
 The sovereign power of Congress has repudiated the 
 authority which has attempted to place states within 
 those conquered provinces and has patiently waited in 
 the hope of realizing harmony in our councils. The 
 hope has failed and a pertinacious Executive has 
 sought to maintain the usurpation of pretended gov- 
 ernments. And now, at this late period, it has become 
 the duty of Congress to assert its right and to do its 
 duty in establishing some kind of government for this 
 people. Such was the substance of Stevens' apology' 
 in presenting this bill. 
 
 " For two years these pretended states," said 
 Stevens, "have been in a state of anarchy; for two 
 
460 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 years the loyal people of those ten states have endured 
 all the horrors of the worst anarchy of any country. 
 Persecution, exile and murder have been the order of 
 the day within all these territories so far as loyal men 
 were concerned, whether white or black, and more es- 
 pecially if they happened to be black. We have seen 
 the best men, those who stood by the flag of the Union, 
 driven from their homes and compelled to live on the 
 cold charity of a cold North. We have seen their 
 loyal men flitting about everywhere through your 
 cities, around your doors, melancholy, depressed, hag- 
 gard, like the ghosts of the unburied dead on this side 
 of the river Styx, and yet we have borne it with ex- 
 emplary patience. We have been enjoying ' our ease 
 in our inns ' ; and while we were praising the rebel 
 South and asking in piteous terms for mercy for that 
 people, we have been deaf to the groans, the agony, 
 which have been borne to us by every southern breeze 
 from dying and murdered victims. 
 
 " And now we are told that we must not hasten 
 this matter. I am not for hastening it unduly ; but I 
 am for making one more effort to protect these loyal 
 men, without regard to color, from the cruelties of an- 
 archy, from persecutions by the malignant, from ven- 
 geance visited upon them on our account. If we fail 
 to do it, and to do it effectually, we should be respons- 
 ible to the civilized world for, I think, the grossest 
 neglect of duty that ever a great nation was guilty of 
 before to humanity. 1 
 
 The bill, then, proposed to put the " ten disorgan- 
 ized states " under the control of the army. " That is 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 7, 1867, p. 1076. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 461 
 
 the whole bill," said Stevens. " It does not need much 
 examination. One night's rest after its reading is 
 enough to digest it." There were now less than fif- 
 teen days on the safe side of a veto in which the bill 
 must be brought to passage in both houses. Its 
 friends were, therefore, not at liberty to indulge dis- 
 cussion, and " to-morrow," said Stevens, " God will- 
 ing, I will demand the vote." 
 
 The purpose of this measure, the theory of it, or the 
 conception of the situation on which it was based, are 
 frequently misunderstood. It was not intended as a 
 reconstruction bill. The preamble of the bill set forth 
 the reason for it : That the " pretended state govern- 
 ments "of the South afford no adequate protection for 
 life or property, but " countenance and encourage law- 
 lessness and crime " ; and that "it is necessary that 
 peace and good order should be enforced until loyal 
 state governments can be legally established." The 
 bill was proposed and supported by its advocates dis- 
 tinctly as a war measure, on the theory that war was 
 still existing; that the South was in a state of anarchy, 
 rebellion, disorder and disloyalty. The bill was a new 
 article of war, " commanding the army to return to its 
 work of putting down the Rebellion " and keeping the 
 peace till the nation could provide suitable republican 
 governments there. 1 The bill rested for its defense, 
 according to its advocates, entirely upon such a state 
 of facts. There was a state of war in the South, not 
 flagrant, but cessante as Air. Shellabarger expressed 
 it. The bill, in authorizing the suspension of the writ 
 of habeas corpus did so on the assumption that the re- 
 
 1 Garfield. Globe, Feb. 8, 1867, p. 1104. 
 
462 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 public was in a condition of rebellion, and the public 
 safety required " the exercise of this mighty reserved 
 force of your government lodged in the ultimate 
 powers of war." Flagrant rebellion in the field had 
 been crushed by the arms of the republic, but this 
 rebellion was still sufficiently strong to overthrow and 
 defy the courts in nearly half of the republic. "If 
 this is not the condition of the country," said Air. 
 Shellabarger, " then we must abandon the bill." * 
 
 Mr. Shellabarger asserted that he could not support 
 such a military measure if it were to be regarded 
 as at all permanent in character. Mr. Brandegee, of 
 Connecticut, in supporting the measure, asserted that 
 " already fifteen hundred Union men have been mas- 
 sacred in cold blood, whose only crime has been loyalty 
 to the flag." 2 
 
 Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, asserted that the 
 South was " writhing under cruelties nameless in 
 their character, injustice such as has not been per- 
 mitted to exist in any country in modern times," and 
 that the President had allowed a rebel despotism to be 
 enthroned there that must be broken up. 3 Mr. Kel- 
 ley, of Pennsylvania, defended the bill merely as a 
 police measure, the necessity for it arising because of 
 the perfidy of the President. He had set up states 
 whose laws depended upon his temper or the state of 
 his digestion, whose statutes he suspends or enforces 
 as it please his whim. They were not " states " but 
 were the offspring of Executive usurpation and " when 
 
 1 Shellabarger, Feb. 8, 1867. Globe, p. 1099. 
 
 2 Blaine, Twenty Years of Cong., Vol. II, p. 252. 
 
 3 Globe, Feb. 9, 1867, p. 11 22. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 463 
 
 we have brushed these usurpations aside " as Con- 
 gress is in duty bound to do, the law will arise which 
 it was the purpose of this bill to restore, namely, the 
 law that " was in force when Lee and Johnston sur- 
 rendered." * 
 
 It was on this ground only, as a war measure 
 prompted by public necessity, that Stevens defended 
 the bill as he pressed it to passage. He called it " a 
 police bill," a temporary substitution for anarchy, 
 designed to provide " something that will give pro- 
 tection to the people of the Southern States and pre- 
 vent the murders, robberies, and slavery there until 
 we can have time to frame civil government more in 
 conformity with the genius of our institutions." 2 If 
 conditions existed in the South such as the promoters 
 of this bill claimed, then the bill is to be judged, not 
 from the standpoint of a Constitution operative in a 
 restored Union, but from the point of view of war 
 and public necessity. If the conditions were those of 
 insurrection and war, the Constitution had nothing to 
 do in restraint of power that might be exercised by the 
 government of the United States. 
 
 The House, refusing to sustain Stevens' motion for 
 the previous question, entered upon a week of debate. 
 Bingham and Blaine, for the conservative Republi- 
 cans, sought to amend the bill so as to provide for the 
 termination of military rule and for early reconstruc- 
 tion on the basis of universal suffrage. Blaine was 
 unwilling to support a measure that would place the 
 South under military government if it did not at the 
 
 1 Kelley, Feb. 12, 1867, Globe, p. 1177. 
 
 2 Globe, Feb. 8, p. 1104. 
 
464 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 same time " prescribe the methods by which the peo- 
 ple of a state could by their own action reestablish civil 
 government." Blaine, therefore, urged his amend- 
 ment, declaring that when any one of the late Confed- 
 erate States should assent to the fourteenth amend- 
 ment and provide by its constitution for impartial 
 male suffrage, without regard to race or color, and 
 when such constitution shall have been ratified by the 
 popular vote of said state, then such state should be 
 declared to be entitled to representation in Congress. 1 
 Bingham denounced Stevens '" dogma, that those ten 
 insurrectionary states were a foreign and conquered 
 country," and affirmed that every act of legislation 
 " from the day this Rebellion commenced to this hour 
 asserts the very contrary." He asserted again that 
 these states were states of the Union, not conquered 
 territories, and their citizens should be accorded the 
 rights of other citizens. Yet, to defend himself from 
 the Democratic position, to save himself from " Andy 
 Johnsonism," he affirmed that Congress had undoubted 
 power to legislate over those insurgent states " without 
 their consent and against their consent," and that their 
 state courts were to be allowed no such jurisdiction 
 as those of other states. 
 
 Bingham's argument seems rather abstract and doc- 
 trinaire, based largely in opposition to the phrase, — ■ 
 " so-called states," in the preamble of the act. He 
 wished the Southern communities called " states," but 
 he was not willing to be consistent by going to the 
 length of the Democratic position and treating them as 
 states in all respects, with all the rights, powers and 
 
 1 Twenty Years of Cong., II, p. 256. 
 

 MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 465 
 
 privileges of the other states. Stevens regarded Bing- 
 ham's opposition as " captious and discourteous." l 
 
 The Democrats and Johnson Republicans de- 
 nounced the bill in vigorous terms. Mr. Le Blond, 
 of Ohio, said that its passage would be the " death- 
 knell of civil liberty," and the dissolution of the Union. 
 " Its preamble, admitting the right of secession, em- 
 braces not a single truth." No one, in Mr. Le Blond's 
 view, had a right to expect perfect peace throughout 
 those states as soon as the war ended. In the nature 
 of things there would be lawless conduct on the part 
 of many citizens. The radicals desired such dis- 
 order, that they might base legislation upon it and 
 carry out their designs. This maelstrom committee, 
 swallowing up everything that is good and giving out 
 everything that is evil, reports this bill taking from the 
 President his powers as Commander-in-chief of the 
 army in defiance of the Constitution. No one had 
 ever heard of such a monstrosity, such a stretch of 
 power on the part of Congress as authorizing military 
 commanders to confer power on civil tribunals to try 
 civil cases. " The bill denies the right of trial by jury 
 and strikes down at a blow every important provision 
 of your Constitution. It paralyzes the arm of the 
 judiciary and repudiates the decision of the Supreme 
 Court. It is an attempt to destroy the Union by legis- 
 lative usurpation ; and in my honest conviction noth- 
 ing but the strong arm of the American people, wielded 
 upon the bloody battle-field, will ever restore civil lib- 
 erty to the American people again." 2 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 13, 1867, p. 1213. 
 
 2 Globe, Feb. 1867, p. 1078. 
 
466 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 A few days later, on February 12th, in discussing a 
 proposed bill for the civil government of Louisiana, Le 
 Blond distinctly affirmed that in the conflict of opinion 
 on the Republican side of the House, Stevens was the 
 one man who foresaw the difficulties that were to be 
 encountered. Le Blond evidently thought the bill 
 might be made unpopular if it could be shown to rest 
 on Stevens' " conquered province theory." " At an 
 early period in this contest," said Le Blond, " he 
 (Stevens) foresaw where we were drifting, and for 
 the purpose of meeting it, he at once took the position 
 that these states were conquered provinces whose peo- 
 ple were subjects to be dealt with according to the will 
 of Congress. But who does not remember that when 
 he proclaimed that doctrine in this House there were 
 not within these walls ten men who approved it? 
 Since that period a change has come over the spirit, 
 over the dreams of the other side, and we now find 
 them, if not yielding themselves willing subjects to his 
 doctrine, at least willing to vote for provisions quite 
 as bad and quite as revolutionary as any that have 
 been directed by that gentleman." 1 
 
 Mr. Finck, of Ohio, another Democrat, denounced 
 the bill as " an attempt to overthrow free government 
 and to establish on its ruins the principles of military 
 despotism." It is at war with the Constitution. The 
 only ground for it was the revolutionary theory of 
 its author, the theory of conquest. No government 
 can continue to be free when one-third of its people 
 are subject to military power. We can not perpetuate 
 the Union of the states on principles of hatred, malice, 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 12, 1867, p. 1170. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 467 
 
 and revenge. " Do we expect to make the people of 
 the South love the Union by trampling upon rights as 
 sacred to them as they can be to us? " * 
 
 Finck denied that there was a state of war existing 
 within the Union, — the assumption on which the bill 
 rested. " There is not in any one of these states," he 
 said, " a single arm upraised against the just authority 
 and jurisdiction of the United States. We are in a 
 state of peace. The purpose is to compel these states 
 to endorse the policy of the radicals whose doctrines, if 
 carried out successfully, would subvert the Constitu- 
 tion and disrupt the Union. The effect of this bill is 
 to prevent the Union of the states and to strike down 
 the great right of local government. It is an attempt 
 not only to control the government of a state, but to 
 take power out of the hands of your own race and to 
 confer it upon another race." For this and other rea- 
 sons Finck denounced the bill as " monstrous and revo- 
 lutionary." 2 
 
 Henry J. Raymond, of New York, in a speech of 
 considerable length, denounced the bill as a " simple 
 abnegation of all attempts to exercise civil authority." 
 He denied its necessity; no emergency called for it. 
 He affirmed that the President had restored peace. 
 The war " is ended in every sense : in a legal sense, in 
 every international sense, in the sense of the Constitu- 
 tion." He denounced the measure as one of the " most 
 violent the ingenuity of man could devise. Stevens' 
 bill," he said, " that had been sent to the committee was 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 7, 1867, p. 1078. 
 
 2 Globe, Feb. 12, 1867, p. 1170. Finck's speech here referred 
 to was on a bill providing a civil government for Louisiana, but 
 his remarks apply also to the pending military bill. 
 
468 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 far preferable to this one. The passage of such a 
 bill will disturb business and confidence everywhere and 
 will not in the slightest degree tend to restore peace 
 and harmony in the Union." 
 
 Stevens proved more than a match for his opponents 
 at every turn. He paid no attention to the spokesman 
 of Andrew Johnson in the House, Mr. Raymond, nor 
 to the Copperhead opposition of Le Blond and Finck. 
 It was enough to know that they were the friends 
 and apologists of rebels. He taunted his weak-kneed 
 Republican colleagues, who wished to delay or amend 
 his bill, with having been convinced by the arguments 
 of the President, — and the sentiment of the country 
 was so pronounced against Johnson that such a ref- 
 erence never failed to make his opponents wince. He 
 prevented amendments from coming to a vote, and 
 finally he defeated on a decisive test Blaine's motion 
 to refer the bill for revision to the Committee on the 
 Judiciary. 
 
 It was on the 13th of February, 1867, that the de- 
 cisive vote occurred in the House. Stevens, though 
 in his seventy-fifth year and in a weak state of health, 
 manifested a remarkable vigor in his management of 
 the bill and in his final speech just before the vote was 
 taken. He professed depression of spirit and grief 
 because of the supineness of Congress and the dis- 
 tressed condition of the country. Here Congress has 
 been sitting for months, and while the South has been 
 bleeding at every pore nothing has been done to protect 
 the loyal people there in their persons, liberty, or prop- 
 erty. He would indulge, not in reproach, but in grief 
 rather, since we live here " enjoying ourselves, those 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 469 
 
 of us who have health and spirits, while the South 
 is covered all over with anarchy, murder, and rapine." 
 We have declared that the President has usurped au- 
 thority, and that what he has done is void in the 
 face of the law; that Congress alone has power to erect 
 governments and protect the people. Yet we sit by 
 and move no hand and raise no voice to effect what we 
 declare to be the duty of Congress. It is a great dere- 
 liction of duty. 
 
 Stevens replied to the criticism that the committee 
 had proposed no plan of reconstruction. He recounted 
 the effort he had made for his own bill that had been 
 under discussion for three weeks. He had wished that 
 bill perfected in the House, but his wish had been de- 
 fiantly refused. He had sought to save the bill from 
 death in the Committee and he thought it uncivil, un- 
 just, and indecent not to attempt to amend it and make 
 it better. Our vigorous friend from Ohio [Bingham] 
 had assured us that the bill would come back from the 
 committee fresh and blooming, but it had not come, 
 and he [Stevens] had accepted a position that he could 
 not help. He had labored upon his bill, in conjunc- 
 tion with committees of loyal men from the South, had 
 altered and realtered it, written and rewritten it sev- 
 eral times. He had warned the House that if that 
 bill should go back to the committee, it must die. 
 This bill that now comes in lieu of it encounters the 
 same obstacles in precisely the same spirit. There are 
 in it some words difficult to spell ; adverbs are im- 
 properly placed ; gentlemen object to its particles and 
 its articles; and " my friend from Ohio [Bingham] de- 
 clared this morning with proper exultation that he had 
 
4 ;o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 succeeded in passing through this House a bill which 
 uses the word ' states ' precisely as the President uses 
 it in his theory as to the right of admission of those 
 claiming to represent the rebel states." 
 
 That which most aroused the fighting spirit and op- 
 position of Stevens was what he denounced as the 
 " pertinacious determination " of the conservative Re- 
 publicans to make the fourteenth amendment a final 
 condition of readmission and reunion. That was the 
 purpose, chiefly, of the Blaine amendment. Stevens 
 denounced it as a " step toward universal amnesty and 
 universal Andy Johnsonism, — it lets in a vast num- 
 ber of rebels and shuts out nobody." "If this Con- 
 gress so decides, it will give me great pleasure to join 
 in the io triumphe of the gentleman from Ohio in 
 leading this House, possibly by forbidden paths, into 
 the sheepfold, or the goatfold, of the President." x 
 
 Stevens felt that the fight in which he was engaged 
 was one for justice and liberty. " If, sir," he said, 
 " I ought presume upon my age, without claiming any 
 of the wisdom of Nestor, I would suggest to the young 
 gentlemen around me, that the deeds of this burning 
 crisis, of this solemn day, of this thrilling moment, 
 will cast their shadows far into the future, and will 
 make their impress upon the annals of our history, and 
 that we shall appear upon the bright pages of that his- 
 
 1 In this discussion Mr. Stevens incidentally remarked that 
 he had no respect for the fourteenth amendment, by which he 
 meant, obviously, as a final basis for reconstruction. Though 
 that amendment was not as Stevens had sought to make it, as 
 we have seen, yet it was, in the main, in harmony with his 
 principles and purposes. He wished to impose more as a basis 
 for readmission, and was especially unwilling for Congress to 
 be tied up to this amendment in advance as a finality in recon- 
 struction. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 471 
 
 tory, just in so far as we cordially, without guile, with- 
 out bickering, without small criticisms, lend our aid 
 to promote the great cause of humanity and universal 
 liberty." * 
 
 He referred to the spirit of forgiveness and mercy 
 so much enunciated by the opposition. But he 
 thought that when generosity and benevolence, " the 
 noblest qualities of our nature," are " squandered upon 
 vagabonds and thieves," no respect could be had from 
 any quarter. The forgiveness of the gospel refers to 
 private offenses, " where men can well forgive their 
 enemies and smother their feeling of revenge without 
 injury to anybody." But that has nothing to do with 
 municipal punishment, with " political sanction of po- 
 litical crimes." When nations pass sentence and de- 
 cree confiscation for crimes unrepented, there is no 
 question of malignity. 
 
 " When the judge sentences the convict he has no ani- 
 mosity. When the hangman executes the culprit he rather 
 pities than hates him. Cruelty does not belong to their vo- 
 cabulary. Gentlemen mistake, therefore, when they make 
 these appeals to us in the name of humanity. They, sir, 
 who while preaching this doctrine are hugging and caress- 
 ing those whose hands are red and whose garments are 
 dripping with the blood of our and their murdered kinsmen, 
 are covering themselves with indelible stains which all the 
 waters of the Nile can not wash out." 2 
 
 Following this speech the motion to refer the bill 
 to the Judiciary Committee was defeated and the bill 
 was put upon its passage. It passed the House by a 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 13, 1867, p. 1214. 
 
 2 Globe, Feb. 13, 1867, p. 1214. 
 
472 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 vote of one hundred and nine to fifty-five, twenty 
 members being recorded as " not voting." 
 
 Before making the motion to reconsider and to lay 
 that motion on the table, in order to prevent recon- 
 sideration, Stevens arose and with some exultation in- 
 quired "if it is in order for me now to say that we 
 endorse the language of good old Laertes that Heaven 
 rules as yet and there are gods above? " * 
 
 The bill had its first reading in the Senate the day 
 it passed the House. There were pronounced dif- 
 ferences of opinion among Republicans there, as there 
 had been in the House, and it was apparent that un- 
 less these were reconciled by some authoritative ac- 
 tion on the part of the majority, debate would be 
 continued unduly and no bill could be passed in the 
 limited time. Accordingly, a caucus was held of the 
 Republican Senators which agreed upon a substitute 
 bill, and this was passed by the Senate after an all- 
 night session at six o'clock Sunday morning, February 
 17th. 
 
 The first, four sections of the Senate bill were the 
 same as the military bill of Stevens, except that the 
 President instead of the General of the army was 
 given the power to appoint the commandants of the 
 
 1 Globe, p. 1215. Mr. Rhodes says of this occasion: 
 " Stevens carried this bill through an unwilling' House ; a strong 
 minority of his own party was opposed to it largely for the 
 reason that pure military rule without any provision for its 
 termination was unpalatable. He obtained his majority by sar- 
 casm, taunts, dragooning and by cracking the party whip. 
 There had been no such scene in Congress since Douglas car- 
 ried his Kansas-Nebraska bill through the Senate. Bingham, 
 a veteran ; Blaine, very adroit for a member serving his second 
 term only, were unable to cope with the leader ; both voted with 
 him on the passage of the bill." Hist, of U. S., Vol. VI, 
 pp. 17, 18. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 473 
 
 several military districts; it was deemed unconstitu- 
 tional for Congress to deprive the President of his con- 
 stitutional power as Commander-in-chief. But the 
 Senate also inserted what was substantially the Bing- 
 ham-Blaine amendment which had been voted down by 
 the House. 1 This provided in the fifth section that 
 when any one of the said rebel states should have 
 formed a constitution in harmony with the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, — framed by a convention 
 of delegates elected under manhood suffrage regard- 
 less of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, 
 excepting such as may be disfranchised for partici- 
 pating in rebellion; and when the state constitution 
 should provide for such manhood suffrage for the fu- 
 ture ; and when the Constitution should have been 
 ratified by a majority of qualified voters and submitted 
 to and approved by Congress ; and when the state, by 
 its legislature, should have ratified the fourteenth 
 amendment and that amendment had become a part of 
 the Constitution of the United States — then, after 
 these conditions were fulfilled, the state should be de- 
 clared entitled to be represented in Congress and its 
 Senators and Representatives should be admitted upon 
 their taking the " iron-clad " oath as required by law. 
 Thereafter the military sections of the act were to be 
 inoperative within the state. 
 
 This was entirely a different bill from the one whose 
 passage Stevens had secured in the House. Instead 
 of a temporary bill designed to restore order under 
 military rule until time could be had for perfecting a 
 suitable scheme of restoration, the Senate prepared, 
 
 1 Rhodes, VI, p. 19. 
 
474 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 in a hurry, and offered to the country a final plan of 
 reconstruction. 1 Stevens has suffered the fate of be- 
 ing held up in history as being the chief sponsor and 
 promoter of this scheme of forcing negro suffrage 
 on the South by military rule. The scheme was not 
 his, and, as on former occasions when the Senate had 
 interfered with legislation that he had proposed, he 
 resisted it with all his might. " The worst feature 
 about the Reconstruction Acts," says Mr. Rhodes, 
 " was not the military government. Honest govern- 
 ment by American soldiers would have been better 
 than negro rule forced on the South at the point of 
 the bayonet, which was the actual result of this legis- 
 lation." But it should be remembered that " negro 
 suffrage was grafted in the military bill by the con- 
 servative Republicans and was resisted by Stevens." 2 
 True, Stevens was not prompted in this opposition 
 by any motives of benevolence and mercy toward the 
 
 1 In June, 1867, the Nation criticized Stevens for his public 
 letter in which he called for an extra session of Congress to 
 mend the defects in the Reconstruction Act which had been ex- 
 posed by Attorney-General Stanberry. The Nation said this 
 act should have been fully discussed, as that would have brought 
 out its defects and its friends could have perfected it. Stevens, 
 " old and experienced as he is, should learn the lesson of the 
 mischievousness of the habit which he indulges in more than 
 any one else, of checking and stifling debate on important meas- 
 ures." Nation, June 20, 1867. This is said as if Stevens were 
 responsible for pushing through this hurried and defective legis- 
 lation. Exactly the opposite is true. He opposed it stoutly, for 
 the very reason that there was not sufficient time to consider it. 
 He had urged a general scheme of reconstruction on Congress 
 for many months, but now that the last weeks of the Thirty-ninth 
 Congress had come and nothing had been done, he sought "hon- 
 est government by American soldiers," until the Fortieth Con- 
 gress could digest a suitable scheme. The more conservative 
 "safe and sane" Republicans should bear the chief burden of 
 credit, or discredit, for this hurried legislation. 
 
 2 Hist, of the U. S., VI, p. 29. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 475 
 
 South. It may be said by his critics that any plan he 
 would have consented to could only have been a worse 
 one and that, in his Senate bill, he favored only what 
 was bad and objected only to what was good. Let 
 him be judged by the judgment that is his due. But 
 it is essential that the record shall not be confused 
 nor belied, and that responsibility for military recon- 
 struction as it was finally consummated should rest 
 where it belongs, and that record shows that it does 
 not rest primarily upon Stevens. 
 
 The Senate bill came up in the House on February 
 18, 1867, the day after its passage by the Senate. As 
 soon as it was read Stevens moved that the amend- 
 ments of the Senate be not concurred in and he asked 
 for a committee of conference. Stevens yielded a part 
 of his time to Boutwell, of Massachusetts, and Stokes, 
 of Tennessee, who spoke in opposition to the Senate 
 plan, because by it reconstruction would be carried on 
 under the agency of " disloyal " men. It provided for 
 universal amnesty and universal suffrage. There was 
 no discrimination in favor of the " loyal," and under 
 this plan, since every rebel in the South was admitted 
 to the ballot, the loyal men, white and black, would 
 go under. 1 
 
 Stevens then attacked the Senate amendments in a 
 brief speech of his usual vigor. He regretted that 
 the Senate had attempted the difficult task of attempt- 
 ing civil government in the South. The House bill 
 had not a word in it beyond a police regulation for pro- 
 tection. The Senate has sent back a bill which raises 
 the whole question in dispute, as to the best mode of 
 
 1 Globe, p. 1316. 
 
476 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 reconstruction by distant and future pledges., which 
 this Congress has no authority to make and no power 
 to execute. He objected to taking the management of 
 these states from the General of the army and put- 
 ting it in the hands of the President. " Our friends 
 who love this bill love it now because the President is 
 to execute it, as he has executed every law for the 
 last two years, by the murder of Union men, and by 
 despising Congress and flinging into our teeth all that 
 we seek to have done. That seems to be the sweeten- 
 ing ingredient in this bill for many of our friends 
 around us." Stevens held to the constitutional au- 
 thority of Congress to detail for particular service par- 
 ticular officers of the army. 
 
 Stevens' most strenuous objection was to the pro- 
 vision of the new fifth section of the Senate bill, that 
 which pledged the government " to all the traitors in 
 rebeldom " that if they would do certain things they 
 might " come into this House and act with us as loyal 
 men." Appealing to the party instincts and inter- 
 ests of his colleagues, he referred to " the impatience 
 to bring in these chivalric gentlemen lest they should 
 not be here in time to vote for the next President of 
 the United States," and, therefore, there is to be 
 grafted on a police bill a provision that will enable 
 them to be here in time. He said he was willing to 
 have them " come in as soon as they were fairly en- 
 titled," but he did not profess to be very impatient 
 to embrace them, and he was not anxious to see their 
 votes cast along with others to control the next election 
 of President and Vice-President. 
 
 Stevens here took occasion to refer in an ironical 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 477 
 
 way to the idea which he had formerly combated, that 
 a few loyal men might constitute a state for recon- 
 struction purposes. " There was a time," he said, 
 " when some people, and among them that good man 
 who is now no more, carried, as I thought, the idea 
 of reconstruction by loyal men rather to the extreme. 
 The doctrine was once held that in these outlawed 
 communities of robbers, traitors, and murderers, so 
 far as the real state was concerned, it consisted of 
 the ' loyal men ' of the community and that the oth- 
 ers counted for nothing. I do not say that I hold 
 this doctrine, not being myself an extreme man [laugh- 
 ter] , but it was held by gentlemen all around me and it 
 was held by the late President of the United States. 
 But now the doctrine seems to be that the state is 
 composed of loyal men and traitors. We ignore 
 wholly the disloyal element in all the states and are 
 hurrying to introduce these disloyal men among us." 
 
 It was Stevens' plan to have the Thirty-ninth Con- 
 gress pass only his military bill and allow the more 
 radical Fortieth Congress to deliberate on reconstruc- 
 tion. He then hoped to secure the disfranchisement 
 of the " rebels," the enfranchisement of the negroes, 
 and a " moderate plan " of confiscation, and then to 
 delay the restoration of the Southern States to their 
 privileges within the Union until they were well ready 
 to participate in governing the country. 
 
 He would deem them " ready " when they were 
 well under the control of men who were loyal to the 
 Union and to the true principles of democratic equal- 
 ity. He was not anxious to have these states ready 
 to vote for President in 1868. Pie objected to " the 
 
 

 478 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 anxiety for universal amnesty." " Is there danger," 
 he asked, " that somebody will be punished ? Is there 
 any fear that this nation will wake from its lethargy 
 and insist upon punishment by fine, by imprisonment, 
 by confiscation, or that a spirit will be raised in this 
 nation which sleeps only here and which no other na- 
 tion ever before allowed to slumber?" It riled his 
 spirit to see confiscated property of the United States 
 given back to enrich rebel enemies; to see Unionists 
 suffer poverty and deprivation, whose houses had been 
 laid in waste, farms robbed and cattle taken, " while 
 Wade Hampton and his black horse cavalry are to 
 revel in their wealth, and traitors along the Mississippi 
 valley are to enjoy their manors. 
 
 " Sir, God helping me and I live, there shall be a 
 question propounded to this House and to this na- 
 tion, whether a portion of the debt shall not be paid 
 by confiscated property of the rebels." 1 
 
 When a vote was reached on the Senate bill, which 
 Stevens felt forestalled and prevented his scheme, it 
 was rejected by the House. 2 Stevens then carried a 
 motion for a committee of conference, a result that 
 was brought about " by a coalition of all the Demo- 
 crats with a minority of extreme Republicans." 3 
 
 The Senate refused a conference and insisted upon 
 its bill. Thus with only thirteen days of the session 
 remaining, during ten of which the President was cer- 
 tain to keep the bill before returning it with his veto, 
 it looked as if, by a disagreement of Republicans, re- 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 18, 1867. 
 
 2 By a vote of 98 to 73, Globe, Feb. 19, 1867, p. 1340. 
 
 3 Blaine, Twenty Years, II, p. 260. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 479 
 
 construction would be defeated or be left over to the 
 Fortieth Congress. " Under the pressure of this fear," 
 says Mr. Blaine, " Republican differences were ad- 
 justed, and the Senate and House found common 
 ground to stand upon by adding two amendments to 
 the bill as the Senate had framed it." One of these 
 was that of Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, which provided that 
 those excluded from office by the fourteenth amend- 
 ment should also be excluded from voting for, or act- 
 ing as, delegates to the state constitutional conven- 
 tions. 1 The other amendments, offered by Mr. Shella- 
 barger, of Ohio, provided that until the people of the 
 rebel states should be admitted to representation in 
 Congress, any civil government therein should be con- 
 sidered as provisional only and " in all respects subject 
 to the paramount authority of the United States at 
 any time to abolish, modify, control or supersede the 
 same." No person was to be allowed to hold any 
 office under this provisional state government who was 
 disqualified by the fourteenth amendment, and none 
 was to be allowed to vote except those specified and 
 described under the provisions of this act. 
 
 While these amendments were before the House, 
 the Democrats filibustered for delay. Stevens acted 
 as a spectator, not voting on their dilatory motions. 
 Stevens voted for the Wilson-Shellabarger amend- 
 ments, the latter being added as an additional section 
 of the bill, and he then voted for the passage of the 
 bill so amended. 2 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 19, 1867, p. 1356. 
 
 2 The record hardly bears out the assertion that Stevens 
 " filibustered " on this occasion to defeat this measure. He 
 merely gave the consent of his silence. The Nation says that 
 
4 8o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The concurrence of the House in the Senate bill 
 was also promoted by the insertion in the Army Ap- 
 propriation Bill of a provision depriving the President 
 of all power to interfere with the execution of the Re- 
 construction Act. This was done by a clause in the 
 appropriation bill providing that all military orders 
 and instructions should be issued through the Gen- 
 eral of the army (General Grant), whose headquarters 
 should be at Washington, and that all other orders 
 should be null and void. Power was denied to the 
 President to remove, suspend, or relieve the General 
 from command, or assign him to duty elsewhere, — a 
 palpable violation of the constitutional provision which 
 makes the President the Commander-in-chief of the 
 army. 
 
 The military bill passed the House on February 20, 
 1867. Stevens consented to it, but he was by no 
 means satisfied. He was not its author, nor its de- 
 fender. He accepted the amended bill as the best 
 that could be had at the time, but he regarded it as 
 Sumner characterized it in the Senate, as containing 
 
 Stevens " filibustered in vain in favor of his own scheme of 
 military government without limit or qualification," and refers 
 to " the combination of Mr. Stevens with the Democratic mem- 
 bers to secure the defeat of the military bill." The editor says 
 that Stevens, believing that every delay in reconstruction will 
 make the final settlement more severe upon the South, " will- 
 ingly accepts all the aid he can get from the wise (?) poli- 
 ticians like Mr. Le Blond who oppose him in principle but help 
 him in practise." 
 
 The Notion was a strong supporter of the reconstruction meas- 
 ures as they were finally passed. New York Nation, Feb. 21, 
 28, 1867. No doubt Stevens could have defeated the measure if, 
 instead of being a silent onlooker, he had asserted himself to 
 arouse radical opposition while the advocates of the Senate bill 
 were arranging compromise amendments that would placate and 
 satisfy the radical contention. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 481 
 
 much that is good, but as " a very hasty and crude act 
 of legislation," and as " coming far short of what a 
 patriotic Congress ought to supply for the safety of 
 the republic." 1 
 
 The Senate passed the amended bill in a night ses- 
 sion, the same day that it passed the House. John- 
 son held it for the constitutional limit of ten days be- 
 fore returning it to the House with his veto. His veto 
 came in on Saturday afternoon of March 2nd. The 
 Thirty-ninth Congress was to expire at noon Monday, 
 March 4th. 2 
 
 Upon the reading of the veto message, Stevens im- 
 mediately moved that the House consider the ques- 
 tion whether it would pass the bill notwithstanding the 
 objections of the President. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, 
 in the minute of time allowed for protest, recognizing 
 that it was not within the physical power of the minor- 
 ity to defeat the bill by filibustering, denounced it as 
 " a dissolution of the Union." Le Blond called it " the 
 death-knell of republican liberty upon this continent," 
 and he asserted that if enough numbers would stand 
 with him he would never consent to the passage of the 
 bill " unless overpowered by physical exhaustion or re- 
 strained by the rules of the House." Mr. Finck again 
 denounced the bill as " a monstrous scheme to sub- 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 20, 1867, p. 1626. 
 
 2 Dewitt must be mistaken in his assertion that Johnson 
 might have defeated the Reconstruction Act by the absolute 
 negative of his pocket veto but that he took no advantage of 
 the opportunity. Impeachment of Johnson, p. 203. The bill 
 passed the Senate on February 20th, twelve days before the ex- 
 piration of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Johnson conceded noth- 
 ing to his opponents in the partisan game, nor was he disposed to 
 agree with his adversary quickly, from fear of a more sweeping 
 and drastic measure. 
 
482 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 vert constitutional government in this country," and 
 he said he would aid every legitimate parliamentary 
 effort for its defeat. 
 
 Mr. Thayer expressed the opinion that the House 
 had had enough of this entertainment, and Mr. Stev- 
 ens took the floor to bring the bill to its passage. He 
 said that he had listened with patience to the gentle- 
 men; that he would not be discourteous, for he was 
 " aware of the melancholy feelings with which they 
 were approaching this funeral of the nation, amid a 
 difference of opinion among the mourners to an ex- 
 tent that we can not expect to harmonize." 
 
 Stevens then called upon Blaine to offer a motion 
 for a suspension of the rules. The rules were sus- 
 pended and the bill was passed by the House by a vote 
 of one hundred and thirty-five to forty-eight, amid 
 applause on the floor and in the galleries. The Senate 
 passed the bill over the President's veto on the same 
 day by a vote of thirty-eight to ten, and the Military 
 Reconstruction Act became a law. 
 
 This act has been frequently referred to as one of 
 the most unjust and direful that ever passed the Ameri- 
 can Congress, and the odium that has been held to 
 attach to it has been heaped chiefly upon the head of 
 Thaddeus Stevens, as if he alone of all men was re- 
 sponsible for it. The act has been denounced as a 
 personal expression of Stevens' hatred and vindic- 
 tiveness toward the South. His record for vindictive- 
 ness is bad enough, and it is not improbable that his de- 
 termined purpose to punish the South would have 
 wrought something worse than this military bill into 
 the legislation of his country could he have had his 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 483 
 
 way. But it is absurd to place upon Stevens alone 
 these evil aspects of reconstruction. True, he holds 
 a preeminence for his fierce language of denunciation 
 toward slaveholders and the leaders of the Rebellion. 
 But history can accord him no monopoly on the spirit 
 of sectional hatred, begotten of war, no monopoly on 
 the desire to deprive the ex-Confederates of political 
 power and to punish them for the wrongs and suf- 
 ferings that war entailed. That spirit and desire were 
 all but universal in the ruling party of the North. The 
 minority party was so impotent as to be negligible. 
 It should be remembered that this legislation came into 
 being at a time when the vindictive passions of war 
 were shared by all, and it is likely that sectional hatred 
 was as general and positive in the South as in the 
 North. What the South would have done with Stev- 
 ens and his fellow-radicals if the tables had been 
 turned, no one has yet attempted to set forth. It is 
 not likely that " Old Thad " and his " abolition co- 
 horts " would have been the objects of brotherly affec- 
 tion, to be restored quickly to equal power in a slave- 
 holders' Union which " traitorous abolitionists " had 
 failed in their attempt to destroy. 1 
 
 1 " It is probable tbat since time began there has never been an 
 example of the hatred of one people for another so measure- 
 less in degree, so unfathomable in depth, so utterly groundless 
 in fact, as the hatred of the people of the South for the people 
 of the North. There was a spirit of malignant vindictiveness, 
 the offspring of hatred." Southern Union Refugee in Open Let- 
 ter to President Lincoln, 1S63. This is but one testimony of 
 many that might be adduced to show that the passions of hatred 
 were at least as strong in the South as in the North and that 
 Stevens' utterances and policy but reflected the common temper 
 of the country so far as unbrotherly feeling was concerned. 
 When a great and gentle spirit like Phillips Brooks could speak 
 as he did soon after the death of Lincoln, one may understand, 
 to a degree, how the Civil War had wrought upon the hateful 
 
484 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 The responsibility for this bill, which, as we have 
 shown from the record, Stevens denounced and sought 
 to defeat, should rest with the Republican leaders of 
 the Senate, with the majority that passed it in both 
 houses of Congress, as well as with the people of the 
 North who besought its enactment and who backed 
 the measure with an overwhelming body of public 
 opinion. Stevens did not arouse this spirit of vin- 
 dictiveness ; he merely shared and expressed to an ex- 
 ceptional degree what was indulged by all. 
 
 It is equally unjust to say that Stevens' declarations 
 on Southern conditions were " prompted only by hate 
 and revenge " and were " entitled to no credence." * 
 His declarations on that point (not in support of this 
 bill but of his own temporary military bill) were the 
 declarations of his party majority. His opinions and 
 expressions on this point were shared by his col- 
 leagues, by their constituencies in the North, and by 
 the enlightened organs of the public will. They were 
 the declarations of Wilson, Sumner, Wade, Sherman 
 and Fessenden in the forum; they were the declara- 
 tions of Generals Howard, Thomas, Sheridan, Sick- 
 les and other commanders in the field; they were the 
 declarations of men like Carl Schurz, George William 
 Curtis, James Russell Lowell, Joseph Medill, and other 
 
 passions and resentment of noble men. " I know not," said 
 Brooks, " how the crime of him who shoots at law and liberty in 
 the crowded glare of a great theater differs from theirs who 
 have leveled their aim at the same great beings from behind a 
 thousand ambuscades and on a hundred battle-fields of this long 
 war. Every general in the field and every false citizen who 
 has plotted and labored to destroy the lives of our soldiers is 
 brother to him who did this deed." Brooks' Sermon on Lincoln, 
 1865. 
 1 Rhodes, VI, p. 24. 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 485 
 
 leaders of Northern public opinion at the time. These 
 men voted, or urged others to vote, to sustain this meas- 
 ure, and, along with Stevens, they asserted that it 
 was justified by the deplorable and unbearable con- 
 ditions in the South. 1 
 
 Radicalism was popular, not odious. The people 
 were so anxious to have the ex-Confederates deprived 
 of all political power and reduced to impotence, that 
 they were ready to resort to more drastic means than 
 their more timid representatives in Congress seemed 
 willing to allow. The New York Nation described 
 conditions in the South as thoroughly unsound. Ac- 
 cording to its representation, law was systematically 
 perverted into oppression and so unblushingly over- 
 ridden that it was sheer mockery to refer any loyal 
 man to an average Southern court for justice; the 
 Johnson governments were founded by military power 
 and had their origin in usurpation ; their " course had 
 been atrocious and wicked " and the military bill of 
 Congress deserved hearty sympathy. Reorganization 
 of the South " should never be entrusted to men who 
 have shown such malignity and bigotry as the major- 
 ity of Southern officials." 2 
 
 This is entirely in harmony with what Stevens was 
 in the habit of saying and it may serve as one of a 
 thousand worthy witnesses to show that Stevens' " vin- 
 dictive and vengeful " language was not exceptional. 
 The whole sad truth was that reconstruction had to be 
 
 1 One has only to read the testimony coming from the mili- 
 tary commanders in the South and the files of the New York 
 Nation, Harper's Weekly and the Atlantic Monthly, not to men- 
 tion the more distinctly partisan journals, to appreciate the 
 truth of this statement. 
 
 2 Nation, Feb. 21, 1867. 
 
4 86 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 accomplished amid sectional hatred, bitterness, and an- 
 tagonism. The spirit of cooperation and fraternal 
 regard did not exist ; the natural and inevitable out- 
 come was the attempted subjection of one section to 
 the other which a successful war would ordinarily im- 
 ply. One of the terms imposed — universal suffrage 
 for the negro in his unpreparedness — was, no doubt, 
 unwise. But the responsibility for that lies not alone 
 with one man nor with one section. It was Stevens' 
 desire originally to carry suffrage gradually by the 
 consent of the Southern States and to accompany it 
 with education. The resistance and temper of the 
 South brought, by national power, an act of enfran- 
 chisement which it will take more than a generation 
 to make really effective. 
 
 The reconstruction measures are often criticized as 
 if, at the time, the conditions of the country were 
 normal. Congress is denounced for " brutally striking 
 down state governments," as if Johnson's military 
 creations were legal states. The problem is spoken 
 of as if the Rebellion might have been treated as a com- 
 mon riot, or only as an insurrection against authority, 
 and that, the disorderly citizens having yielded, every- 
 thing could now go on as it was before. The true 
 state of the case was, and the men of the time who 
 had made great sacrifices to preserve the Union felt 
 it most deeply, that the difference between North and 
 South in war and reconstruction is to be looked upon 
 as a great life and death struggle. It was a great 
 public war between two contending powers, and it was 
 nothing short of the ridiculous and the absurd to sup- 
 pose that the victors after such a conflict should be 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 487 
 
 satisfied with things as they were before the conflict 
 began. Great conflicting principles and forces in civ- 
 ilization were disputing for mastery. It was a strug- 
 gle that went deeper than parties. It was the pur- 
 pose of the nation, and Stevens' leadership but rep- 
 resented that firm unflinching resolution, to plant the 
 government anew upon the principles of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. 
 
 The nation's conscience had the conviction that 
 atonement had to be made for a century of injustice 
 and that the honor and safety of the future demanded 
 the establishment of a truer and broader democracy, 
 a democracy as wide as the human race. This ideal- 
 ism of the Declaration of Independence then so fer- 
 vently revived, was not to be realized immediately ; 
 but it was the nation's determination that no by-ques- 
 tions, no fallacies of generosity to the vanquished, 
 should turn it aside from the one fixed purpose it had 
 at heart, — that the war should not have been in vain ; 
 that the Slave States, when they returned to the Union, 
 should return on suitable terms, terms by which politi- 
 cal rights and powers should be distributed on prin- 
 ciples that were righteous and true. Such were the 
 motives and purposes of reconstruction by which its 
 ablest sponsors, like Thaddeus Stevens, should be 
 judged. 
 
 Stevens has been represented as utterly regardless 
 of the restraints of the Constitution and as seeking to 
 impose military rule and negro suffrage upon the 
 South merely to humiliate and punish a proud and 
 worthy people. The criticism expresses only a narrow 
 and temporizing view of his conduct. Perhaps he 
 
4 88 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 manifested to an exceptional degree the unseemly 
 qualities of resentment and revenge, as he did many 
 of the worthier qualities of human nature. But to 
 Stevens equal suffrage to all was a measure of justice, 
 not of punishment. It is more reasonable to suppose 
 that he was primarily inspired by nobler motives, the 
 motives suggested in the deep-seated desire to secure 
 the political justice and regeneration to which we have 
 referred. 
 
 To secure civil and political justice for all men 
 alike, regardless of race, color, or previous condition 
 of servitude, — this was the permanent cause involved 
 in reconstruction. Stevens represented that cause. 
 To that end he would have remodeled the Constitution 
 of his country in whatever way he thought best cal- 
 culated to uproot the last vestige of human slavery, 
 and to establish in America a race-wide democracy of 
 equal rights. True, he entertained no reverence for 
 the Constitution as a complete and inspired instrument 
 needing no change. He is to be admired greatly and 
 commended for that. That idolatrous conception of 
 our Constitution which has been so sedulously culti- 
 vated in this country is an incredible stupidity, tending 
 to discourage all independence of political thought. 
 To him the Constitution was a means, not an end. He 
 would adapt it to the nation's needs and use it as an 
 instrument, not to hamper, but to promote the prog- 
 ress and freedom of the race. He sought to make it 
 an instrument of government under which no oppres- 
 sion could find a resting place. He was therefore, 
 and most rightly, not satisfied with the Constitution 
 of 1787. He sought a nearer approach to the true 
 
MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION 489 
 
 principles of liberty than our fathers had reached. He 
 was, indeed, guilty of the great audacity of believing 
 that we could do much better for human liberty than 
 our fathers had done. Who is there to reproach him 
 for such faith ? He wished to establish a nation over 
 a continent under laws of supreme unvarying char- 
 acter, not intending that one part of the nation should 
 be governed by one set of laws, another by another. 
 The principles applying to the dwellers on the Penob- 
 scot should apply to those on the Susquehanna and the 
 Savannah, with inalienable rights and perfect liberty 
 for all. 
 
 It was this motive and these principles, not vindic- 
 tive hate, that led Stevens to favor civil liberty and 
 manhood suffrage for all, black as well as white. No 
 man, as he believed, could sell his liberty or his priv- 
 ileges for a price. No contract nor instrument of gov- 
 ernment, no matter how solemn, no matter how hedged 
 about by broad seals or stamped by legislative and ex- 
 ecutive approval, — none of these things could alienate 
 a man's liberties and rights. With a peculiar devotion 
 he held that there were certain rights, privileges, and 
 immunities that belonged to every being who had an 
 immortal soul, none of which could be rightfully taken 
 from him by any sort of arrangement with society or 
 government. 
 
 However inadequate the means he employed may 
 have proved to bring about these political ideals ; how- 
 ever the temporary enactments he promoted in recon- 
 struction may have failed to bring about results that 
 only time could work out, those who believe in democ- 
 racy and the faith proclaimed by the founders of the 
 
49o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 republic will continue to maintain that the underlying 
 principles on which Stevens and his radical coadjutors 
 sought to reconstruct the dissevered Union are not des- 
 tined to ultimate failure nor decay. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IMPEACHMENT 
 
 APOLITICAL condition existed in the country in 
 which Congress and the President were at war. 
 It was an impossible situation, and no constitution of 
 government should ever permit it to exist. The Ex- 
 ecutive and the Legislative had denounced one another 
 beyond the limit of decency. The country had given 
 to Congress such a majority as enabled that body to 
 reduce the President to impotency, yet they were with- 
 out an Executive of their own with a heart to carry 
 out the nation's will. The President had obstinately 
 determined that, wherever he could, he would defeat 
 and circumvent, nag and annoy, the responsible leg- 
 islative leaders, and he would go to the bounds of the 
 law in opposition to the public will as expressed in 
 Congress. It passeth knowledge to determine what 
 reason can be urged in constitution-making or in state- 
 craft for a constitutional system of government that 
 makes possible for any length of time such a rela- 
 tionship between the executive and the legislative 
 branches of government. It is well known that if the 
 framers of our Constitution had understood the mod- 
 ern responsible Cabinet, or if they could have foreseen 
 the party character and the great political power of the 
 American presidency they would not have made the 
 mistake of setting such a disjointed and jarring rela- 
 
 •491 
 
492 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tionship between the legislative and executive branches 
 of government. 
 
 The movement for the removal of Andrew John- 
 son found its cause in the politics of the time. His 
 impeachment was essentially a political issue, as Stev- 
 ens very frankly declared, with his usual habit of bold 
 avowal and unconcealment. Johnson's case was de- 
 cided, however, not as a political question but as a 
 purely legal question, by a few lawyers in the United 
 States Senate who deemed themselves to be sitting as 
 judges in a purely criminal case. What a President 
 may do to harm his country, short of proving himself 
 a criminal, is beyond measure. If Johnson had stolen 
 a chicken, as one of the political managers at his trial 
 suggested, he could have been impeached and removed. 
 But to throw himself athwart the national will and to 
 circumvent important political ends upon which the 
 nation has determined, while yet keeping within the 
 limits of the criminal law, — in such a case there is 
 operative now no method of impeachment, or recall, 
 within the sovereign power of the people. 
 
 It may reasonably be regretted, especially by those 
 who wish to democratize the American government, 
 as Stevens did, that such a narrow view of the im- 
 peaching powers prevailed in the historic trial of An- 
 drew Johnson. It is well known that President Jef- 
 ferson, in his day, desired to restrain the federalist 
 judges by an easier process of impeachment and to 
 accomplish their removal by the united vote of the two 
 houses, somewhat after the present English method. 
 If, as the Jeffersonian Republicans desired and at- 
 tempted, impeachment could have been used in the 
 
IMPEACHMENT 493 
 
 first place under Jefferson by a legislative process and 
 for a public purpose, to impeach a biased, cantanker- 
 ous, and partisan judge like Justice Chase, who was ut- 
 terly unfit to sit upon the bench; and if, in the second 
 important instance in our history, the impeachment 
 power could have been successfully employed as a 
 political weapon to remove a President who, if not 
 utterly unfit for his place, was not only an accident in 
 his office but an incumbrance and obstruction to the ex- 
 ercise of popular power, — then the precedents might 
 have so vitalized the impeaching powers that it would 
 now be possible to use them, in a measure, as a means 
 of promoting responsible parliamentary government 
 in America. But legalism and the undemocratic re- 
 strictions of a written constitution have determined 
 otherwise. And now into whatever indignation and 
 anger a President may bring the people, however in- 
 ane, or supine, or incompetent and perverse he may be, 
 there is nought for the nation to do, fret and fume as 
 it may, but to await the expiration of his four years' 
 term. If that had been the precedent and the law 
 for the century gone by, Stevens would have set an- 
 other precedent for the centuries to come. 
 
 It is the custom to lift up voice and hands in dis- 
 approval of allowing such scope to unrestrained pop- 
 ular power. The masses would be so controlled, it is 
 said, by partisan passion and popular excesses as to 
 make such power in the hands of the representatives 
 of the people altogether too dangerous. But those 
 who believe in democratic government for America 
 are quite inclined to believe that it would be far safer 
 to allow the people to remove, or recall, their Presi- 
 
494 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 dent by a two-thirds adverse vote (if not by a major- 
 ity) in both houses of Congress, than to try to get on 
 under a cumbersome and rigid Constitution that was 
 instituted, in the first place, and has since been con- 
 stantly applied, to restrain the people from working 
 out their will in governmental law and administration. 
 Impeachment may be revived for a time under popular 
 pressure, or it may be threatened occasionally against 
 judicial offenders for political reasons, but it is safe to 
 say that it will never again be revived to harm or 
 restrain a President in the performance, or misper- 
 formance of his public duties. 
 
 It was with some such ideas of responsible demo- 
 cratic government as these that Stevens, leading his 
 party colleagues, undertook the impeachment of An- 
 drew Johnson. Stevens realized that some of the 
 senatorial judges would have to be convinced by purely 
 judicial considerations, and he sought, in part, to pre- 
 sent his cause with that in view. But he also deemed 
 it proper, from the governmental considerations that 
 I have partly adduced, to appeal to partisanship to 
 secure votes from his party colleagues, for the sake 
 of what he deemed worthy political and public ends. 
 It is but fair to judge his course in impeachment with 
 these considerations in mind. 
 
 A proposition to impeach the President for high 
 crimes and misdemeanors had been pending in the 
 House for more than a year before that body came to 
 the point of deciding in favor of this drastic policy. 
 In June, 1867, the Judiciary Committee of the House 
 was instructed to inquire into the conduct of Johnson, 
 to see if he were guilty of offenses that were impeach- 
 
IMPEACHMENT 495 
 
 able under the Constitution. In the closing days of 
 the Thirty-ninth Congress, the committee reported 
 that there was enough evidence to justify the continu- 
 ance of the investigation by the incoming Fortieth Con- 
 gress. In June, 1867, the majority of the committee 
 reported that there was not sufficient ground for im- 
 peachment, but it was decided to have the committee 
 continue the search for evidence. 
 
 During the recess of Congress from July to Novem- 
 ber, 1867, Johnson removed General Sheridan from 
 the military department of Louisiana and suspended 
 Secretary Stanton, head of the war department, and 
 these events, it appears, were influential in bringing a 
 majority of the committee to support the policy of 
 impeachment. George S. Bout well, of Massachusetts, 
 made a report in the House to this effect on Novem- 
 ber 25, 1867; but two of the Republican members of 
 the committee were still opposed to the policy of im- 
 peachment and the proposal was rejected by the House 
 by a vote of one hundred and eight to fifty-seven, 
 sixty-seven Republicans and all the Democrats voting 
 against the policy. 
 
 In December, the Senate refused to sustain the rea- 
 sons which the President submitted to that body for 
 the removal of Stanton. Thereupon, General Grant, 
 who had been acting as Secretary of War ad interim, 
 left the office and Stanton again took up its duties. 
 This action of General Grant in allowing Stanton to 
 again take possession of the war office angered John- 
 son and he accused Grant of a breach of promise. He 
 asserted that Grant had promised to hold the office 
 and force Stanton to resort to judicial proceedings in 
 
496 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 his efforts to regain possession. This process would 
 have tested in the courts the constitutionality of the 
 Tenure of Office Act and it might have resulted in its 
 judicial nullification. A quarrel therefore resulted be- 
 tween the President and the Commander of the army 
 that had considerable results in the politics of the 
 times. If the President had had a little tact and more 
 affability, he might have secured the powerful influ- 
 ence of Grant in the fight against Stanton and Con- 
 gress. 
 
 Stanton now remained in the Cabinet, not as a Sec- 
 retary of the President, but as a Secretary of Con- 
 gress ; but while attending to the routine duties of the 
 office he did not attend the Cabinet meetings. 
 
 Johnson was advised to allow Stanton to retain his 
 office, to perform its clerical and legal duties, while 
 the President and his advisers could afford to abide 
 their time. While Stanton's continuance in the of- 
 fice was an offense to the Executive, he could not be 
 seriously obstructive nor injurious, and the country 
 would understand that responsibility for his presence 
 there rested with the Senate and not with the Presi- 
 dent, and it was believed that the congressional party 
 would not find Stanton a popular issue. 
 
 Disregarding this advice, Johnson, on February 21, 
 1868, issued a peremptory order removing Stanton 
 from the office as Secretary of War, and he appointed 
 Lorenzo B. Thomas Secretary ad interim. Johnson 
 held that he had the right to get rid of Stanton. To 
 accomplish this he intended to resort to judicial pro- 
 ceedings if necessary, while if the Senate refused to 
 concur in his removal, the Secretarv might have re- 
 
IMPEACHMENT 497 
 
 sort to the courts to test his right. In either case 
 the President would have his right to a harmonious 
 Cabinet tested by the laws. Stanton refused to sur- 
 render the office to Thomas, denounced as illegal all 
 orders issuing from Thomas as Secretary of War, and 
 instructed generals of the army to pay no respect to 
 such orders. Upon receiving reports of these facts, 
 Johnson again instructed Thomas to take charge of the 
 office and perform its duties. 
 
 The Senate was notified of these proceedings by 
 both the President and Stanton. The Senate went 
 into an executive session which lasted for seven 
 hours, in the course of which it was resolved, " that 
 under the Constitution and the laws the President 
 had no power to remove the Secretary of War, and 
 to designate any other officer to perform the duties 
 of that office ad interim." Secretary Stanton, having 
 heard that Thomas had threatened to take possession 
 of the war office by force, had a warrant issued for 
 Thomas's arrest, and before Thomas had break- 
 fasted next morning he was arrested and brought into 
 court. Thomas, having been released on bail, pre- 
 sented himself at Stanton's office and in the presence 
 of a number of gentlemen, who, with Stanton, had 
 been holding possession of the office during the night, 
 he demanded that Stanton surrender possession. A 
 serio-comic colloquy followed between the two claim- 
 ants of the office, Stanton ordering Thomas out, 
 Thomas refusing to go, and each claiming the right 
 to perform the functions of the office. 
 
 On February 21, 1868, the House, having received 
 the news from Stanton of the attempt to remove him, 
 
498 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 was now in a state of mind for the impeachment pro- 
 posal. On February 10, 1868, on motion of Mr. 
 Stevens, the evidence taken by the Judiciary Commit- 
 tee had been transferred to the Reconstruction Com- 
 mittee, and the latter committee thereafter had charge 
 of the impeachment question. On February 13th, this 
 committee had laid on the table by a vote of six to 
 three a resolution to impeach. But now there was a 
 different temper, and Covode's resolution, offered on 
 the 21st, "that Andrew Johnson be impeached of 
 high crimes and misdemeanors " was referred to the 
 Committee on Reconstruction with full expectation 
 that it would be reported favorably on the morrow. 
 At twenty minutes past two of the next day (Feb. 
 22nd), after a committee session in violation of the 
 House rule which forbade committee meetings during 
 the session without special leave, 1 the Reconstruction 
 Committee, with Stevens at its head, came into the 
 House, with a report recommending the adoption of 
 the impeachment resolution. Stevens wished to take 
 a vote without debate, saying as he offered the report 
 that such a removal as Johnson had been guilty of, 
 had always been considered a crime and misdemeanor 
 and was never before practised. But the debate, or 
 series of speeches, continued through the day and late 
 into the night of the 22nd, and the discussion was re- 
 sumed on Monday, the 24th, to the extent altogether 
 of two hundred columns of the Globe. " There 
 seemed," says Mr. Blaine, " to be an inordinate de- 
 sire among gentlemen who had hitherto been con- 
 servative on the question, as well as among those who 
 1 Speech of Brooks, House, Feb. 22, 1868, Globe, p. 1336. 
 
IMPEACHMENT 499 
 
 had been constantly in favor of impeachment, to place 
 themselves on record against the President." x 
 
 Brooks, a " Peace Democrat," or " Copperhead," 
 during the war, protested against this final stage of 
 the revolution for the destruction of the executive 
 branch of the federal government. Bingham, of 
 Ohio, expressed his sincere conviction that the Presi- 
 dent had " violated the Constitution, his oath of of- 
 fice, and the laws of the country." Farnsworth, of Il- 
 linois, denounced Johnson as an " ungrateful, despic- 
 able, besotted traitor, — a man who had turned his back 
 upon the men who had elected him." 2 Kelley, of 
 Pennsylvania, declared that the House was about to 
 bring to trial " the great criminal of our age and coun- 
 try, a man who for two years has been plotting with 
 deliberate and bloody purpose the overthrow of the 
 institutions of our country " ; and he thought it well 
 for men to pause before speaking in defense of the 
 " great criminal whom the American people arraign 
 for thousands of crimes." 3 
 
 John A Logan, of Illinois, who was afterward one 
 of the impeachment managers, said : " Not one act 
 has been passed by your Congress in the direction of 
 peace, union, and prosperity, that he has not vetoed ; 
 and when passed over his veto by a constitutional 
 majority, that he has not attempted to prevent the ex- 
 ecution of the same. He has advised and encouraged 
 rebels and traitors in the South to disobey the laws ; 
 he has removed military commanders that the recon- 
 
 1 Twenty Years of Congress, II, p. 356. 
 - Globe, 40th Congress, 2d Session, p. 1344. 
 3 Globe, pp. 1347 and 1348. 
 
5 oo THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 struction laws might be disregarded and opposed. 
 . . . He has not only insulted the nation by his con- 
 duct as President, but he has disgraced that high of- 
 fice in which he was placed by the death of his illus- 
 trious predecessor." * 
 
 It would be tiresome to quote further from this 
 partisan and impassioned debate. Members spoke of 
 the occasion as one of thrilling and transcendent im- 
 portance, and the men of the minority professed to be- 
 lieve that the future peace, honor and stability of the 
 country, and everything held dear in our political life, 
 hung upon the outcome. 2 
 
 Stevens took twenty-five minutes to close the dis- 
 cussion. He recognized the gravity of the issue in- 
 volved and professed a desire to discuss it " in no 
 partisan spirit, but with legal accuracy and impartial 
 justice. The people desire no victim and they will 
 endure no usurper." 
 
 1 Globe, pp. 1352-1353- 
 
 2 Niblack, Globe, p. 1398. 
 
 That the Johnson party was as partisan as those leading- the 
 impeachment may be seen from a passage in the Diary of 
 Gideon Wells, a stanch protagonist of the President, which 
 has recently appeared : " The impeachment is a deed of ex- 
 treme partisanship, a deliberate conspiracy, involving all the 
 moral guilt of treason for which the members would, if fairly 
 tried, be liable to conviction and condemnation. . . . The Presi- 
 dent is innocent of crime, his accusers and triers are culpably 
 guilty. In this violent and vicious exercise of partyism. I see 
 the liberties and happiness of the country and the stability _ of 
 the government imperiled." Wells quotes, without suggestion 
 of impropriety, Air. John Bigelow, as predicting that impeach- 
 ment would fail from political motives, because the conservative 
 Senators, "with the Chief Justice, look with repugnance and 
 horror to the accession of Wade, and would prefer to continue 
 the President. Unless, therefore, Wade will resign and allow 
 some good conservative Senator to be made President of the 
 Senate, he [Bigelow] thinks impeachment will be defeated." 
 .-Ulan tic Mo., Oct., 1910. 
 
IMPEACHMENT 501 
 
 To sustain impeachment Stevens held that it was 
 not necessary to prove a crime as an indictable of- 
 fense, or any act malum in sc. He held this to be a 
 purely political proceeding, a remedy for malfeasance 
 in office and to prevent its continuance. Beyond that 
 it is not intended as a personal punishment for past 
 offenses or future example. He held that the punish- 
 ment resulting from impeachment has been substi- 
 tuted by the framers of the Constitution for that of 
 attainder, in order to prevent revenge and punishment 
 from being inflicted upon political and personal 
 enemies. The question should be treated as wholly 
 political. If an officer abuse his trust or attempt to 
 pervert it to improper purposes, whatever might be 
 his motives, he becomes subject to impeachment and 
 removal. He asserted that in no case of impeach- 
 ment yet tried in this country has an attempt been 
 made to prove the offense criminal and indictable. 
 
 Stevens then proceeded to a review of the Tenure 
 of Office Act and Johnson's alleged violations of the 
 same. The President had taken an oath to execute 
 the laws, and from that oath Johnson could not now 
 plead exemption " on account of his condition at the 
 time it was administered to him." He had sought to 
 induce the General of the army to cooperate with 
 him in the avowed purpose of preventing the opera- 
 tion of the law. No matter which of the two, Grant 
 or Johnson, in the question of veracity between them 
 should be shown to be the man of truth and which 
 the man of falsehood, the President by the statement 
 of either, has " committed wilful perjury by refusing 
 to take care that the laws should be faithfully exe- 
 
502 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 cuted. Indeed to show the utter disregard of the 
 laws of his country, we have only to return to his last 
 annual message in which he proclaims to the public 
 that the laws of Congress are unconstitutional and 
 not binding on the people. Who, after that, can say 
 that such a man is fit to occupy the executive chair, 
 whose duty it is to inculcate obedience to those very 
 laws and see that they are faithfully obeyed? Then 
 the great beauty of this remedial and preventive pro- 
 cess is dearly demonstrated. He is dull and blind 
 who can not see its necessity and the beneficial pur- 
 poses of the trial by impeachment." x 
 
 Stevens, as might be expected, found cause against 
 the President in his whole course of conduct in re- 
 construction, because of his persistent usurpation of 
 powers that belonged alone to Congress. When the 
 territory of the South had been surrendered by the 
 fortunes of war to the victorious arms of the Union, 
 " no power but Congress had any right to say whether 
 ever or when they should be admitted to the Union 
 as states. Yet Andrew Johnson with unblushing 
 hardihood, undertook to rule them by his own power 
 alone ; to lead them into full communion with the 
 Union ; direct them what governments to erect and 
 what constitutions to adopt, and to send Senators 
 and Representatives to Congress according to his in- 
 structions. When admonished by expressed act of 
 Congress, more than once repeated, he disregarded 
 the warning, and continued his lawless usurpation. 
 He is since known to have obstructed the reestablish- 
 ment of those governments by the authority of Con- 
 
 1 Globe, p. 1400. 
 
IMPEACHMENT 503 
 
 gress and has advised the inhabitants to resist the 
 legislation of Congress. In my judgment his conduct 
 with regard to that transaction was a high-handed 
 usurpation of power which ought long ago to have 
 brought him to impeachment and trial and to have 
 removed him from his position of great mischief. 
 He has been lucky in thus far escaping through false 
 logic and false law. But his acts, which will on the 
 trial be shown to be atrocious, are open evidence of 
 his wicked determination to subvert the laws of his 
 country." 
 
 " The sovereign power of the nation rests in Congress, 
 who have been placed around the Executive as muniments 
 to defend his rights, and as watchmen to enforce his obedi- 
 ence to the law and the Constitution. His oath to obey the 
 Constitution and our duty to compel him to do it are a 
 tremendous obligation, heavier than was ever assumed by 
 mortal rulers. We are to protect or to destroy the liberty 
 and happiness of a mighty people, and to take care that they 
 progress in civilization and defend themselves against every 
 kind of tyranny. As we deal with the first great political 
 malefaction so will be the result of our efforts to perpetuate 
 the happiness and good government of the human race. 
 The God of our fathers who inspired them with the thought 
 of universal freedom, will hold us responsible for the noble 
 institutions which they projected and expected us to carry 
 out. This is not to be the temporary triumph of a political 
 party, but is to endure in its consecmence until this whole 
 continent shall be filled with a free and untrammeled people 
 or shall be a nest of shrinking cowardly slaves." 1 
 
 When Stevens closed, he called for the yeas and 
 nays on the resolution. The Republicans voted yea, 
 
 1 Globe, Feb. 24, 1868, p. 1400. 
 
504 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVEXS 
 
 and the Democrats nay, and impeachment was carried 
 by a vote of one hundred and twenty-six to forty- 
 seven. 
 
 A committee of seven was appointed to draw up 
 articles of impeachment. 1 
 
 Stevens and Bingham were appointed a committee 
 of two to inform the Senate of the action of the 
 House. On the following day, February 25th, these 
 noted leaders appeared at the bar of the Senate. Sum- 
 ner, who was a witness of the scene, 2 describes Stev- 
 ens as " looking the ideal Roman, with singular im- 
 pressiveness, as if he were discharging a sad duty." 3 
 Standing before the Senate in solemn mien, Stevens 
 arraigned the President in words that thrilled and im- 
 pressed the listener. " I doubt," said Sumner, " if 
 words were ever delivered with more effect. — Who 
 can forget his steady solemn utterance of this great 
 arraignment? " 4 
 
 " In the name of the House of Representatives 
 and of all the people of the United States, we do im- 
 peach Andrew Johnson, President of the United 
 States, of high crimes and misdemeanors in office; 
 and we further inform the Senate that the House 
 of Representatives will, in due time, exhibit particu- 
 lar articles of impeachment against him and make 
 good the same ; and in their name we demand that the 
 
 1 This committee consisted of Thaddeus Stevens, Benjamin 
 F. Butler, John A. Logan, John A. Bingham, George S. Bout- 
 well, George W. Julian and Hamilton Ward. Later, James F. 
 Wilson, of Iowa, and Thomas Williams, of Pennsylvania, were 
 substituted for Julian and Ward. 
 
 2 Rhodes, VI, p. in. 
 
 3 Storev's Sunnier. 
 
 - 1 McCall. p. 336, Globe, Dec. 18, 1868. 
 
IMPEACHMENT 505 
 
 Senate take order for the appearance of the same 
 Andrew Johnson to answer said impeachment." 
 
 The President of the Senate replied, " The Senate 
 will take order in the premises." 
 
 Stevens and Bingham then withdrew. 
 
 Stevens was appointed one of the managers to pre- 
 sent the case to the Senate. His physical condition 
 prevented his taking the leading part in the " most im- 
 portant trial of the century," for the sickness from 
 which he never again fully rallied had now laid hold 
 upon him. But his masterful will never allowed him 
 to yield the pursuit of his object. When too weak to 
 walk he was carried into the Senate chamber, and 
 when too weak to talk " his fellow managers would 
 read his words." 1 
 
 On March 4th, the House managers appeared be- 
 fore the bar of the Senate. The Speaker of the 
 House took a seat beside that of the President pro 
 tempore of the Senate. The sergeant-of-arms of the 
 Senate made proclamation, " Hear ye ! Hear ye ! 
 Hear ye! All persons commanded to keep silence, 
 on pain of imprisonment, while the House of Repre- 
 sentatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United 
 States articles of impeachment against Andrew John- 
 son, President of the United States." 
 
 The managers rose, and remained standing, with 
 the exception of Mr. Stevens, who was physically un- 
 able to do so, while Mr. Manager Bingham read the 
 articles of impeachment. 2 
 
 The President, in the eleven historic articles, was 
 charged in much verbal reiteration with violating the 
 
 1 McCall, p. 337. - Globe, p. 1647. 
 
506 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Tenure of Office Act, in deposing Stanton and ap- 
 pointing Thomas; with violating the Anti-Conspiracy 
 Act of July 31, 1 86 1, in conspiring with Thomas to 
 expel Stanton and to seize the papers and property 
 of the office; with violating the Reconstruction Act, 
 of March 2, 1867, in directing that military orders 
 should issue through others than the General of the 
 army, as in his attempting to induce General Emory 
 to take orders direct from the President in violation 
 of said act ; and with committing " high crimes and 
 misdemeanors " in his attitude toward and denuncia- 
 tions of Congress; in his public efforts to bring that 
 body " into disgrace, ridicule, hatred and contempt, 
 and to impair and destroy the regard and respect of 
 all the good people of the United States for the Con- 
 gress thereof." 
 
 The famous eleventh article, the one on which the 
 crucial vote was taken and on which rested the chief 
 hope of conviction, was drawn by Stevens. It 
 charged that Johnson, " unmindful of his oath of office 
 and in disregard of the Constitution, and the laws, did 
 on the 1 6th day of August, 1866, in the City of Wash- 
 ington, by a public speech, declare and affirm that the 
 Thirty-ninth Congress was not a Congress of the 
 United States, authorized by the Constitution to exer- 
 cise legislative power, but on the contrary, was a Con- 
 gress of only part of the states, thereby denying" and 
 intending to deny that the legislation of said Congress 
 was valid or obligatory upon him, except in so far as 
 he saw fit to approve the same, and also thereby deny- 
 ing and intending to deny the power of Congress to 
 propose amendments to the Constitution of the United 
 
IMPEACHMENT '507 
 
 States." The article also charged that Johnson had 
 attempted to prevent the execution of the Tenure of 
 Office Act. 
 
 This article has been referred to as the " Omnibus 
 Article," — a combination of all the charges into one 
 article, " a trick to catch wavering Senators," " a 
 nondescript and a curiosity in pleading." 1 Profes- 
 sor Dunning characterizes it as a striking testimony 
 to " the undiminished shrewdness and intellectual 
 strength of the veteran whose physical forces were 
 close to their ends." 2 
 
 We can not here follow the trial in detail. Al- 
 though there were able lawyers among the prosecu- 
 ting managers, they were equaled, if not over matched, 
 by the array of legal counselors that came to the 
 President's defense. Among these were ex-At- 
 torney General Stanbery; Benjamin R. Curtis, former 
 Justice of the Supreme Court who had given the 
 able dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case; Wil- 
 liam M. Evarts, of New York, W. S. Grosbeck, of 
 Ohio, and Thomas A. R. Nelson, of Tennessee, five 
 of the ablest lawyers of their day. 
 
 Butler opened for the prosecution by a speech of 
 three hours in which he sought to arouse the politi- 
 cal antipathy of the Senators by reminding them of 
 the President's " swing around the circle " of his buf- 
 foonery in public, and of his repeated and coarse 
 abuse of the congressional leaders. But Evarts broke 
 the force of Butler's plea by quoting from the debates 
 in the House to show that worse abuse than the Presi- 
 
 1 Dewitt, p. 388, Rhodes, VI, p. 116, Senator Buckalew. 
 
 2 Reconstruction, p. 106. 
 
508 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 dent could be charged with had been irjdulged in by 
 two of the Honorable Managers toward each other. 
 
 Curtis made the chief speech for the defense, speak- 
 ing during two days. He sought to divorce the case 
 from its political bearings and reduce it entirely to a 
 judicial character. In addressing the Chief Justice in 
 his opening remarks, Curtis said he was there to 
 speak to the Senate " sitting in its judicial capacity," 
 and he affirmed that in such a case, " party spirit, po- 
 litical schemes, foregone conclusions, outrageous 
 biases, can have no fit operation." As a purely legal 
 question it was not difficult for him to show that 
 the question hung chiefly on whether Stanton's case 
 came under the Tenure of Office Act. He held that 
 it did not, that the Tenure of Office Act did not ap- 
 ply to Stanton. But even if it did, Johnson had not 
 violated it in seeking as he had done to have the case 
 brought before the courts for a decision as to its 
 constitutionality. He had not erected himself into a 
 judicial court to decide that the act was unconsti- 
 tutional and that, therefore, he would not enforce it. 
 He claimed no such power. That would be to em- 
 power the President, not only to veto a law, but to re- 
 fuse all action under it after it had passed, and pre- 
 vent a judicial decision from being made. But if a 
 law were passed over the President's veto which he 
 believed to be constitutional and that law affects the 
 interests of third persons, those whose interests are 
 affected must take care of them, raise questions con- 
 cerning them. If such a law affects the public in- 
 terests, the people must take care at the polls that it 
 
IMPEACHMENT 509 
 
 is remedied in a constitutional way. But when such a 
 law cuts off a power confided to the President by the 
 people in their Constitution and the President alone 
 can raise the question and cause a legal decision to be 
 made as to which of the two branches of the gov- 
 ernment is right, it remains to be decided by you, 
 Senators, whether there is any violation of his duty 
 when he takes the needful steps to raise that question 
 and have it peacefully decided." * 
 
 It is the judgment of Mr. Rhodes that Stevens 
 made the ablest argument for the prosecution. He 
 confined himself to his own article, the eleventh, and 
 he never lost sight of his dear single purpose to secure 
 the doubtful Senators. 2 
 
 Stevens had carefully prepared his argument and 
 he began to read it while standing at the Secretary's 
 desk ; " but after proceeding a few minutes, being 
 too feeble to stand, obtained permission to take a 
 seat, and having read nearly a half an hour from his 
 chair until his voice became almost too weak to be 
 heard, handed over his manuscript to Mr. Manager 
 Butler, who concluded the reading." 3 
 
 One may well wonder as Mr. Rhodes says, 
 " whether if Stevens had possessed his physical 
 strength of two years previous, the result would have 
 been different. Certainly the trial would have been 
 conducted otherwise. He would have been chairman 
 of the managers and dictated the line of procedure; 
 but on account of his infirm health, the management 
 
 1 Curtis's speech, cited in Rhodes' VI, pp. 123, 124. 
 
 2 Rhodes, VI, p. 135. 
 
 3 Globe, Supplement, p. 324. 
 
5io THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 of the trial fell to Butler, next to him the most adroit 
 of the prosecutors." 1 
 
 Stevens began by saying that experience had taught 
 him that nothing was so prolix as ignorance, — there- 
 fore he would be brief, that he would discuss only his 
 own article, the eleventh, which, if proved, was suffi- 
 cient to convict, and to bring about the only legitimate 
 object of the impeachment, the removal of Johnson 
 from office. He wished to speak in no spirit of ma- 
 lignity or vituperation, but to argue the charges in a 
 manner worthy of the high tribunal before which he 
 stood and of the exalted position of the accused. 
 " Whatever may be thought of his [Johnson's] char- 
 acter or condition, he has been made respectable and 
 his condition has been dignified by the action of his 
 fellow citizens. Railing accusation, therefore, would 
 ill become this occasion, this tribunal, or a proper sense 
 of the position of those who discuss this question, on 
 the one side or the other." 
 
 When the charges against such a public servant 
 accuse him of an attempt to betray the high trust con- 
 fided in him and usurp the power of a whole people 
 that he may become their ruler, it is " intensely inter- 
 esting to millions of men, and should be discussed with 
 a calm determination which nothing can divert and 
 nothing can reduce to mockery. Such is the condi- 
 tion of this great republic, as looked upon by an as- 
 tonished and wondering world." 
 
 Stevens denied that American impeachment was 
 analogous to that under English law. In England 
 high crimes might be punished through impeachment 
 
 1 VI, p. 135- 
 
IMPEACHMENT 5 1 1 
 
 by fine, imprisonment, or death. Our Constitution 
 excluded all penalties beyond removal and disqualifi- 
 cation, — the public safety, not the punishment of the 
 officer, being the object in view. Hence impeachment 
 applies to political offenses, and it is not necessary to 
 allege or prove an indictable offense. If the defen- 
 dant is shown to be abusing his official trust to the 
 injury of the people, and if he persevere in this 
 abuse, the true mode of dealing with him is to remove 
 him by impeachment, if his continuance in office is 
 deemed dangerous to the public welfare. No matter 
 about the motive. " Mere mistake in intention, if so 
 persevered in after proper warning as to bring mischief 
 upon the community, is sufficient. 
 
 " The only question to be considered is : Is the re- 
 spondent violating the law ? — To obey the com- 
 mands of the sovereign power of the nation, and to 
 see that others should obey them, was his whole duty 
 which he could not escape, and any attempt to do so 
 would be in direct violation of his official oath ; in 
 other words, a misprision of perjury. I accuse him 
 in the name of the House of Representatives of hav- 
 ing perpetrated that foul offense against the laws and 
 interests of this country." 
 
 Stevens then entered upon an extensive argument 
 to prove that the Tenure of Office Act applied to 
 Stanton and that Johnson was serving out Lincoln's 
 term of office. He traced the plain facts in the case 
 as they had occurred and showed that Johnson had 
 violated the act by his efforts to prevent Stanton from 
 performing the duties of the Secretary of War. " I 
 disclaim all necessity," he said, " in a trial of im- 
 
5 i2 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 peachment to prove the wicked or unlawful intention 
 of the respondent, and it is unwise ever to aver it. 
 In indictments you charge that the defendant ' insti- 
 gated by the devil,' and so on ; and you might as 
 well call on the prosecution to prove the presence, 
 shape, and color of his Majesty as to call upon the 
 managers in impeachment to prove intention. No 
 corrupt or wicked motive need instigate the acts for 
 which impeachment is brought. It is enough that 
 they were official violations of law." 
 
 The President had not the same right of removal 
 that former Presidents had, since a law had been 
 passed by Congress, after a stubborn controversy with 
 the Executive, denying that right and prohibiting it in 
 future, after the President had made issue on its 
 constitutionality, and been defeated. Did he " take 
 care that this law should be faithfully" executed? 
 The plea of the President that he had removed 
 Stanton in order to test the constitutionality of the 
 Tenure of Office Law was not valid. That had been 
 tested and decided by votes, twice given, of two- 
 thirds of the Senators and Representatives in Con- 
 gress. It was a law. No case had arisen to require 
 judicial interposition. " Instead of enforcing the 
 law he takes advantage of the name and funds of 
 the United States to resist it, and to seduce others to 
 resist it. He sought to induce the General in Chief of 
 the army to aid him in an open avowed obstruction 
 of the law as it stood unrepealed upon the statute 
 books. A plain recital of the facts that are unde- 
 nied is sufficient to prove this contention. The un- 
 happy man is in this condition. He has declared 
 
IMPEACHMENT 513 
 
 himself determined to obstruct that act; he has, by 
 two several letters of authority, ordered Lorenzo 
 Thomas to violate that law. — He must therefore 
 either deny his own solemn declarations and falsify 
 the testimony of General Grant and Lorenzo Thomas, 
 or expect that verdict whose least punishment is re- 
 moval from office." 
 
 Referring to the angry correspondence between 
 Grant and Johnson, he said that it was immaterial 
 which of these gentlemen had lost his memory or told 
 the truth " though who can hesitate to choose be- 
 tween the words of a gallant soldier and the petti- 
 fogging of a political trickster? The charge is that 
 the President did attempt to prevent the due execution 
 of the Tenure of Office Law by entangling the Gen- 
 eral in the arrangement; and unless both the Presi- 
 dent and the General have lost their memory and mis- 
 taken the truth with regard to the promises with each 
 other, then this charge is made out." 
 
 The President's plea that he might disregard the 
 law because of its unconstitutionality could not hold. 
 Could he expect " a sufficient number of his tryers to 
 pronounce that law unconstitutional and void, — those 
 same tryers having passed upon its validity on sev- 
 eral occasions " ? 
 
 Discussing the charge of usurpation brought 
 against the President, Stevens brought forward his 
 conquered province theory, that the conquerors in the 
 war might deal with the vanquished as to them might 
 seem good, subject only to the laws of humanity, — 
 " a doctrine as old as a Grotius and as fresh as the 
 Dorr Rebellion. Neither the President nor the 
 
5T4 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Judiciary had any right to interfere, to dictate any 
 terms, or to aid in reconstruction further than they 
 were directed by the sovereign power, the Congress 
 of the United States. Whoever, besides Congress, 
 undertakes to creat new states or to rebuild old ones, 
 and fix the condition of their citizenship and union, 
 usurps powers which do not belong to him, and is 
 dangerous according to the extent of his power and 
 his pretensions. Andrew Johnson did usurp the 
 legislative power of the nation by building new 
 states and reconstructing this empire. He directed 
 the defunct states to come forth and live by virtue of 
 his breathing into them the breath of life. He told 
 them what constitutions to form ; fixed the qualifica- 
 tions of voters and office-holders; directed them to 
 send forward members of Congress and to aid him in 
 representing the nation. When Congress declared 
 these doings unconstitutional and fixed a mode for 
 the admission of this new territory into the nation, 
 he proclaimed it unconstitutional and advised the peo- 
 ple not to submit to it nor obey the commands of 
 Congress. This seemed to Stevens the vital phase 
 and real purpose of all of the President's misdemean- 
 ors. The nation had been in conflict; the mutineers 
 had laid down their arms; the laws were about to re- 
 gain their accustomed sway ; old institutions were 
 about to be reinstated on principles satisfactory to 
 the conquerors, when "one of their inferior serv- 
 ants, instigated by unholy ambition, sought to seize 
 a portion of the territory according to the fashion 
 of neighboring anarchies, and to convert a land of 
 freedom into a land of slaves. The people spurned 
 
IMPEACHMENT 
 
 5 l D 
 
 the traitors and have put the chief of them upon 
 trial and demand judgment upon his misconduct. He 
 will be condemned and his sentence inflicted without 
 turmoil, tumult, or bloodshed, and the nation will con- 
 tinue its accustomed course of freedom and 
 prosperity." 
 
 The President was bound to execute the laws, not 
 to obstruct them, nor advise their infraction. " Who 
 was grieved by the Tenure of Office Bill that he was 
 authorized to use the name and the funds of the 
 government to relieve? 
 
 "If he were not willing to execute the laws passed 
 by the American Congress and unrepealed, let him re- 
 sign the office which was thrown upon him by a hor- 
 rible convulsion and retire to his village obscurity. 
 Let him not be so swollen by pride and arrogance, 
 which sprang from the deep misfortune of this coun- 
 try, as to attempt an entire revolution of its internal 
 machinery, and the disgrace of the trusted servants 
 of his lamented predecessor." 1 
 
 It appears from Stevens' speech that he expected a 
 verdict for conviction. This is not surprising as more 
 than two-thirds of the Senators had gone on record 
 condemning Johnson for his removal of Stanton. 
 Few expected that so many Republicans would break 
 away from their party to vote for acquittal. 2 On the 
 
 1 Trial, April 27, 1868, Supplement to the Cong. Globe. 
 
 2 Greeley wrote to Stevens under date of April 20, 1868: 
 "Keep us posted in the Tribune office. I do not fear the ver- 
 dict, but I greatly desire to make the majority on the first vote 
 as strong as possible." No doubt the Republican Senators who 
 voted for acquittal disappointed the public expectation and de- 
 sire and went counter to an overwhelming party opinion. One 
 of Stevens' correspondents expressed the prevailing party opin- 
 ion when he said that these Johnson Senators had " made a 
 
516 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 test vote, on the eleventh article, seven Republican 
 Senators supported the President, thirty-five Senators 
 voting for conviction, nineteen for acquittal. The 
 President had escaped by a margin of one vote. On 
 two subsequent votes the prosecution could muster 
 no greater strength, and on May 26, 1868, the Senate 
 as a Court of Impeachment adjourned to meet no 
 more. 
 
 No doubt the result of the impeachment trial was a 
 bitter disappointment to Stevens. It was his sincere 
 conviction that the welfare of his country demanded 
 the removal of the President and that Johnson richly 
 deserved the degradation. He felt that a great op- 
 portunity had been lost to lay down the true law and 
 principles of impeachment, and that improper mo- 
 tives and influences had operated to save Johnson 
 from the fate that an injured people wished to have 
 imposed upon him. 
 
 A few weeks after the close of the trial, July 7, 
 1868, Stevens proposed in the House some supple- 
 mentary articles of impeachment, not with a view to 
 bringing them to a vote but for the purpose of giving 
 himself an opportunity to review the trial and to set 
 forth what he considered the true principles of im- 
 peachment. 
 
 On the one hand, he would not allow political of- 
 fenders to escape for abusing their high trust, and, on 
 the other hand, would not allow heated and malig- 
 nant demagogues to persecute political opponents and 
 rivals in a spirit of hatred and vengeance. 
 
 record for themselves that they and their posterity will forever 
 blush to see." 
 
IMPEACHMENT 
 
 5*7 
 
 Instead of assenting to the idea that impeachment 
 can only be instituted where there is an indictable 
 offense, he contended that impeachment could be had 
 mainly for political offenses, to punish malfeasance 
 in office and to save the country from injury. 
 Wickedness of heart or malice aforethought it is not 
 necessary to prove. The President may believe that 
 " a certain course of conduct tends to the good of his 
 administration and the country. He is warned by his 
 advisers and by the legislative branch that he is mis- 
 taken and must desist. He reconsiders it and per- 
 sists under the conscientious belief that he is right and 
 his advisers wrong. 
 
 " Here is no indictable offense. Yet if there be 
 large interests at stake intrusted to his care he may 
 be crushing the life of the nation while he believes 
 himself but doing his duty. How can any man pre- 
 tend that such acts as these, which are destroying the 
 welfare of a whole people, and are persevered in after 
 repeated warnings, do not constitute impeachable of- 
 fenses, although not indictable ones?" 
 
 He appealed to authority, to Story, Rawle, Madi- 
 son, Hamilton, May, and Curtis. Madison " the fa- 
 ther of the Constitution," had said that arbitrary re- 
 movals for party purpose would be an impeachable 
 offense. Johnson had certainly been guilty of this 
 offense. By this process the President had attempted 
 to corrupt and bribe citizens of the United States and 
 members of Congress who were at the capital ready 
 to discharge their duty. 
 
 He reviewed the political misconduct of Johnson. 
 He charged him with trying to bribe the Senators of 
 
518 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVEXS 
 
 the proposed new state of Colorado, agreeing to sign 
 the bill for admission if they would support his policy 
 in the Senate; with pardoning deserters from the 
 United States army if they would cast their votes for 
 partisans of the President, — the pardon being urged 
 upon that ground alone; with other abuses of the 
 pardoning power; with embezzling, or allowing others 
 to embezzle the public property ; with allowing the 
 confiscation laws to be inoperative, thereby restoring, 
 to the special disgust of Stevens, " confiscated and 
 abandoned estates to their rich rebel owner," — estates 
 which in the aggregate would be sufficient to pay the 
 national debt. 
 
 Had the President not been guilty of official per- 
 jury this bonded debt, which is now a lien on every 
 man's property, would have been paid out of the con- 
 fiscated funds of rebels. Instead, he preferred to 
 pardon them and restore their property. 
 
 He intimated that the temptations of gold had been 
 too much for those in the seats of power, and re- 
 flection had brought him to the conclusion that in 
 neither Europe nor America will the chief executive 
 of a nation be again removed by peaceful means. 
 Money and patronage are found stronger than the 
 law and impenetrable to the spear of justice. " If 
 tyranny becomes intolerable, the only resource will be 
 found in the dagger of Brutus. God grant that it 
 may never be used ! " 
 
 He recognized that this would seem like " the ar- 
 gument of spleen emitted by disappointment at re- 
 cent events." He admitted that some of these events 
 
IMPEACHMENT 519 
 
 had led him to reflect deeply upon the possibilities of 
 the human heart, being led to conclude that the lofti- 
 est intellect, the most cultivated mind, and the most 
 aspiring ambition is just as liable to be purchased with 
 gold as those in most limited circumstances. Indeed 
 the less cultivated mind, " who sails lower in his 
 sphere of hopes and desires, may be harder to mislead 
 from the path of virtue," while the cultivated intellect 
 may be the nest of " malignity, corruption, and de- 
 pravity." 
 
 He desired that the people should be able to punish 
 their delinquent rulers and that the government 
 should never be allowed to depart from the principles 
 of the Declaration of Independence, especially from 
 the inalienable rights of life, liberty and its necessary 
 concomitant, universal suffrage. " Providence," he 
 said, " has placed us in a political Eden. While na- 
 ture has given us every advantage of soil, climate, and 
 geographical position, man still is vile. But such 
 large steps have lately been taken in the true direc- 
 tion that the patriot has a right to take courage." 
 
 Stevens closed this speech in certain knowledge of 
 the fact that he was standing upon the verge of the 
 grave. He knew well that he had but few more days 
 to live. His words came, therefore, as his last for- 
 mal message to his countrymen whom he had served 
 so long, and to the House which his masterful spirit 
 had led for so many years. His vision and last wish 
 for his country was that it should rise from its great 
 civil strife, from the wrong, oppression, and injustice 
 that power and wealth had imposed, to be a great and 
 
520 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 prosperous nation ruled by the spirit of fundamental 
 democracy, — the democracy that had been the ruling 
 passion in his own long public life. 
 
 " My sands are nearly run," he said in his parting 
 words, " and I can only see with the eye of faith. I 
 am fast descending the down hill of life, at the foot of 
 which stands an open grave. But you, sir, are prom- 
 ised length of days and a brilliant career. If you 
 and your compeers can fling away ambition and real- 
 ize that every human being, however lowly born or 
 degraded by fortune, is your equal ; that every inalien- 
 able right that belongs to you belongs also to him, 
 truth and righteousness will spread over the land, and 
 you will look down from the top of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains upon an empire of one hundred millions of 
 happy people." 1 
 
 1 July 7, 1868, Globe, p. 3790. 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 CONFISCATION 
 
 / "T A HERE was one aspect of Stevens' policy in re- 
 ■*• construction that did not at the time meet with 
 the sanction of the nation, and it has certainly been 
 condemned by posterity. I refer to the policy which 
 he repeatedly urged of the confiscation of the estates 
 of ex-Confederates as a war indemnity. A few words 
 are necessary to present this aspect of Stevens' career. 
 
 Stevens made three notable speeches to urge upon 
 the country the policy of confiscation, one in the 
 House in the spring of 1865, one at Lancaster, Sep- 
 tember 8, 1865, before the break with Johnson but 
 after the latter's policy on reconstruction had been 
 pretty well developed, and again in the House, March 
 19, 1867, in an attempt to impose a form of confisca- 
 tion as an addition to the terms Congress had just 
 laid down in the Military Bill. 
 
 He believed that the property of the Confederate 
 leaders should be seized and applied to the payment 
 of the war debt and to the pensioning of Union sol- 
 diers. He looked to this as a belligerent right of 
 the nation in war. 
 
 He believed that the Confederate States, being a 
 belligerent, and having caused an unjust war and 
 staked their fate upon it, would be but suffering, 
 
 '521 
 
522 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 by confiscation, what many other and more innocent 
 belligerents under defeat had suffered before. 
 
 He did not at any time contend for a universal and 
 general confiscation, and he repeatedly raised his 
 voice in opposition to the popular desire for the capital 
 punishment of the Confederates. He was not a man 
 of blood, fond of sanguinary punishments, though, 
 in common with nearly every one at the close of the 
 war, he expected a few victims should propitiate the 
 wrath of the victorious nation, in view, as Stevens 
 put it, "of our starved, murdered and slaughtered 
 martyrs." y3ut he sought, rather, political punish- 
 ments for political crimes"D When, after the assassi- 
 nation of Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and other South- 
 ern leaders were accused of complicity in that insane 
 act, Stevens uttered a quick and complete disclaimer 
 of such a belief. He said, " I know these men, and 
 they are not capable of such a deed." He appre- 
 ciated the Southern sense of honor and manhood; and 
 while they had, as he thought, committed great politi- 
 cal crimes for which they should be punished, they 
 were not capable of the monstrous and cowardly 
 crime of assassination. He repeatedly urged re- 
 straint against any scheme of bloody assizes or judi- 
 cial murders. He recognized the fact that trials for 
 treason should not be held by courts martial; that 
 would be a stretch of public law. He saw that South- 
 erners would not be convicted of treason by impartial 
 juries, as that would have to be done in the district in 
 which the overt act was committed. A jury might 
 be packed to convict, but that would not be an impar- 
 tial trial; it would be judicial murder, an act which 
 
CONFISCATION 523 
 
 Stevens said would rank in infamy with the trial of 
 Lord Russell. The same difficulties would arise in 
 trials for forfeiture, as there could be no bills of at- 
 tainder. Therefore, if there were to be punishments 
 which the voice of the nation so generally demanded, 
 Stevens claimed that his plan of confiscation was the 
 most feasible and effective. 1 
 
 He was not asking the penalty of death on any. 
 In principle he was rather opposed to capital punish- 
 ments. In December, 1866, he opposed a bill brought 
 in by the Judiciary Committee of the House repealing 
 the statute of limitations and providing that all per- 
 sons guilty of treason might be tried at any time for 
 the crime. This, to Stevens, was too much like judi- 
 cial murder, and while he knew that no Confederate 
 could be convicted of treason, he would rather " let 
 every man of them run unpunished forever than to 
 make a law now by which they could be punished." 
 " By such a measure," he said, " our government 
 would be endangered in its future existence, in its 
 sense of justice, in its character before the world." 
 So many were engaged in treason and rebellion that 
 " there must be some quieting law." 2 </ 
 
 No one wished more than Stevens that bloodshed 
 might cease with the war. In early life he had 
 adopted a doctrine of milder punishments. In seek- 
 ing the punishment of confiscation he sought thereby 
 to bring about the degradation from social rank and 
 political power of the rich and powerful leaders of 
 the Rebellion. These " higher-ups " were the respon- 
 
 1 Speech at Lancaster, Sept. 8, 1S65. 
 
 2 McCall, pp. 287-288. 
 
524 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 sible and guilty ones. He always contended that the 
 great body of the Southern people ought to be ex- 
 cused from all penalties of the war which guilt in- 
 flicted ; only the culpable leaders should be punished, 
 and that, not by death, but by fines and confiscations. 
 
 His doctrine was that when two nations go to war 
 to settle a dispute, where each considers himself right, 
 and the one nation conquers the other, the conqueror 
 has the right to prescribe the terms of peace, impose 
 the burdens of confiscation not exceeding the usages 
 of modern civilization, and uniformly compel the de- 
 feated belligerent in an unjust war to pay the expenses 
 of the war and the damages it inflicted. 
 
 The South had proclaimed and maintained a well 
 organized government whose stability depended upon 
 the relative strength of the two nations at war with 
 each other, — for nations they were, for all purposes 
 of belligerent rights and liabilities, so long as either 
 remained unconquered. The South' s claim was inde- 
 pendence. " Whether we ignore their pretensions it is 
 clear our Southern malefactors could not," said 
 Stevens. Prussia had just made Austria pay 
 $45,000,000 toward the expenses of a war that had 
 lasted less than a month. 1 
 
 The confiscation Stevens favored was the same in 
 principle that had been pursued during the war, the 
 same as that announced by the Act of 1862. That 
 was enacted as a means of carrying on the war and 
 as a deterrent to rebellion; this was proposed as a 
 
 1 A few years later he could have adduced a more forcible 
 illustration in the tremendous war indemnity imposed by Ger- 
 many upon France, 187 1. 
 
CONFISCATION - 525 
 
 means ofpaying for thejyar and as a: punishment for 
 o ffenses com mitted. The principle of belligerency, 
 — the basis of the policy, — was the same in each case. 
 The Act of 1862 was designed not as a forfeiture of 
 the property of rebels under common law, but as the 
 seizure of the enemy's property and its appropriation 
 to the expenses and damages of the war. Stevens 
 wished that policy to be continued till it had ac- 
 complished its purpose. This was the extent of his 
 " cruel disposition." He claimed to be asking only 
 one-fourth part of the debt inflicted, nor would he 
 touch the poor and ignorant. It was the pride of the 
 " nabobs " he was after, such as " the few rich about 
 Charleston whose millions," he asserted, " had been 
 earned by running the blockade, and whose heads 
 reached the stars while their feet were trampling 
 upon freemen and freedom." 
 
 Stevens insisted upon this policy as a means of re- 
 forming Southern society. He believed that the v\ 
 foundations of Southern institutions, political, mu- 
 nicipal, and social, should be broken up and relaid, or 
 " all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain." 
 This could only be done by holding the South as a 
 conquered people, completely within the power of 
 Congress. 
 
 Since he wished to exempt the poor, and punish 
 only the rich, who were the culpable leaders, and thus 
 to reconstitute society, he proposed to confiscate only 
 the estates of those whose lands exceeded 200 acres 
 or were worth $10,000. The poor, ignorant, and co- 
 erced should be forgiven, since they had merely fol- 
 lowed the example and teachings of their wealthy 
 
526 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 and intelligent neighbors. The Rebellion would not 
 have originated with them. Nine-tenths would thus 
 escape all penalty. He estimated that about 70,000 
 persons owned about 200 acres each, leaving 71,000,- 
 000 acres to all others. There were 294,000,000 acres 
 of land in all. Use 40,000,000 to give 40 acres to 
 each adult freedman. Sell the rest to the highest 
 bidder at a price that would certainly net $10 per 
 acre, including town property. The total financial re- 
 turn would be $3,540,000,000. Let this be applied as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Invest $300,000,000 in six per cent, government 
 bonds, adding the semiannual interest to the pensions 
 of those maimed by the war. 
 
 2. Apply $200,000,000 for damages to loyal men 
 North and South from rebel raids and seizures. 
 
 3. Pay the residue, more than $3,000,000,000 on 
 the war debt. 
 
 Speaking before his people at home in his impas- 
 sioned plea for this scheme of ruin to Southern 
 wealth-holders, Stevens said : 
 
 "Who can object? Is it not just? Look around and see 
 the men with one leg, one arm, one eye, carried away by 
 rebel bullets, or others wearing the weeds of mourning for 
 those sacrificed by rebel perfidy and ask if too much is re- 
 quired. In ordinary transactions he who raises a false 
 clamor or institutes an unfounded suit is required to pay 
 the cost of bis defeat. How much more should this well- 
 recognized principle of law apply in such a case as this ! 
 Those who have more sympathy with the wives and children 
 of rebels than with those of loyal men say that this strip- 
 ping rebels of their estates and driving them to exile or 
 honest labor would be harsh and severe upon innocent 
 
CONFISCATION 527 
 
 women and children. It may be so, but that is the result 
 of the necessary laws of war. 
 
 " They say it is revolution. No doubt it would work a 
 radical reorganization in Southern institutions, habits, and 
 manners. It is intended to revolutionize their principles and 
 feelings. This may startle feeble minds and shake weak 
 nerves. So do all great improvements in the political and 
 moral world. It requires a heavy impetus to drive forward 
 a sluggish people. When it was first proposed to free the 
 slaves and arm the blacks, did not half the nation tremble? 
 The prim conservatives, the snobs, and the male waiting- 
 maids were in hysterics. Heretofore Southern society has 
 had more the features of aristocracy than democracy. The 
 Southern States have been despotisms. It is impossible that 
 any practical equality of rights can exist where a few thou- 
 sand men monopolize the whole landed property. The 
 larger the number of small proprietors the more safe and 
 stable the government. As the landed interest must govern, 
 the more it is subdivided and held by independent owners the 
 better. How can republican institutions, free schools, free 
 churches, free social intercourse, exist in a mingled com- 
 munity of nabobs and serfs, of owners of twenty-thousand- 
 acre manors, with lordly palaces, and the occupants of narrow 
 huts inhabited by low white trash? If the South is ever to 
 be made a safe republic let her land be cultivated by the 
 toil of its owners, or the free labor of intelligent citizens. 
 This must be done, even though it drive her nobility to 
 exile. The owner of ten thousand acres who drives his 
 coach-and-four feels degraded by sitting at the same table 
 or in the same pew with the embrowned and hard-handed 
 farmer who has himself cultivated his own thriving home- 
 stead of one hundred and fifty acres. This subdivision of 
 lands will yield ten bales of cotton to one that is made now 
 and he who produces it will own it and feel himself a man. 
 Let us add this plank to our platform : The property of 
 the rebels shall pay our national debt and indemnify freed- 
 men and loyal sufferers, and under no circumstances 
 shall we allow the national debt to be repudiated. Let all 
 
528 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 who approve these principles rally with us. Let all others 
 go with Copperheads and rebels. Those will be the oppos- 
 ing parties. Young men, this duty devolves on you. 
 Would to God, if only for that, that I were still in the prime 
 of life that I might aid you to fight through this last and 
 greatest battle of freedom." x 
 
 To the need and wisdom of this policy Stevens fre- 
 quently called public attention, as these pages show. 
 In March, 1867, after the reconstruction measures 
 were passed, he introduced a formal bill to enact his 
 policy into law. •"'His bill involved essentially the 
 scheme outlined in this Lancaster speech of 1865, ex- 
 cept that all estates above five thousand dollars instead 
 of ten thousand dollars were to be subject to the pen- 
 alty. He defended his measure in a prepared speech. 
 He would make an issue before the American people 
 on the punishment of traitors, " a matter that had been 
 wholly ignored by a treacherous Executive and a slug- 
 gish Congress," to see if they " will sanction perfect 
 impunity for murderous belligerents and consent that 
 loyal men who have been despoiled of their property 
 shall go without compensation." To that issue he was 
 ready to devote the small remnant of his life. 
 
 He dwelt on the cruelties of the war, on the con- 
 dition of the injured and the destitute, and on the 
 great crime of making war on the republic. He was 
 ready to share with the President the credit of this 
 policy. The President had favored it " while he was 
 clothed and in his right mind, but Seward had en- 
 tered into him and ever since they have been running 
 down steep places into the sea." He quoted John- 
 
 1 Speech at Lancaster, Pa., Sept. 9, 1865. 
 
CONFISCATION 529 
 
 son in favor of punishing traitors, seizing their plan- 
 tations and selling them to honest men. " Let there 
 be no protection to traitors," Johnson had said in 
 1864, "while the poor man stands out in the cold." 
 So Stevens claimed that he was but following the 
 teachings of Johnson. 
 
 " This bill," said Stevens, " is condemned only by 
 the criminals and their friends and by unmanly men 
 whose intellectual and moral vigor has melted into a 
 fluid weakness which they mistake for mercy and 
 which is untempered by a single grain of justice, and 
 by those religionists who mistake meanness for 
 Christianity and who forget that the essence of re- 
 ligion is to do unto others what others have a right 
 to expect from you." He wanted no mawkish 
 prating about the fatted calf and the prodigal son, 
 whose offense was venial compared with " this mur- 
 derous Rebellion which deserved the divine penalty im- 
 posed upon Cain ! " 
 
 He insisted on the right of the victor to an in- 
 demnity to the full expense of the war. The bill was 
 therefore merciful, asking, as it did, for less than a 
 tenth of our just claims. Safety requires stern jus- 
 tice, and it was but just on the basis of lawful earn- 
 ings that the unrequited toil of ages, by which the 
 slaves Had earned the land for their masters, should 
 at last be rewarded by homesteads for the poor. "If 
 we refuse this downtrodden race the rights which 
 Heaven has decreed them and the remuneration they 
 have earned through long years of oppression, how 
 can we hope to escape still further punishment if 
 God is just? The plague will come. Seek not to di- 
 
JO 
 
 o THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVEXS 
 
 vert our attention from justice by a puerile cry about 
 fatted calves ! " * 
 
 It is not to be understood that Stevens stood alone 
 in advocating this policy. Sumner, Wendell Phillips, 
 and the radicals all favored it. The American Anti- 
 Slavery Society in one of its last meetings declared 
 for it. The Southern Unionists greeted the proposal 
 with enthusiasm and were its persistent friends. The 
 independent Republican journals of the North treated 
 it with respect. George William Curtis in Harper's 
 j i Weekly called it " a mild confiscation," by no means 
 
 " a frantic act of vengeance," as it had been called. 
 The genial Curtis, the gentleman and the scholar, 
 is never thought of as " vindictive " or " implacable," 
 yet he gave a large measure of endorsement to 
 Stevens' proposal, by urging that the freedmen and 
 poor laborers, without land, were every day dependent 
 upon landholders, and that if they should refuse this 
 policy they would surpass in self-restraint and honesty 
 any landless class in history. To punish the disloyal 
 and to enable the new landless citizens to obtain land, 
 " may be inexpedient under the circumstances, but to 
 call it vindictive or to suppose it has no defensible 
 reason is absurd." 2 The Nation thought it too late 
 to carry such a policy in 1867, though that journal 
 approved the policy as reasonable for 1865. Now- 
 after two years of peace when it was seen that no 
 one would be punished for the Rebellion, such a policy 
 " could only breed heart burning and hatred which 
 centuries of good government could not wipe out." :! 
 
 1 Speech, Cong. Globe, March 19, 1867. 
 -Harper's Weekly. May t8, 1867. 
 3 Nation, May >, 1807. 
 
CONFISCATION 531 
 
 Stevens' policy could not be carried out because 
 the country was ready to accept the reconstruction 
 measures as final and to feel that in them enough had 
 been enacted. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, repre- 
 senting Democratic conservative opinion in the border 
 South, accepted these measures as a means of allaying 
 sectional strife and to prevent additional and more 
 drastic terms. (If it had been made to appear that Ago ^ 
 the South was determined to defeat the reconstruc- s 
 tion acts as it had the fourteenth amendment, and to » 
 
 prevent the establishment and operation of state gov- 
 ernments on the basis of equal rights for the freedmen, 
 it is not unlikely that Stevens could have rallied Con- 
 gress and the country to his policy of confiscation^ 
 
 * Stevens' detractors have charged that behind this 
 policy was the mean and selfish motive of compensa- 
 ting himself for damages inflicted on his property 
 during Confederate raids and invasions into Pennsyl- 
 vania. Stevens was used to such charges and was 
 unmoved by them. It does not appear that he ever 
 answered this one in public. He despised the men 
 who uttered it. He was, indeed, a considerable loser 
 by the war. In a private letter of July n, 1863, he 
 describes his losses. He says the rebels were led 
 by some friend to his place, his iron works at Cale- 
 donia. They took his horses, mules, and harness and 
 even the crippled horses that were running at large. 
 They seized his bacon (about four thousand pounds), 
 molasses and other contents of the store; took about 
 one thousand dollars' worth of corn in the mills and 
 as much other grain. They burned his furnace, saw- 
 mills, two forges, and the rolling-mill. They slept in 
 
532 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 the office and store room and next day they burned 
 them, with books and all. They even hauled off his 
 bar iron, being on the road convenient for shoeing 
 horses, and his wagons, about four thousand dollars' 
 worth. They destroyed all his fencing, much of it 
 new and extensive. They destroyed his grass, about 
 eighty tons, and broke in the windows of the dwelling 
 houses where his workmen lived. " They could not," 
 he concluded, " have done the job cleaner. It is 
 rather more than I expected. They finally expressed 
 great regret that they were not so fortunate as to meet 
 the owner, who seems to be very popular with the 
 chivalry. I know not what the poor families will do ; 
 I must provide for their present relief." * 
 
 Stevens estimated his loss at about ninety thousand 
 dollars, about the savings of his life. He recognized 
 that the government did not indemnify for such losses 
 and he never expected to recover. For the third time 
 he was reduced to comparative poverty ; yet he thought 
 that with the little strength remaining to him he would 
 be able to make a living. He, therefore, refused to ac- 
 cept a proposal from some of his friends that pro- 
 vision should be made for his declining age. It is not 
 at all likely that he would have put in a claim to the 
 
 government if his scheme of confiscation had been 
 
 r 
 carried. LHe cared as little for money in itself as 
 
 any man living." 1 " I think I have," he said, " enough 
 to pay my debts. As to my personal wants nature 
 will soon take care of them. We must all expect to 
 suffer by this wicked war. I have not felt a mo- 
 ment's trouble for my share of it. If finally the 
 
 1 Stevens' Papers, Library of Congress July II, 1863. 
 
CONFISCATION' « 
 
 oo 
 
 government shall be reestablished over a whole ter- 
 ritory and not a vestige of slavery be left, I shall 
 deem it a cheap purchase. I hope to be able with my 
 remaining strength to sustain myself until my 
 strength and my temporal wants shall cease to- 
 gether." * He forbade the publication of these letters, 
 saying that he did " not write for fame/' 
 
 It will be readily agreed that Stevens' scheme of 
 confiscation, after the war had long since ceased, was 
 not a statesmanlike policy 7) It was not characterized 
 by generosity nor nobleness of spirit, nor was it cal- 
 culated to promote peace, prosperity and good will 
 in a restored Union. It partook of the implacable 
 and the unforgiving, and showed an unwillingness 
 to be reconciled and to heal the wounds of war. It 
 disregarded the wisdom of experience in the history 
 of human governments, — that generous amnesty for 
 political crimes against a government whose power is 
 undoubted and whose authority is no longer contested, 
 is the surest guarantee of order and loyalty among 
 a disaffected citizenship.^ But Stevens, like all public 
 men, must be judged by his times^ In holding that 
 the leaders and promoters of the Rebellion were crimi- 
 nals who ought to be punished for their crimes, he 
 was in entire accord with the great mass of the 
 Northern people, and his utterances differed from 
 those of his colleagues and contemporaries, ii they 
 differed at all, only in force and intensity, and not 
 at all in spirit. That which in Stevens has come to 
 be called uncharitable and malignant was at the 
 time regarded only as a hot and righteous indignation 
 
 1 Letter of July 6, 1863, to T. Stevens. 
 
\i 
 
 534 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 over stupendous wrongs that had been committed 
 against the nation. The bitter strife of those times 
 led many men better in moral nature than Stevens to 
 indulge in harsh and malevolent utterances while they 
 were in most of the ordinary relations of life, as 
 Stevens was, benevolent in spirit. 
 
 In personal relations among his associates Stevens 
 did not usually manifest the implacable spirit. Ample 
 testimony may be gathered from the good people of 
 Lancaster among whom he spent so many years, to 
 the effect that in the relations of social and every-day 
 life few men were more generally beloved by their 
 friends and neighbors than was Thaddeus Stevens. 
 He was likable, not only among his partisans, but 
 even among many whom he opposed in legal and po- 
 litical contests; and, strange as it may seem, Southern 
 men, in many instances, found him personally attrac- 
 tive and agreeable. His friend, Judge William D. 
 Kelly, of Pennsylvania, said of him that personally 
 " he was incapable of a vindictive act." His policy 
 toward the South may serve to illustrate the depths 
 of his political convictions and the extent to which, 
 intense as he was in nature, he allowc-a his political 
 opinions and passions to govern his attitude anu con- 
 duct toward his fellow men. Hard in heart tov\ n 1 
 his political foes, he sought to encompass their punish- 
 ment, but his thought was not of that alone. Pre- 
 tending to no high degree of morality or religion, he 
 claimed to be governed by humane and strict justice, 
 — the justice that would give equal opportunities for 
 all. ["He looked upon his policy as a necessary means 
 t 1 to breaking up the system of land monopoly in the 
 
CONFISCATION 535 
 
 South which he regarded as the essential support of 
 the slavery system which he would uproot and ob- 
 literate. His vision of a true republic had led him 
 to see that wage-slavery for labor was but little better 
 than chattel slavery. He would, therefore, take power 
 from the few and distribute it among the many by 
 breaking down the landed aristocracy and relieving a 
 landless class, — a class that was always dangerous~to 
 -a republic. 1 His policy in this matter as in all others 
 was inspired" in large measure by his democracy and 
 his love of the common man. 
 
 - He believed that justice would abolish the ills both 
 of poverty and aristocracy jjmd while claiming that 
 he had voluntarily relinquished all claim for his own 
 personal injuries and that his passions were so en- 
 tirely under his control that he would inflict no 
 vindictive vengeance upon those who had done him 
 the greatest wrong, yet his conscientious duty as an 
 agent of his people, and a true public policy in view 
 of such a gigantic and unprovoked rebellion, led him 
 to seek the fines and penalties, that, as he thought, 
 should always be visited upon the public enemy and 
 the defeated and guilty authors of an unjust war. 
 
 1 remarks of W. D. Kelly in Memorial Address on Stevens, 
 in Jongress, 1868. f f t i; , f 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE GREENBACKER ; FUNDING, DEBT PAYMENT AND 
 CONTRACTION 
 
 \ T the close of the Civil War in 1865 the people 
 ■*■ *• of the United States were in the enjoyment of 
 unprecedented prosperity. Within eight short years 
 they had passed through the valley of adversity — 
 through a period of loss, stagnation in trade, fall of 
 wages, suspension of enterprises, bankruptcy, disaster, 
 ruin. What were the causes of this woful change of 
 condition, of this social and industrial catastrophe 
 that appears to have consumed more wealth and 
 caused more misery and destruction, so far as the ma- 
 terial prosperity and happiness of the people are con- 
 cerned, than all the waste, losses, and disasters of the 
 four years of war? 
 
 This summary statement of a chapter in our in- 
 dustrial history, with its attendant inquiry, indicates 
 the pivotal controversy in our financial history. The 
 controversy involved a conflict of interests, a war 
 of industrial and financial classes. It involved the 
 whole problem of money, with which the country has 
 had severe periodical wrestlings since the Civil War. 
 As one reviews the history of the period with its 
 many controverted issues and partisan strife, he is 
 led to believe that the merits of the great struggle 
 over money and the currency were ill-understood by 
 
 536 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 537 
 
 the disinterested public opinion of Stevens' day. 
 The financial policy then instituted under the direction 
 of a rising powerful moneyed interest, can not be said 
 to have occupied the attention of the people, fraught 
 though it was with the direst peril to their welfare 
 and happiness. Either the financial policy adopted 
 by those in the places of power was pursued in the 
 face of public sentiment, or the people of America 
 capable of contributing toward public opinion never 
 adequately understood the merits of the controversy. 
 The attention of the country was distracted by the 
 dominant and heated questions growing out of war 
 and reconstruction, and the people were not permitted 
 to give direct and thoughtful attention to the vital 
 matters of currency and finance. 
 
 Stevens himself lived through but a few brief years 
 of this struggle, but as he contributed to its discus- 
 sions and opinions in important ways, and since the 
 Stevens greenback occupied the center of the stage 
 for the first decade of the dispute, one feels that a 
 sketch of his life should attempt at least a brief por- 
 trayal of the merits and issues which this struggle 
 involved. 
 
 Stevens was a Greenbacker. True, he did not join 
 that historic political party. He did not live long 
 enough to do so, nor is it certain that he would have 
 abondoned the Republicans had he lived until the 
 Greenbackers came into the arena, — clear in his mind 
 and deep in his convictions though he was as to the 
 righteousness of the Greenback cause. He had an- 
 nounced principles and policies that underlay the in- 
 ception and progress of the new radical party. He 
 
538 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 did what he could, while living, to keep his own party 
 from pursuing the policy of selfishness and error, as 
 he thought, which brought the Greenback part}- into 
 being, — a party whose history and apologia have yet 
 to be written, and whose cause has been treated with 
 scant justice, not to say with gross injustice, by many 
 economic and historical w 7 riters. He had tried to de- 
 liver the government from bondage to the gold stand- 
 ard during the war and he believed that if gold was 
 ever to be restored to its former money use, it would 
 be not by the policy of contracting and destroying the 
 beneficent currency which the war had produced, but 
 by the growth of the country, by its expanding trade, 
 and by the retention and larger legal use of this paper 
 currency, — all of which would serve to bring the 
 greenbacks to a parity with gold. Thus, gold, silver, 
 and the war paper, would all circulate together. 
 
 It is the purpose of this chapter to present, as fairly 
 as the limits of space will permit, the merits of this 
 contention, and to point out the significance of the 
 financial policies that were being pursued during the 
 remaining years of Stevens' life. 
 
 The war had hardly ended before a policy was be- 
 gun of contracting the greenback currency and of 
 changing the national indebtedness from a basis of 
 paper values to a basis of coin. 
 
 The struggle began, — or was again renewed, — on 
 the one hand, to discredit and destroy the war cur- 
 rency and to reduce values to a gold basis; on the 
 other hand, to preserve this currency and to retain 
 the measure of value that war conditions and legisla- 
 tion had brought about. It was contended by those 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 539 
 
 who wished to carry out the policy of destroying the 
 legal tender currency of the war, that greenbacks 
 were " bad money " ; that they were not money at all, 
 but only promises to pay money; that, as their issue 
 had been permitted only because of the necessities of 
 war, their existence, as an irredeemable paper cur- 
 rency, should be tolerated only so long as neces- 
 sity compelled; that to continue this "plethora of pa- 
 per money " as a permanent policy would be to 
 undermine the morals of the people and to strike at 
 the root of our national prosperity by encouraging 
 waste and extravagances. 1 It was said that this 
 money was " dishonest " and that the honor of the 
 nation demanded that the greenbacks should be " re- 
 deemed " by being called in and destroyed; that the 
 country's prosperity, its increasing industries and ex- 
 panding trade, while gold was at a premium, could be 
 only a " mock prosperity," — a " delusion and a snare," 
 " a hollow and seductive prosperity," as Secretary Mc- 
 Culloch called it. 2 The people merely thought they 
 were prosperous, while, in fact, they were not. They 
 were deluded, since the greenback prices were " in- 
 flated," " hocus-pocus " and " abnormal." Any price 
 above the gold price was " unnaturally high," 3 lead- 
 ing to " an unhealthy condition of business " ; and 
 the only road to safety and real prosperity was to re- 
 turn to the gold standard which was the measure of 
 " normal prices " and the only " sound and honest 
 money for the world." 4 
 
 1 Sec'y. McCulloch's Report, Dec 4, 1865. 
 
 - Addresses and Speeches by Hugh McCulloch, pp. 50, 51. 
 
 3 D. A. Wells' Pamphlet, 1876. 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
540 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Those who held this view contended that coin cir- 
 culation was the " normal volume " and that the " re- 
 dundant currency" must be reduced; that the only 
 honest and practical way of restoring our paper 
 money to a " sound condition, equal to the money of 
 the world," was to retire it until what remains should 
 circulate as the equivalent of coin, and after that was 
 done it would be better to substitute for the green- 
 backs the paper money of the banks, " convertible " 
 into coin (when possible or convenient) ; and that 
 this " convertible " bank paper was the only kind of 
 paper money that should be tolerated. It was urged 
 vehemently that, at every hazard, the greenbacks 
 should not be used in the payment of the public debt. 
 Although they had been used to buy the government's 
 bonds when gold was selling for two to one, yet for 
 the government to use them in satisfying the claims of 
 the patriotic bondholders who had made such financial 
 sacrifices in the war, would be the last act of national 
 dishonor. 
 
 Many of the partisan advocates of this policy 
 charged, and no doubt many good people were made 
 to believe, that the only reason why others favored a 
 currency and a lawful money other than coin or its 
 equivalent, was because they wished to cheat their 
 creditors, repudiate their debts, violate their contracts 
 and dishonor the nation. 1 
 
 1 .Many of the honest yeomanry of the land, men who had 
 fought bravely for the integrity of the nation, who were strug- 
 gling manfully to meet their financial obligations, were de- 
 nounced as " repudiators," " cheats," " hayseeds," " financial 
 lunatics," " wild-eyed cranks," and " rag-money men," because 
 they wished to retain in use, and, if need be, to increase the 
 circulation of the greenbacks that had successfully carried the 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 541 
 
 Many of the honest opponents of the greenbacks, 
 the advocates of a contracted currency and the gold 
 standard, seemed possessed with the idea that nothing 
 but coin was real money. They deemed no one com- 
 petent to deal with the money question who had not 
 recognized that as a fundamental fact. 1 On the basis 
 of this dogma as a fundamental premise, they had set- 
 tled the money question in the most arbitrary and 
 dogmatic way, and they, therefore, usually met their 
 greenback opponents not so much with reasonable ar- 
 guments as with misrepresentation, denunciation, rid- 
 icule, hoots, and sneers. Had not the continental 
 currency of the Revolution become worthless? Had 
 not the state bank currency of the War of 18 12 led 
 the country to confusion? In all the history of cur- 
 rency had not " paper money crazes " produced only 
 conspicuous wreck and ruin? If Congress were al- 
 lowed, as a permanent policy, " to coin money and 
 regulate its value," and to do this by paper issues, had 
 not all experience shown that the debtor classes would 
 bring such pressure to bear on government that the 
 public printing-presses would be started to work and 
 the legal tender notes would be issued in such quanti- 
 ties that they would become altogether worthless? 
 Would not debtors then satisfy their creditors with 
 notes that cost them little or no effort to obtain ? Was 
 it not too dangerous to entrust such power to the rep- 
 country through the war. " He who is not in favor of con- 
 tracting the currency is not in favor of paying it, and he who is 
 not in favor of paying it is a repudiator." This was adopted 
 as a text, or motto, on a pamphlet on " Contraction," by David 
 A. Wells, in 1876. 
 
 1 John Sherman, Speeches and Reports on Finance, p. 188. 
 
542 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 resentatives of the people under universal suffrage? 
 Was there not a " natural immutable law," a " divine 
 law," that there was but one true standard for money 
 and that standard gold ? " From the earliest record 
 of humanity, from Solon to our day, gold and silver 
 have been the media to effect exchange and they 
 would continue to be the current coin till the com- 
 pleted history of nations now rising into greatness shall 
 be folded away among the records of time." * 
 
 What was to be done to work out into law the policy 
 of this idea of money? It was simple enough. Let 
 all the paper obligations of the government, amount- 
 ing to $1,500,000,000 or more, including its paper 
 money, be turned into coin liabilities, — into long time 
 gold bonds. Let the nation not dishonor itself by pay- 
 ing off, or redeeming, any of its obligations in the so- 
 called " lawful money " which it had made, and which 
 had been used to buy these obligations ; but let all these 
 non-interest bearing greenbacks be called in and re- 
 tired. They were promissory notes, an evidence of 
 debt ; let them be burned up and utterly destroyed that 
 neither government nor people may ever see their face 
 again, and in their stead let there be issued interest- 
 bearing gold bonds. As for a paper currency the na- 
 
 1 Such propositions, the reader may be surprised to learn, 
 were laid down as fundamental postulates on the money ques- 
 tion by no less a person than Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, 
 in 1869. See Speeches and Reports, p. 188. Sherman, probably 
 moved by the political situation in Ohio and the West, was 
 then resisting what he deemed too rapid a contraction, but he 
 was entirely controlled by the traditional and prevailing coin 
 theory of money. lie lived to see silver laid aside as standard 
 money, which had '1 from '"the earliest records of 
 
 humanity," and he helped on in the process, and that, too, quite 
 a while before the completed history of rising nations had been 
 entirely " folded away in the records of time." 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 543 
 
 tional banks could issue their notes if they would, and 
 the nation's credit, in the shape of its bonds, the only 
 legitimate form of the war debt, could be had to make 
 these bank notes good safe money. All values were 
 again to be based upon coin, and all debtors, con- 
 tractors, those with enterprises on foot, were to be 
 forced to a settlement upon that basis. 
 
 To these blind views, sustained by a prejudice and 
 tradition that bordered on idolatry, and the fatal policy 
 that was instituted to carry them out, the Greenbackers 
 (and Stevens would have been with them in this) at- 
 tributed the panic of 1873. The policy was directly 
 in the interests of capitalists, bankers, and money lend- 
 ers, — the men who held the national debt. The 
 Greenbackers looked upon this policy as the rough 
 hard road by which the country was forced to travel 
 in reaching what was called the " resumption of spe- 
 cie payments." And when within less than eight 
 short years that policy had been carried and it was 
 known that at a time fixed it would be an accomplished 
 fact, the debt of the country, held' by its bondholders 
 and measured by its products and its toil, had been 
 doubled; while the money in circulation among the 
 people, the measure of their contracts, their properties 
 and their values, had been reduced to such a degree as 
 to make industrial panic and desolation inevitable. 
 
 The country reached the specie standard and its at- 
 tendant " real prosperity." But there were certain 
 classes of people who seemed unable to appreciate the 
 blessings of such prosperity, who insisted that another 
 money policy would have been more in harmony with 
 the interests of the masses of the people, — of the man- 
 
544 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ufaCturers, laborers, farmers, and producers of the 
 country's wealth. The greenback dollar could now be 
 exchanged for one in gold if any one cared for it, but 
 it was felt that the country had come to a time when, 
 as Solon Chase expressed it in his homely way up in 
 Maine, there was " too much hog in the dollar " and 
 when " them steers, while they grew well, shrank in 
 value as fast as they grew." The value of the hay 
 and the corn which the farmers fed year by year to 
 their hogs and their steers was being absorbed year by 
 year by the loan and the bond. It was indeed pros- 
 perity for a certain class, — but the class represented 
 less than five per cent, of the community. 
 
 Stevens had an eye exactly adapted to the detection 
 of that kind of prosperity and before he died he fore- 
 saw and foretold it. He represented another view of 
 money and the greenback, and another process of re- 
 covering the use of coin in circulation, — though that 
 recovery was not at all deemed essential to the progress 
 and prosperity of the country. Just as there was a 
 conflict of interest and opinion at the inception of the 
 greenback money, so now the same forces, or inter- 
 ests, were warring over its continuance. 
 
 It was held on this side of the controversy, that the 
 greenbacks were doing the work of money; that as 
 this paper money was doing the same money work 
 for the country that gold could do, it would have the 
 same industrial effect to retire it as would the loss of 
 so much coin if the country were on a gold basis. 
 These friends of the greenbacks had the vision to see 
 that the virtue, or essence, of money is not in its sub- 
 stance but in its use; that whatever does the work of 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 545 
 
 money is money ; and they saw that the greenbacks 
 could and did perform the only essential functions of 
 money, — they could satisfy debts, pay taxes, and ef- 
 fect exchanges. As certain of their own prophets had 
 taught, men like Peter Cooper and Eleazar Lord, — 
 practical and eminently successful business men and 
 noble public spirited philanthropists, — the defenders 
 of the greenback now had the faith to declare that 
 money is the creature of law; that all money, metallic 
 or paper, should be issued and its volume controlled 
 by the government, and that its value, other things be- 
 ing equal, would depend upon the quantity that gov- 
 ernment permitted to exist ; that a precious commodity 
 like gold was not essential nor desirable, — its supply 
 might be capricious or so limited as to be easily " cor- 
 nered " ; that the value of money (thoughtlessly 
 spoken of as "intrinsic") is never inherent in the 
 substance used, but depends always upon the relation 
 between the mone} r demand and the money supply ; — 
 money itself was subject to that great law of supply 
 and demand, like everything else. They held that if 
 we could but continue a paper money, limited in sup- 
 ply, backed by a financially responsible government, 
 with an unlimited power of taxation, a money receiv- 
 able for all debts, public and private, guaranteeing no 
 redemption beyond its acceptance for taxes, — such 
 money, the Greenbacker held, would be the best that 
 could be devised. 
 
 The friends of the greenbacks claimed that these 
 notes had enabled the people to build up the country, 
 and that they were not to be regarded as a debt in any 
 proper sense, but as money, which at the time was 
 
546 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 very properly being used to measure the value of all 
 property, gold and silver included. But if these green- 
 backs were to be looked upon as a debt, they were cer- 
 tainly the least burdensome of all forms of the public 
 indebtedness, and that it would be nothing short of 
 financial folly, or a plain case of class favoritism, to 
 substitute for them a bonded debt that would cost the 
 government millions in interest and the people an 
 equal sum in additional taxes and shrinking prices. 
 
 This party of opinion did not object to the use of 
 gold and silver in the currency of the country, but this 
 resumption of specie (not at any time a matter of im- 
 portance to be sought by legislation) was to be brought 
 about not by a forced but by a natural process, by such 
 growth of the country and the expansion of trade as 
 would so increase the demand for money that gold 
 and silver, as well as all the paper currency, would be 
 called into use, and would be interchangeable; and 
 thus the parity of paper and gold would be established. 
 
 In the issue thus joined between the two views of 
 money and the greenback, the friends of the green- 
 backs were defeated. They were not fully heard. 
 The organs of public opinion were not in their hands. 
 They were generally common people, many of them 
 poor and struggling with debt. They had but few 
 leaders of weight and reputation, while the leaders 
 they had, like Stevens, were absorbed by another great 
 public question, and Stevens was destined to pass too 
 soon for this cause from the field of action. When 
 the policy of contraction had proceeded and forced 
 resumption had been decided upon; after the panic of 
 1873 nac ^ come and while the country was still in the 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 547 
 
 midst of the commercial depression that followed, the 
 greenback protagonists called forcible attention to 
 some facts in the history of the period which they 
 deemed to be responsible for all the suffering of panic 
 and disturbance through which the country had been 
 carried. The essence of their complaint, so far as it 
 may be reduced to a summary statement, is as follows, 
 — involving what appears to be a very significant and 
 essentially true representation of the financial record of 
 the time. 
 
 When the war ended, the public debt of the United 
 States stood at something over $2,800,000,000. Of 
 this amount more than $1,200,000,000 was payable at 
 the option of the treasury or within a brief period. 
 There was in circulation among the people a volume 
 of money of more than $2,1 00,000,000. * As part of 
 this currency bore interest, it was, therefore, a kind 
 that partook of the value of an investment; but they 
 were notes that had been engraved and prepared in a 
 form to circulate as money, and did, in fact, so circu- 
 late until they were funded into gold-bearing bonds, 
 or their interest accumulated so as to make them su- 
 perior to the ordinary kind of currency. 2 
 
 All this money was in active and favorable circu- 
 lation among the people and was being used as the 
 basis of exchange and contract values. In ten short 
 years the money of the people was reduced from more 
 than two thousand millions to but a little over half a 
 billion of dollars. From a circulating currency of 
 
 1 Counting the greenbacks, the bank notes, the compound in- 
 terest notes and the short time interest-bearing notes. 
 
 2 Cong. Record, March 31, 1874, Maynard, Chairman of Com- 
 mittee on Banking and Currency. 
 
548 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 fifty-eight dollars per capita in 1865, the people were 
 reduced to a little over seventeen dollars per capita, in 
 1875, — while the national debt measured in terms of 
 wealth, of its commands over the products and prop- 
 erty of the earth, had almost doubled. 1 Whatever 
 show of reasoning or sophistry, or confusion of words, 
 may be arrayed to refute the quantitative theory of 
 money the instance has yet to be adduced in the his- 
 tory of currency when such a process as this can be 
 gone through with by a people in so short a time with- 
 out loss, disaster and ruin. 
 
 Thus, we see that with a redundant paper currency 
 the country was launched upon a quick voyage to a 
 specie standard. It was put under the severe process 
 of passing from an inflated currency to a contracted 
 currency, from paper currency under which wheat sold 
 at nearly three dollars a bushel to a gold currency un- 
 der which wheat could sell at but little more than one 
 dollar a bushel. This meant on all products and prop- 
 erties a sudden and disastrous slump from high prices 
 to low prices. It meant that contracts could not be 
 kept; that debts could not be paid; that ruin would 
 come to thousands of competent business men ; and that 
 the owners of farms and homes who had paid half their 
 debt on purchased goods and properties had to let their 
 property go to satisfy the other half of the claim. To 
 tens of thousands of sober, honest, and industrious 
 citizens it meant the loss of property, business, reputa- 
 tion, and home. As Mr. Sherman said in the Senate, 
 it was impossible to take such a voyage without dis- 
 tress. To every person except a capitalist out of debt, 
 
 1 Zachos, J. C, Financial Opinions of Peter Cooper, p. 9. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 549 
 
 or to a salaried officer or annuitant, it was a period of 
 loss, bankruptcy, and disaster. To every railroad it 
 was an addition of at least one-third to the burden of 
 its debt, and, more than that deduction from the value 
 of its stock. To every bank it meant the necessity of 
 paying one hundred and fifty dollars for every hundred 
 dollars of its notes and deposits, except so far as the 
 bank might transfer this to its debtors. It meant the 
 ruin of all dealers whose debts are twice their capital, 
 though one-third less than their property. It meant 
 the fall of all agricultural productions without any 
 very great reduction of taxes. " To attempt this task 
 suddenly, by a surprise upon our people, by at once 
 paralyzing their industry, by arresting them in the 
 midst of lawful business and applying a new standard 
 of value to their property without any reduction of 
 their debt or giving them an opportunity to compound 
 with their creditors or distribute their loss, would be 
 an act of folly without example in modern times. 1 
 
 I introduce this brief study bearing on the merits of 
 the financial struggle following the Civil War because 
 Thaddeus Stevens, since the country had entered upon 
 this controversy three years before his death, bore in 
 the struggle a very prominent and notable part. The 
 large and permanent significance of this issue, as here 
 interpreted, may not have been clear to all who took 
 part in the struggle, but its underlying merits were 
 clear to Stevens. He saw enough of this conflict 
 of ideas and policies to lead him to place himself upon 
 record. He was, in fact, already upon record, and he 
 
 1 John Sherman, Speech in the United States Senate, Jan. 27, 
 1869, Speeches and Reports on Finance, p. 199. 
 
550 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 had now only to follow consistently the course upon 
 which he had begun. 
 
 As usual, he spoke forth boldly his principles and 
 his sympathies. When the issue, as he would put it, 
 between the money of the people and the money of 
 the gold-dealers came up in a new form Stevens com- 
 mitted himself instinctively to what he considered the 
 cause of the people, to the cause of the poor, of the 
 struggling masses. The other side, the forced re- 
 sumption of gold payments and dear money, he looked 
 upon as the cause of the rich, the powerful, of the 
 pampered classes that were seeking special favors 
 from government. He opposed Secretary McCulloch's 
 policy of steady and rapid contraction; he resisted 
 the forced and rapid resumption of specie payments ; 
 and all the wrath and indignation of his nature were 
 roused to oppose and denounce the policy of turn- 
 ing all the obligations of the government into long 
 time gold bonds and of repudiating the " lawful 
 money " of the country as a means of debt payment. 
 A brief review of his opinions on these financial pro- 
 posals of the time will serve to make clear his atti- 
 tude toward what he deemed the ruinous policy which 
 for years he had sought to avert. 
 
 During the continuance of the war Stevens had fre- 
 quent occasion to discuss the loan policy of the gov- 
 ernment. When the Loan Act of March, 1863, was 
 pending he made known his dissatisfaction with the 
 policy that was being pursued. This act, in addition 
 to authorizing $900,000,000 in ten- forty bonds at six 
 per cent., provided for the issue of short time treasury- 
 notes. These notes were to bear interest; they were 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 551 
 
 to be a legal tender for their face, and were convertible 
 into greenbacks; that is, government would accept or 
 redeem them. They had coupons attached, and as the 
 interest accumulated they were taken in and held by the 
 banks; and on the basis of these notes as a reserve (on 
 which the holders were drawing gold interest) the 
 banks would issue more of their own notes, thus in- 
 flating the currency. When the coupons were clipped 
 and the interest was collected in gold the notes were 
 once more sent out to circulate among the people, — 
 until the interest, always in gold, accumulated to an 
 amount sufficient to make them an object for hoard- 
 ing. Thus there was recurring inflation and contrac- 
 tion of the government currency as the periodical pay- 
 ment of interest would inflate it and the hoarding of 
 the notes by the banks might be used to contract it. 
 
 Stevens vigorously attacked this policy. He 
 thought it was directly in the interests of the banks 
 and those who could hoard the notes for gold. To 
 him it was plain class legislation, and destructive to 
 the interest of the government. He proposed a sub- 
 stitute providing, what he had always at heart, that 
 the government pay its interest in " lawful money," 
 just such money as other people pay theirs in, ex- 
 cept where our faith is specifically pledged to pay in 
 gold; and the public faith to pay in gold he would 
 pledge no further. " What justice is there in com- 
 pelling the people to receive their interest in a currency 
 of forty per cent, less value than is paid to the banks 
 and capitalists who invest in government bonds? It 
 seems to me a rank injustice." With so small an in- 
 terest-bearing debt as we now have gold is at forty 
 
552 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 per cent, premium. 1 What will it bring when the 
 debt is ten times as great, as it will be when all the 
 prospective bonds are issued? Gold would be at a 
 premium of sixty per cent. He saw a rising debt of 
 more than $3,000,000,000 with an interest burden in 
 gold so great that the taxes made necessary to meet 
 this claim would lead to but one result, namely, bank- 
 ruptcy and repudiation. 
 
 If the government could be brought to the wise and 
 reasonable policy of paying its interest in legal tender 
 notes, both on its short time loans and its long time 
 bonds, then the short loans when they fall due, may 
 either be paid in legal tender or be funded into twen- 
 ty-year bonds. He calculated that $50,000,000 of 
 gold would be received annually from customs, being 
 $26,000,000 above the ordinary government needs. 
 This surplus could be used as a sinking fund for ten 
 years, deposited in state banks on ample securities. 
 Before this fund could be exhausted the decreasing in- 
 terest and the increasing receipts would (i enable the 
 sinking fund to pay the whole debt in coin without 
 buying a dollar." 
 
 His policy was to offer long time twenty-year bonds 
 whose principal was to be specially payable in coin, 
 while the interest was to be payable in legal tenders, 
 in the belief that after the lapse of twenty years the 
 country would again be on a specie basis, from its 
 assured growth in population and trade. He thought 
 his specie bonds would sell better than " the law ful 
 money bonds " that the committee was proposing, with 
 gold interest. "I object/' he said, "to the payment 
 
 1 He was speaking on January 20, 1863. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND. CONTRACTION 553 
 
 of specie for interest, as it sets the government and 
 the merchant in competition and puts them both in 
 the power of banks and brokers. Besides it is a shame 
 to use one currency for the government and another 
 for the people." He thought it would be better for 
 the investor to take his interest in legal tender, which 
 will answer all the purposes of business, and get the 
 principal in gold, than to take driblets of interest in 
 coin and the substantive capital in legal tender or what- 
 ever else the government makes money. 1 
 
 Stevens' counter-proposal to save the treasury from 
 being worsted in the financial deal and to recall the 
 government from its policy of bidding for gold and 
 thus boosting the gold premium, was not successful. 
 But the discussion shows very clearly in what kind 
 of money Stevens thought the bonds that were then 
 being issued might be paid. His warning went un- 
 heeded. The war was impeded and the treasury dis- 
 tressed in order to get the rising gold for interest pay- 
 ments. But Stevens did not despair of the republic. 
 " Such," he said, " is the great wealth, the fertility, 
 the irrepressible energy of this great country that she 
 will be able to rise from her prostration, like the fabled 
 giant who, when felled to earth, drew fresh strength 
 from the bosom of his mother, — and hurl to destruc- 
 tion all the rebels of the South and all the traitors of 
 the North, who, within this House and out of it, may 
 be seeking for their own grasping ends to put unjust 
 and double financial burdens upon the backs of the peo- 
 ple, or who are basely advising us to lay down our 
 arms and meanly sue for peace." 2 
 
 1 Globe, Jan. 20, 1863, p. 411. 2 Globe, Jan. 20, 1863, p. 411. 
 
554 THE LIFE OE THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Stevens, however, never rested under the policy that 
 had been adopted. He believed that the effort of the 
 government to continue interest payments in coin 
 would in the end prove disastrous. To that policy he 
 attributed the annoyances, uncertainties, losses, and ab- 
 normal prices resulting from the speculations in gold. 
 He was especially irritated because the gold dealers 
 had such influence with the government and because 
 they were still able to dominate the money market. 
 He let no occasion slip to criticize their ways or to 
 embarrass them in their proceedings. One of his 
 measures, which seems only like a blind stagger to- 
 ward accomplishing its purpose, was probably pro- 
 posed as a means of agitation rather than as a practical 
 measure of legislation that he expected to carry to a 
 conclusion. On December 6, 1864, he introduced a 
 bill to prevent gold and silver coin and bullion from 
 being paid or exchanged for a greater value than their 
 real current value, and from preventing any note or 
 bill issued by the United States and made lawful 
 money from being received for a smaller sum than is 
 therein specified. The bill provided that a contract 
 made payable in coin might be paid in legal tender 
 United States notes and that no difference in sale or 
 value should be allowed between them ; that " no per- 
 son shall by any device, shift or contrivance, receive 
 or pay or contract to receive or pay " any treasury 
 note for " less than its lawfully expressed value " ; and 
 that if " any person shall in the purchase or sale of 
 gold or silver agree to receive in payment notes at less 
 than their par value, he shall be deemed to have of- 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 555 
 
 fended against the provisions of this act and shall be 
 punished accordingly." 
 
 This may serve to indicate Stevens' eagerness to 
 break up " gold gambling." It was generally believed 
 that gold fluctuations were due to " unpatriotic and 
 criminal efforts of speculators and probably of secret 
 enemies to raise the price of gold regardless of the in- 
 jury inflicted on the country, and that ' gold gam- 
 blers ' J asa class were disloyal men in sympathy with 
 the South." 2 The short lived "gold bill" of the 
 previous summer 3 had been passed at the suggestion 
 of Secretary Chase for the purpose of preventing this 
 speculation. It was futile, as this similar proposal 
 now reported by Stevens was sure to be. The opera- 
 tion of such a law would have been a pestiferous, not 
 to say tyrannical and intolerable, interference with 
 all business dealing and contracts. It is hard to say 
 what chaos would have resulted. Of course, as a 
 means of reducing or controlling the price of gold, or 
 of boosting the greenback, this was purely an artificial 
 process and was entirely vain. It is difficult to believe 
 that Stevens did not perceive this. He did not press 
 his proposal, though he used it as an occasion for a 
 little salutary education. Stevens' better course 
 would have been to pursue the consistent policy of urg- 
 ing the repeal of the " exception clause " in the green- 
 back acts. This would have produced some effect, and 
 Stevens could then, at any rate, have resigned himself 
 
 1 Book of Drew, Ind., Dec. 2. 
 
 2 Senatorial Opinion, cited by Dewey, p. 295. 
 
 3 June 17, 1864. 
 
556 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 and his country to allowing gold to take care of itself 
 and go where it would. 
 
 It was not difficult for the opponents of this pro- 
 posal to expose its weakness. Blaine attacked it as 
 impossible and said that if it should become a law the 
 entire population of the Pacific Coast would be liable 
 to indictment and conviction for a criminal offense, — 
 for believing and acting on the belief, as they did, that 
 a gold dollar was worth more than a paper one. It 
 certainly was worth more, partly by act and favor of 
 government. Stevens indulged in some satire against 
 Blaine, — as to his " intuitive way of getting at great 
 national questions." For himself he confessed he did 
 not know how far his bill was practicable, or how far 
 it should be modified, but he was sure there should be 
 some law to prevent gold gambling, by which it is put 
 at two and a half times its value, — a system that is 
 making every man who eats food pay three prices for 
 it. These gamblers would take advantage of anything 
 to put up the price of gold. He would not say that 
 this legislation would reach it, but he claimed that it 
 was just such legislation that England had used in her 
 great wars with Napoleon and had found beneficial. 
 
 On February 28, 1865, while another loan bill was 
 pending, Stevens spoke at length. He reviewed the 
 currency and loan history of the war and called at- 
 tention to his repeated efforts to change the financial 
 system that had been adopted and to inaugurate a new 
 one which would have reduced the price of gold and 
 the price of every article of living and all munitions of 
 war. He now intended to make one more effort to 
 bring about a change. He had entertained high hopes 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 557 
 
 of success until, as he said, " I saw operating here cer- 
 tain influences which I regretted to observe. . . . Last 
 year we were successful until the Secretary of the 
 Treasury came here and sat behind us, when our ac- 
 tion was reversed." * He was shocked at the proposal 
 of Boutwell in favor of continuing to pay in gold all our 
 obligations to the end of the war. Perseverance in 
 this policy must lead to disaster which should have 
 been foreseen before we entered upon a system so 
 palpably unwise. This policy will bring us in interest 
 payments and other expenses, with gold selling at three 
 to one, to an annual burden of $900,000,000 to be 
 raised by taxation. " No young nation has ever borne 
 such a tax. In my judgment the people would not and 
 could not bear it. I would not be understood that this 
 country would under any circumstances repudiate her 
 debt, but she would be driven to suspend payment of 
 interest for a while and that would be a disgrace not to 
 be contemplated." If we had made the legal tender 
 notes receivable for customs and had made our interest 
 payable in such lawful money, we could have sold our 
 loans at par and have maintained our notes on an 
 equality with gold. Instead, what have we done? 
 We have given a hundred-dollar gold bond for one 
 hundred dollars in currency. That hundred dollars 
 in currency can be bought, no doubt was bought, for 
 forty dollars in gold, and we instantly began paying 
 one hundred dollars in coin for it ; for when we pay 
 the interest in gold and the principal when due, it 
 is all gold from the beginning. So under this wise 
 system we have actually been selling our bonds at 
 1 Globe, Vol. 68, p. 1202. 
 
558 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 sixty per cent, discount. Nor have we the merit of 
 using a currency which would keep down prices. We 
 have used only the currency which we ourselves have 
 decried and depreciated. He pleaded that the govern- 
 ment should no longer discriminate between classes of 
 creditors, or declare that one form of its money was 
 better than another and by legislation depreciate its 
 own money. If Congress had declared that gold 
 should not be legal tender and should not be received 
 for duties nor paid in interest, but that United States 
 notes and silver should be, gold would have depre- 
 ciated below either of the others. But Congress cre- 
 ated an absolute necessity for gold in proportion to 
 the increasing amount of our debt and made it alone 
 receivable for duties, thus declaring all other money 
 inferior to it. 
 
 Our duties last year were one hundred millions. 
 The holders of gold knew that at least twenty-five 
 millions must be had each quarter, no matter what it 
 cost. The average amount in New York, outside the 
 banks required to keep a reserve, was just about 
 twenty-five millions. Whoever possessed that could 
 compel the merchants to pay whatever price their con- 
 sciences would permit them to ask. A few men 
 could monopolize the whole of it. The struggle for 
 such a monopoly would raise the price; the buyers of 
 gold would indemnify themselves by exhorting from 
 the merchants, who in their business receive only 
 United States notes and currency. They were there- 
 fore at the mercy of the speculators, — a class of men 
 the most worthless in the community, — men who con- 
 sume the fruits of the earth but produce nothing. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 559 
 
 Congress made this gold, when no longer money 
 nor a circulating medium, the standard of value. 
 Every article came to be measured by the price of 
 bullion, the extorted unnatural price paid by the mer- 
 chants. Everything purchased by rich or poor, by in- 
 dividuals or government, went up in price. The- 
 orists have attributed this to our inflated currency. 
 If this were so prices would not fluctuate with the 
 fluctuations in the gold market, for the volume of 
 currency does not thus vary. The merchant holds his 
 goods higher or lower as the price of gold rises or 
 falls. He marks and re-marks them according to the 
 thermometer of the Israelites in the gold room, not 
 according to the contraction or expansion of the cur- 
 rency. 
 
 Stevens did not by this intend to deny that undue 
 expansion would raise prices, and that prices fall at 
 contraction. He recognized that this would happen 
 no matter whether the currency is in coin or paper. 
 He understood and accepted the quantitative theory 
 of money. But he held that the currency was never 
 inflated so long as there is no more than is necessary 
 for the business of the country; the proper quantity 
 would depend on the business demands. He con- 
 tended that the currency of the country was not swol- 
 len beyond the necessary amount, since the country 
 required in 1865 double the amount required before 
 the war. 
 
 It had been said that if all our loans had been made 
 for "lawful money," — such money being received 
 for public dues and paid for interest — the loans 
 would never have been taken abroad. " That to me," 
 
560 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 said Stevens, " would have been a merit. The annual 
 net earnings of this country would have been suffi- 
 cient to absorb all our loans and pay all the expenses 
 of the war. Now what is sold abroad is sold at forty 
 dollars on the hundred and we immediately pay one 
 hundred in coin for it as interest, and we must ulti- 
 mately pay one hundred in principal for every forty 
 dollars when specie payments are resumed. What 
 an immense sacrifice to a foolish theory ! " x On ac- 
 count of his financial policy Stevens was opposed and 
 denounced, as a matter of course, by those who repre- 
 sented the moneyed interests and the financial centers. 
 The Wall Street operators did not like him. " We 
 recollect," says Mr. Forney, " how he made the dry 
 bones of Wall Street brokers rattle last winter and 
 the winter before." 2 This Wall Street opposition 
 does not prove that Stevens' course was the one for 
 the intelligent patriot to follow, though it may lend 
 favor to that view. Neither, on the other hand, does 
 the fact that the " expert financiers " were all against 
 him prove that Stevens was either incompetent or dis- 
 honest in his dealing with the problems of national 
 finance. Too much is taken for granted by the ortho- 
 dox on questions of money. A fair review of the 
 whole discussion will show that Stevens' course was 
 sincere and straightforward, and that he applied his 
 great ability and intelligence in favor of a policy cal- 
 culated to preserve the honor of the nation and pro- 
 mote the interest of the common people. 
 
 1 Speech, Feb. 28. 1865, Cong. Globe, Vol. 68, p. 1202. 
 
 2 Philadelphia Press, Sept. 12, 1865. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 the greenbacker; funding, debt payment and 
 contraction {continued) 
 
 IN view of this clear, positive, and persistent record 
 on the subject of finance, however mistaken his 
 adversaries may have considered it, it is not sur- 
 prising that Stevens' ire was stirred when his name 
 was used and his words quoted to give support to 
 the policy of forced contraction and the immediate 
 funding of all the government's paper obligations 
 into gold bonds. That, almost as much as the de- 
 fense of " Andy Johnsonism," drew the fire of his 
 indignant wrath. 
 
 Secretary McCulloch's annual report of November 
 30, 1867, decried the greenbacks and urged their retire- 
 ment. By no means should they be used to decrease 
 the national debt. The Secretary made an argument 
 for paying all the paper and bonded obligations of the 
 government in gold, — " according to the understand- 
 ing when the subscriptions were solicited and ob- 
 tained." " Can there be any question," he asked, " in 
 regard to the nature of this understanding?" The 
 seven-thirty notes, more than eight hundred millions 
 of them, were clearly by the terms of their issue pay- 
 able in greenbacks. But they might also be converted 
 into bonds. If they were converted into bonds, Sec- 
 
 561 
 
562 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEYEXS 
 
 retary McCulloch insisted that the bonds, principal as 
 well as interest, were to be paid in coin. " Was not 
 this," he asked, " the understanding of the Congress 
 that passed the loan bills and of the people who fur- 
 nished the money? Did any member of the House or 
 of the Senate, prior to 1864, in the discussions of 
 these bills, ever intimate that the bonds to be issued 
 might be paid when redeemable in a depreciated cur- 
 rency? Was there a single subscriber to the five- 
 twenty bonds, or to the seven and three-tenths notes 
 (which by their terms were convertible into bonds), 
 who did not believe, and who was not given to under- 
 stand by the agents of the government, that both prin- 
 cipal and interest were payable in coin? Would the 
 self-sacrificing people of the United States, even to 
 sustain the government in war, have sold their 
 stocks, their lands, the products of their farms, fac- 
 tories and shops, and have invested the proceeds in 
 these government funds if they had understood that 
 the bonds were to be redeemed after five years in a 
 currency of whose value they could form no reliable 
 estimate? " 
 
 Would Congress or the treasury, " when the fate 
 of the nation was trembling in the balance, and when 
 a failure to raise money for the support of the Fed- 
 eral army would have been success to the Rebellion 
 and ruin to the Union cause, have dared to attempt 
 the experiment of raising money on bonds redeem- 
 able — in a currency whose value might not depend 
 on the solvency of the government, but upon the 
 amount in circulation? The bonds were negotiated 
 with the definite understanding that they were pay- 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 563 
 
 able in coin. The contracts were made in good faith 
 on both sides, a part of them when the government 
 was in imminent peril. Good faith and public honor, 
 which to a nation are of priceless worth, require that 
 these contracts should be complied with in the spirit 
 in which they were made." * 
 
 It was urged by the Secretary that when the five- 
 twenties were authorized it was specifically promised 
 that only $150,000,000 of the greenbacks would be 
 issued. How unfair it would now be to pay bonds 
 in these notes after so many more were issued and 
 they had thereby become so depreciated. 
 
 By such arguments the Secretary urged his policy 
 of quick contraction and immediate resumption. 
 There seems to be an intimation here that it might 
 have been honest to pay in greenbacks if so many 
 had not been issued. The fact that only a limited 
 amount were to be issued, and for a short time, suf- 
 ficiently explains, as Mr. McCulloch contended, why 
 it was not deemed necessary to state that these green- 
 back notes would not be used to pay the principal of 
 the bonds. " It is not supposable," said Mr. McCul- 
 loch, " that Congress intended to provide for funding 
 the floating debt in bonds which might, in five years, 
 be called in and paid in the very notes which, with 
 the other treasury notes, were thus to be funded." 
 
 The Secretary entirely neglected the maxim of law 
 that " exceptions strengthen the force of a law in 
 cases not excepted." An exception was made as to 
 the use of these notes in paying customs dues and 
 government interest. This clearly meant that they 
 
 1 McCulloch's Report, Nov. 30, 1867. 
 
564 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 were not to be excepted in any other respect, not even 
 the payment of bond principal. Clearly there was no 
 law requiring the payment of the five-twenty bonds in 
 gold. No lawyer of repute, except in a brief for a 
 client, would have staked his reputation by asserting 
 that such payment was legally required. The legal 
 advisers of the Rothschilds and the Frankfort bankers 
 and other foreign bond-dealers clearly understood this 
 at the time, as indicated by the low price bid for our 
 bonds. 
 
 Nor is it at all clear that the understanding of the 
 five-twenty loan was as Secretary McCulloch stated it. 
 What Jay Cooke may have said while acting as a 
 selling agent for the government; what an assistant 
 secretary of the Treasurer may have said to the ef- 
 fect that it had always been the policy of the United 
 States to pay gold and he presumed it would con- 
 tinue so to be; what Horace Greeley may have said 
 in the Tribune; or what certain members of Congress 
 may have said while the Loan Act was pending in dis- 
 cussion, — none of these things nor all of them to- 
 gether could determine even the understanding of the 
 loan — since there were also contrary understandings 
 and opinions. Much less could they determine the 
 scope and operation of the act itself. The law de- 
 termined that, and what the law was in the case 
 Stevens' legal mind perceived with perfect honesty 
 and accuracy. But by the policy of Secretary Mc- 
 Culloch and of those so greatly interested in the trea- 
 sury management, whatever the intention and under- 
 standing were, no matter at what price or with what 
 kind of money the five-twenty bonds had been bought, 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 565 
 
 they should be paid in coin, and that coin obligation 
 should be assumed and announced immediately. 
 
 This policy, which Stevens abhorred, and which 
 was so clearly in the interest of those who held the 
 government funds and against the interest of the 
 tax-paying people, was supported by Secretary Mc- 
 Culloch in an unfair and partisan way with quota- 
 tions from Stevens himself. " Where could a miser 
 invest his money?" Stevens had asked. He an- 
 swered his own question : " In United States loans 
 at six per cent, redeemable in gold in twenty years, 
 — the best and most valuable permanent investment 
 that could be desired." Again, he had said, " I pity 
 no one who has money invested in the United States 
 bonds payable in gold in twenty years, with interest 
 semi-annually." 
 
 These words, uttered in the debate on the original 
 Greenback Act in February, 1862, were now appro- 
 priated by Stevens' opponents to sustain the policy of 
 gold payments. They were quoted in the House by 
 General Garfield to weaken Stevens' position in favor 
 of bond payment in lawful money. Garfield sought to 
 convict Stevens of promising gold payment, or security, 
 on these bonds immediately, asserting that nothing 
 else had been originally thought of. 1 Stevens de- 
 nounced this application of his words as " a total per- 
 version of the truth." " It would not be too harsh," 
 he said, " to call it an absolute falsehood. I do not 
 know that I should have taken any notice of what the 
 papers were repeating, some of them half rebel, some 
 half secession, and more of them, I suppose, in the 
 
 1 Globe, July 23, 1868, pp. 4370 ft'. 
 
566 THE LIFE OF. THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 pay of the bondholders. I am too feeble now to ex- 
 plain this whole matter, but I shall take occasion here- 
 after to expose the villainy of those who charge me 
 with having said on the passing of the five-twenty bill 
 that its bonds were payable in coin. The whole de- 
 bate from which they quote and all my remarks which 
 they have cited were made on an entirely different 
 bill. I spoke only of the payment of gold after 
 twenty years, as no one doubted the resumption of 
 specie payments." 
 
 The gold question, as brought into issue between 
 the Secretary of the Treasury and the country in 1866 
 and 1867, had not arisen when Stevens made the 
 speech now quoted to embarrass him. It was in this 
 case as it was in those to which reference is made in a 
 preceding chapter, — Stevens' words on one proposal 
 were used as if they were uttered on an entirely dif- 
 ferent proposal. He was right in denouncing this 
 practise as a downright perversion of his ideas 
 and his record upon this financial legislation. He 
 cautioned the public against putting faith " in the 
 fabrications of demagogues and usurers " * and, at a 
 moment when he was not permitted to reply to Gar- 
 field's use of McCulloch's words, he promised that 
 when the proper time came he would " show that 
 there is not a word of truth in what either of them 
 says." 2 
 
 So far as the record shows these were the last 
 words that Stevens ever uttered in the House. The 
 " proper time " when he would have shown the falsity 
 
 1 Globe, July 22, 1868. 
 
 2 Globe, July 23, 1868. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 567 
 
 of the charge against him in his own invincible way 
 never came. The feebleness to which he referred 
 had laid its final hold upon him and in less than three 
 weeks he was dead. 1 He did not have the strength to 
 make good his promise, but his record is his sufficient 
 vindication. Garfield had said, no doubt without the 
 least intention to accuse falsely, that, so far as he 
 could learn, the first word ever spoken in Congress 
 suggesting the possibility of paying the five-twenty 
 bonds in anything but coin had been used by Stevens 
 in the discussions on the Loan Act of 1863. This was 
 a year after his utterance on the first Legal Tender Act 
 that, as McCulloch would have the public believe, 
 indicated Stevens' assurance that the bonds were to 
 be paid in coin. The words were the words of 
 Stevens but the application that was now made of 
 them was misleading. They had not been uttered on 
 any such issue as was now presented. It was but a 
 play of politics in favor of a policy that certain finan- 
 cial leaders and their political supporters were seeking 
 to carry to a conclusion. The record clearly shows 
 that Stevens was then speaking (February, 1862) in 
 favor of notes and bonds issued under a policy and for 
 a length of time, as he thought, that would have 
 brought, if they did not constantly keep, both notes 
 and bonds at a par with specie. Then it would be 
 a matter of indifference whether specie were paid 
 or not. Another policy was adopted, — a policy that 
 had as its result, if not as its object, the depreciation 
 of the greenback notes that bonds might be bought 
 with them and then the appreciation of the bonds by 
 1 He died on August n, 1868. 
 
568 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 their being funded into gold securities. The result 
 of this policy Stevens foresaw and foretold, and his 
 face was ever set against it in stout and unbending 
 opposition. What manner of fairness is there in 
 using the words that he had uttered in favor of his 
 own policy as if they supported any part of an op- 
 posite policy that he had always reprobated and con- 
 demned ? 
 
 Stevens was on record in too many instances on the 
 subject of paying government bonds in greenbacks 
 where the law and the contract permitted, to leave 
 any one in doubt either as to his policy or consistency. 
 
 While the Loan Act of 1863 was under discussion 
 Stevens insisted that the principal of its proposed ten- 
 forty bonds was payable in lawful money unless coin 
 were specified. He insisted that the people should be 
 allowed to know exactly in what kind of money these 
 obligations would be paid. He offered an amend- 
 ment specifying coin, both for the long time bonds 
 and for the short time treasury notes that were to be 
 issued. " If the amendment be voted down," he said, 
 " the people will see that they will be payable in what- 
 ever at the time is lawful money." Morrill, of Ver- 
 mont, accused him of wishing to put the bill into 
 such a shape that it would not pass the House. His 
 amendment was voted down, whereupon Stevens re- 
 marked, " It is evident that these bonds are to be paid 
 in shin-plasters." Later, the long time bonds, the 
 ten-forties of 1863, were made payable in coin, but 
 the three-year treasury notes were redeemable in 
 " lawful money." They were " a kind of indebted- 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 569 
 
 ness that was to be held by the people," 1 with interest 
 as an inducement to keep them from circulating, — a 
 gold interest which the banks would get as fast as it 
 accumulated. 
 
 This was the discriminating policy that Stevens was 
 always trying to prevent. His interpretation of the 
 law led the bond-dealers to see to it that " coin " was 
 put into the contract for the new long time bonds. 
 
 Again, in discussing the Loan Bill of 1866, address- 
 ing himself to the first report of Secretary McCul- 
 loch, he denounced as " most extraordinary " the 
 recommendation that the five-twenties be paid in coin. 
 " For whose benefit was this? For that of European 
 capitalists. Those men holding now $600,000,000 
 will have 30 per cent, added to the value of their 
 bonds by a single act of legislation. These bonds 
 were purchased by European capitalists when gold 
 was at 250, — at 60 per cent, discount. If now made 
 payable in gold they will obtain $100 for every $40 
 paid out. The idea that the nation is to be benefited 
 by such a proceeding is beyond my comprehension. 
 Doubtless, if I had my pocket full of five-twenties I 
 could realize the propriety of making both interest and 
 principal payable in gold after it had been understood 
 for five years that that principal should be payable 
 in currency. If there is wisdom in the project I con- 
 fess that to my poor intellect it is inscrutable and past 
 finding out." 2 
 
 He denounced the contraction provided for in the 
 
 1 Morrill, of Vermont, Jan. 22, 1863, Globe, p. 454. 
 -Globe, March 16, 1866. 
 
570 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Loan Act of 1866, an act that gave such unlimited 
 power over the currency to the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, whose policy Stevens constantly deprecated. 
 " Was ever such discretion confided to a single man, 
 — to borrow wherever he pleases, at any rate he 
 pleases? Wise men would never confer such power 
 on the ablest and purest man that ever lived." * 
 
 After such a record was it surprising that Stevens 
 suffered some vexation of spirit when his words were 
 perverted by a high official of the treasury, in sup- 
 port of a policy which he had so constantly con- 
 demned? The depth of his feeling upon this subject 
 is shown by his oft-quoted utterance in the House 
 during the last session that he ever attended. It was 
 in July, 1868, after the presidential nominations had 
 been made and the party platforms adopted. It is 
 well known with what vigor and intensity Stevens 
 hated the Democratic party. That party's candidate 
 for Vice-President in 1868, Mr. Frank P. Blair, of 
 Missouri, was especially distasteful to Stevens, partly 
 for personal reasons, partly on account of the revolu- 
 tionary policy that Blair had proposed for the un- 
 doing of the congressional work in reconstruction. 2 
 When Stevens heard it suggested in the House that 
 certain loans were payable only in gold, he broke in 
 boldly with his well-known declaration: "After 
 they fall due they are payable in money, just as the 
 gentleman understands money, just as I understand 
 it, just as we all understood it when we passed the 
 law authorizing that loan; just as it was a dozen times 
 
 1 March 16, 1866. Globe. 
 
 2 See Blair's Brodhead Letter. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 571 
 
 explained upon the floor by the chairman of the Com- 
 mittee on Ways and Means when called upon by gentle- 
 men to explain what it meant, and just as the whole 
 House agreed that it meant. I want to say that if I 
 knew that any party in this country would go for 
 paying in coin that which is payable in money, thus 
 enhancing it one-half; if I knew there was such a 
 determination this day on the part of my party, I 
 would vote for the other side, Frank Blair and all. 
 I would vote for no such swindle upon the taxpayers 
 of this country; I would vote for no such speculation 
 in favor of the large bondholders, the millionaires 
 who took advantage of our folly in granting them 
 coin payment of interest. And I declare — well, it is 
 hard to say it — but if even Frank Blair stood upon 
 the platform of paying the bonds according to the 
 contract, and the Republican candidates stood upon 
 the platform of paying bloated speculators twice the 
 amount which we agreed to pay them, then I would 
 vote for Frank Blair, even if a worse man than Sey- 
 mour headed the ticket. That is all I want to say." x 
 
 This expression, indicating that Stevens might sup- 
 port the Democratic party in the campaign, caused his 
 Republican followers some annoyance. It met with 
 criticism and dissent among many of his loyal sup- 
 porters at home. On July 23, 1868, Stevens wrote to 
 the Lancaster Express saying that he " had not de- 
 clared for Seymour and Blair and never expected to. 
 I have only declared," he said, " against fools and 
 swindlers who have fabricated the most atrocious 
 falsehoods as to my position on the currency ques- 
 
 1 Globe, July 17, 1868, p. 417S. 
 
572 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 tion." He promised when he was a little stronger to 
 give " a full history of the matter." * The editor ex- 
 pressed the hope that when he got strong enough to 
 write the " history " referred to he would " avoid 
 the distinguishing characteristic of his letter," since 
 calling his opponents by such endearing terms as 
 " fools and swindlers " furnished no evidence " either 
 of his own wisdom or of the strength of his position." 
 
 The " history," as we know, could never be pre- 
 pared. But a few days later, July 30, 1868, Stevens 
 seemed relieved to be able to write to his home paper 
 that the gold question was settled by " the comprom- 
 ise funding bill " of Senator Sherman. He ad- 
 mitted that the vexed question of what kind of cur- 
 rency the five-twenties were payable in, had been dis- 
 cussed in an unbecoming temper and style, so far as 
 he was concerned. The settlement now arrived at 
 provided for bonds equal in amount to the five- 
 twenties with interest at four per cent, payable in coin 
 after thirty and forty years. This reduced the na- 
 tional loan to uniformity, informed every bondholder 
 what and how much he is to receive, and showed, as 
 Stevens had contended, that " there was a difference 
 in value between the original five-twenties and what 
 they would be if payable in coin." 
 
 The fact that Stevens, while descending to his 
 grave, seemed relieved to accept this so-called com- 
 promise, which was but a meager concession to his 
 contention, should not be taken to indicate that he had 
 in the least lost faith in the rightfulness of the cause 
 for which he had been contending. The gold-paying 
 
 1 Lancaster Express, July 25, 1868. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 573 
 
 policy and the rejection of the greenback, which he 
 had denounced so vigorously, was but part of a sys- 
 tem, — a system of dishonored and mutilated na- 
 tional notes and of gold interest, — which, as we have 
 seen, Stevens had opposed with all his might from 
 the beginning. His opposition here should be con- 
 sidered as a part of his opposition to the system as a 
 whole, — that war system of finance, the like of which 
 as he said, " no human folly had ever before 
 witnessed." 
 
 This system or policy he brought into public review 
 by an open letter to an old German constituent, John 
 Gyger, a banker friend in Lancaster. Gyger wrote a 
 letter to Stevens which the latter prompted, if he 
 did not compose, and Stevens answered the letter. 
 Stevens thus made for himself an opportunity to dis- 
 cuss the money question. 
 
 He apparently wrote with deep feeling and convic- 
 tion, as one would who had been the witness and an- 
 tagonist of a great wrong and injustice that had been 
 cunningly wrought upon an unsuspecting people. 
 " Would to God," he said, " that my intellectual vigor 
 might increase in proportion to my disease that I 
 might properly depict this important subject to the 
 American people." 
 
 The appeal to commercial integrity and national 
 honor in support of this " monstrous swindle on the 
 part of European capitalists " excited his contempt 
 and spirit of satire. " Who are these reasoners," he 
 asked, " who talk so learnedly of the laws of finance 
 and the morality of human dealings, whose con- 
 sciences are so raw and stick out so far from their 
 
574 THE LIFE OF] THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 excited covering that no pharmaceutist can heal their 
 inward wound ? " The plain truth was as Stevens 
 saw it, this system that had been instituted by the 
 bullion dealers was but " a gambling game in the two 
 unequal legal tender moneys." " Hopes were excited 
 much more rampant than the lottery dealers or the 
 faro players; and in the belief that a single turn of 
 the cards would bring up the holder's fortune, 
 palaces were opened for the purpose of inviting specu- 
 lation and dealings in this new system of gambling. 
 Some became rich while others went to beggary. 
 Everything became excited and inflated, from the 
 commonest fabric to the most valuable estate. Thus 
 the cost of the war was vastly increased, but the 
 honest Jews of the gold room, Shadrach, Meshach, 
 and Abednego, came out unsinged." 
 
 Stevens said he would not begrudge the poor specu- 
 lator or the rich capitalist his earning who has en- 
 tered the gold room a beggar and come out with a 
 princely fortune. That is not his folly, but the folly 
 of the government which " though a hundred times 
 warned would never take heed." 
 
 He believed that this gambling of the " gold 
 room " was directly promoted by the policy of estab- 
 lishing two kinds of money and making gold a fa- 
 vored kind. " The government's gold sales " were 
 used to help on the speculative tendency, and in some 
 instances, as Stevens believed, the treasuiy seemed 
 to be controlled in the interests of the gold brokers. 1 
 
 1 Stevens had reasons for these suspicions and he was not 
 without knowledge on gold manipulations. In 1866 the govern- 
 ment offered gold for sale by Van Dyck. the assistant treas- 
 urer, through one Myers, a broker, between whom and the 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 575 
 
 The seven-thirty notes of 1861, issued when we had 
 no other currency than gold, were paid in greenbacks 
 in 1864; the gold-paying public creditor for the gold 
 he had paid to the government was obliged either to 
 take his pay in greenbacks for commercial use or take 
 them and convert them into bonds. That whole loan 
 was thus redeemed. These were short time, little 
 creditors, among the common people, the " hand to 
 mouth men," who had made a temporary loan of their 
 good gold to save the government. The big gold 
 brokers had no compunctions about cheating them, 
 but the heavy long bond creditors you must not cheat ; 
 you must let them cheat you. 1 The loans were to be 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury there was a family connection ; and 
 it was charged that Myers owed his appointment as selling 
 agent of the government entirely to this family relationship. 
 Myers and another broker played into each other's hands, 
 the treasury, through Myers, selling gold till the price came 
 down from 140 to 124, Myers' partner buying heavily at the 
 lower figures. The partner then held his accumulations till the 
 price went up to 144, the merchants who needed the gold for 
 customs dues being compelled to go to those who had it. Thou- 
 sands of dollars changed hands. It was a plain case of Wall 
 Street thimble-rigging, and the treasury officials were sus- 
 piciously close to the deal. A Philadelphia merchant com- 
 plained of these processes in a letter to Stevens and Thomas J. 
 Stewart, of New York, repeatedly wrote to him of them, urging 
 public exposure. The favored brokers knew when the treas- 
 ury would offer gold and depress the price. Stewart said that 
 " the treasury of the United States in this city has been used 
 by Van Dyck, Myers, and their secret association as an enor- 
 mous fund in their gold speculating. Millions have been made 
 and will continue to be made unless a vote of censure is passed 
 by Congress." The result was a resolution offered in the 
 House calling on Secretary McCulloch for an explanation. 
 Stewart expressed the hope that Stevens would recover his 
 health and " stand on the quarter-deck of the House while this 
 battle rages." Men believed that God had given to Thaddeus 
 Stevens a heart of honesty and a tongue with a hot vocabulary 
 for just fights as these abuses called for. Stevens' Correspond- 
 ence, 1866. See New York Journal of Commerce, June 7, [866 
 1 This is adapted as expressing Stevens' view from a speech 
 of B. F. Butler, Nov. 26, 27, 1867, Globe, Appendix, p. 29, 1st 
 Sess., Fortieth Cong. 
 
576 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 paid in coin only when they had been contracted for 
 in large job lots for rich capitalists or foreign holders, 
 and when they had been bought with cheap depre- 
 ciated money, — a money that had been made cheap by 
 the very policy of these gold dealers. 
 
 The claim had been set up that these bonds were 
 payable in gold because Stevens had not said when the 
 act was passed that the principal was payable in cur- 
 rency. Stevens retorted that he had not said so be- 
 cause he did not suppose that anybody but a fool 
 would think they were not payable in currency. The 
 " old man sarcastic," as Ben Butler called him, was 
 generally able to take care of himself in these con- 
 gressional bouts. 
 
 When in 1862 the legal tender measure was forced 
 by necessity, " no one, I suppose," said Stevens, 
 " doubted that the loans of the United States of 
 every description were payable in money of the United 
 States of every description. But to change that as- 
 pect the New York money changers appeared, Jew 
 and Gentile, mingling in sweet communion, to dis- 
 cover some cunning invention to make in a day what 
 it would take weeks for honest men to earn. They 
 went to the Ways and Means Committee and asked 
 that the interest be payable in coin, leaving the princi- 
 pal as it was. The committee utterly rejected the ab- 
 surd proposition of two currencies — 'two legal tend- 
 ers — in the same empire and for the same com- 
 modities. The brokers then resorted to the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury. He was more easily persuaded 
 and went with them to the Senate Committee to urge 
 the change. The Senate agreed and sent back the bill 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 577 
 
 so amended. The House disagreed, but in confer- 
 ence was forced to consent to make the interest pay- 
 able in a different kind of currency than the loan it- 
 self. To get the coin customs dues were made pay- 
 able in that. Thus as any one can see, the Congress 
 declared that while she created two kinds of money, 
 she had made them of unequal value and for different 
 purposes." 
 
 Stevens had once made a calculation to ascertain 
 the difference between the two modes of paying, and 
 he had brought in bills in hope of saving the differ- 
 ence. " But each session the noise of the gold room 
 was much louder than what I was pleased to call the 
 voice of reason. Take $100 and count it into green- 
 backs, when gold was high. It will produce $281. 
 So convert or use it every day for a year and you 
 have $66,000, — the gold-bearers costing the govern- 
 ment that much more than the legal tenders. The 
 gold exchange on the basis of the daily cost of the 
 war cost the government $1,600,000,000 more than 
 the straight use of the greenbacks would have done." 
 
 He believed that the present and prospective busi- 
 ness of the country would fairly absorb an amount of 
 currency large enough to redeem these bonds as they 
 became due, say $4,000,000 monthly, so as impercept- 
 ibly to affect the currency. Business men were com- 
 plaining that the retiring of $4,000,000 of currency 
 without a substitute causes a stringency in the money 
 market very injurious to business. The additional 
 issue of that amount would be better and would be 
 taken up without injuring business by undue expan- 
 sion. 
 
578 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Stevens denied that he wished to delay specie pay- 
 ments, and he claimed to believe, with everybody else, 
 that that was a desirable end to be attained as soon 
 as possible. His notion about resumption was that 
 the sooner the government converts all its indebted- 
 ness into a paper currency which the people will be 
 willing to accept as a long loan and to a considerable 
 amount, the sooner it would be able to resume specie 
 payments. If the end could ever have been accom- 
 plished in this way, the course would certainly have 
 been a longer way round though it might have been 
 easier. Herein lay Stevens' error and inconsistency, 
 as a Greenbacker. His true course lay, as he hardly 
 seemed to perceive, in disregarding specie payments 
 altogether, and in looking upon the use of gold and 
 silver in the currency as altogether unnecessary and 
 incidental, as something that might come in time by 
 the natural order of trade and development, but 
 about which there need be no concern. He claimed 
 anxiety to resume the use of coin as a legal tender not 
 because it is any better as a measure of value or as a 
 token of debt, but because it had been adopted by 
 most of the other civilized nations. " But I do not 
 wish," he said, " to resume by breaking the bones of 
 every manufacturer, mechanic, and agriculturist for 
 the benefit of foreign operators who have now their 
 fixed capital in these loans." 
 
 To pay these loans according to the contract would 
 have saved, according to Stevens' calculation, §72>7r 
 000,000. That is about the sum which, as alleged, 
 the greenbacks had added to the cost of the war. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 579 
 
 " But tender consciences have compelled the nation td 
 pay this debt in coin because Jay Cooke and the Tri- 
 bune have pledged their word that it should be so 
 paid. I have no objection to their paying it, but I 
 dislike to take the balance left me by the rebels to pay 
 my part." 
 
 How does the case appear to a plain honest man, 
 — to the farmer or laborer who earns an honest living 
 by the sweat of his brow? Is his conscience violated, 
 his elemental sense of justice outraged by an honest 
 payment according to the contract? Here is the case 
 as Stevens illustrated it : A capitalist takes $400 in 
 gold. It buys $1000 in bonds by first buying $1000 
 in greenbacks. At the next yearly interest payment 
 he gets 6 per cent, in gold on $1000. That is 15 per 
 cent, above taxes on his investment. He continues to 
 draw at that rate while the debt runs. He now de- 
 mands that the principal also be paid in gold, which 
 would net 250 per cent, more on the investment. 
 " This is what they call honor, conscience, justice, 
 through the custom of the country, and they tell the 
 farmers of America that they are in honor bound to 
 pay the money dealers of Europe this enormous rate 
 to save their property from destruction; and the 
 moral (?) men of New York denounce you and me 
 and others as dishonorable robbers and swindlers if 
 we do not in forty years quadruple the capital of the 
 Rothschilds, Goldsmiths, and other large money deal- 
 ers. I must beg leave to judge for myself of this 
 monstrous proposition and to see whether I am in 
 honor bound to pay any more than he demands who, 
 
580 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 with pistol at my breast, commands me to stand and 
 deliver." 1 
 
 Such are the merits of the issue on funding and 
 paying the war debt as Stevens brought them into re- 
 view a few months before his death. 
 
 The capitalistic press denounced the policy advo- 
 cated by Stevens as a " greenback confiscation," as 
 " a wholesale act of repudiation," and as " a breach 
 of faith toward a class, the bankers and money 
 lenders, who gave most noble succor to the nation 
 in her hour of trial," as one of the clerical teachers 
 of financial honor saw fit to express it. 2 The New 
 York press generally referred to Stevens' views as 
 "eccentric." But Stevens' "eccentric" views con- 
 sisted merely in constant opposition to the financial 
 policy pursued by the government for six full years, 
 and in a belief that by that policy the government had 
 thrown away millions by mismanagement, and that 
 those who loaned money to the government were paid 
 back two or three times over what they were justly 
 entitled to. A fair perusal of the record is likely to 
 lead the unbiased layman, if not the " professional fin- 
 ancier," to Stevens' conclusion. The system of 
 greenbacks and gold payments adopted from 1862 to 
 
 1 Open Letter of Stevens to John Gyger, Banker, Nov. 4, 1867, 
 in Cincinnati Commercial, Nov. 12, 1867. 
 
 2 " Repudiation," " cheating," " dishonor," " destroying the 
 national credit," were the cheap terms of abuse employed 
 against those who opposed the gold-bond, specie-paying policy. 
 Of course, Stevens did not escape these flings. " But, if in all 
 this broad land," said Mr. Forney, who knew Stevens well, 
 " there is a man who hates repudiation more than Thaddeus 
 Stevens we do not know him. There was a time in Pennsyl- 
 vania when he fought against that crime and crushed it with 
 his Titanic blows." Philadelphia Press, Sept. 12, 1865. 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 581 
 
 1869 richly deserved Stevens' " oft defeated " efforts 
 in resistance as well as his " oft-repeated " denuncia- 
 tions. For one may well doubt whether there was 
 ever a more outrageous fleecing and robbery of a pa- 
 triotic people than that perpetrated through the in- 
 fluence of capitalists and money lenders by the 
 manipulation of government finance during and im- 
 mediately following the American Civil War. 
 
 The shrewd and the unscrupulous rich are ever 
 seeking to use the government and control the laws 
 for the exploitation of the masses. The cunning 
 hand was at work while true men were at the front 
 in the dark and trying days of the Civil War. While 
 the homes of the nation were anxiously watching the 
 fortunes of war; while the mass of the people, in pa- 
 triotic ardor, were seeking to safeguard the welfare 
 of the Union, there were selfish and unscrupulous 
 men who seized upon the situation merely for the base 
 purpose of making money out of the necessities of 
 the country. To gain cent per cent, was the only call 
 which the war and the state of the country presented 
 to them. The Old Commoner despised such men, 
 and they knew full well that they could not use him 
 for their purposes. He withstood them to their face. 
 Their course, then, was to break him down, to destroy 
 the weight of his influence and opinions with the 
 country. Untrained as he was for this special prob- 
 lem; worried by the distractions of a thousand public 
 cares in many directions; opposed as he was by the 
 organs of traditional and orthodox opinion on ques- 
 tions of money, it is surprising that he put up as 
 
582 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 strong a fight as he did on the financial issues that he 
 was forced to meet. 
 
 He was defeated in the policies that he sought 
 to have adopted. But the ideas that he accepted and 
 promulgated were not destined to disappear. The 
 struggle that he had upon these questions and the op- 
 position that he encountered led him to take a radical 
 and an advanced position on the subject of money. 
 He went to the root of the question, as his radical 
 mind and temper led him to do, and he announced 
 principles of money utterly subversive of the gold 
 standard and the moneyed interest. He came to be- 
 lieve in a uniform national currency, issued as bills of 
 credit by the general government alone. " Money is 
 the creature of law," he said, " just what the law 
 makes it." He had come to the faith that the gov- 
 ernment has the constitutional power to make money 
 of whatever material it chooses, whether metal, paper, 
 leather, tin, nickel, greenbacks, or old bones. The 
 material does not matter, except for convenience. It 
 is quantity and use that count. If money be too 
 abundant or too scarce it is of no consequence 
 whether it be coin or paper. One thousand million 
 too much of gold is just as injurious in inflating prices 
 as one thousand million too much of greenbacks. 
 And he desired that the volume of money be regulated 
 by a sovereign representative government in the in- 
 terests of the toilers and producers and not by combi- 
 nations of capitalists controlling the gold of the world 
 in the interests of moneyed classes. 
 
 These views of money have been accepted by mil- 
 lions of his countrymen since the day when Stevens 
 
DEBT PAYMENT AND CONTRACTION 583 
 
 contended for them without much public support. If 
 it be said that experience has not vindicated them, it 
 may be answered that in many respects they have been 
 vindicated and that Time, the unceasing worker, has 
 not yet wrought out all the causes and issues on that 
 subject which are in store. By the " experts " and 
 " financiers " the doctrines of Stevens have been rid- 
 iculed as the vagaries of foolishness. But in the light 
 of fifty years of controversy on questions of finance, 
 it is not unreasonable to say that the final word of 
 wisdom on money and its uses may be found to be 
 much nearer to the ideas of Stevens, the Greenbacker, 
 than his hostile critics ever conceived it possible to 
 believe. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CLOSING DAYS AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 A FTER Stevens' last formal speech on impeach- 
 ■*■ *■ ment his words in the House were confined to 
 brief colloquy while he was suffering under weakness 
 of body. 1 
 
 Two days later in July, 1868, he offered from the 
 Committee on Education in the District of Columbia 
 a bill to establish free schools for the District. It 
 was the last measure he ever offered in the House, — 
 a fitting final act of his career, as the first cause that 
 had brought great honor to his name was the cause 
 of free education. He would have no child in the 
 republic grow up in ignorance. This education of 
 the children for citizenship should not be only the 
 concern of the church and of private beneficence but it 
 should be the highest and constant concern of the 
 state; and not of the commonwealth alone, but of the 
 nation at large, in every case wherein the power to 
 care for this great cause had been bestowed. 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens died in Washington City at 
 twelve o'clock midnight, August II, 1868, aged 
 seventy-six years, four months and seven days. The 
 closing scenes of his life were of an impressive char- 
 acter. His nephew, Thaddeus Stevens Jr., and Mrs. 
 Lydia Smith, his colored housekeeper, were at his 
 
 1 Sec p. 505. 
 
 584 
 
CLOSING DAYS 5S5 
 
 bedside, also Sister Loretta and Sister Genevieve, 
 colored sisters of charity of the Providence Hospital, 
 who had been visiting him daily in his illness and 
 whose benevolent and charitable work had been so 
 heartily supported by Stevens in personal and legisla- 
 tive efforts. 1 
 
 On the afternoon of his death he talked with cheer- 
 fulness and animation. The doctor had changed his 
 medicine and Stevens, noticing the change, remarked, 
 " Well, this is a square fight," and his face lightened 
 up with a grim smile of mingled humor and deter- 
 mination. He commented on Seward's purchase of 
 Alaska saying that it was " the biggest thing in his 
 life," and if he could have purchased Samana it would 
 have been " the crowning event of his whole career." 
 He remarked to a relative, Simon Stevens, " Simon, 
 the great questions of the day are reconstruction, 
 the finances, and the railway system of the coun- 
 try." He seemed somewhat anxious about the state 
 of the country because of indication of trouble in 
 Louisiana. He referred with kindness and confi- 
 dence to William M. Evarts whom he called " a sound 
 lawyer and statesman," who would " so advise the 
 President as to make unnecessary a meeting of Con- 
 gress in September," which Stevens was anxious to 
 avoid. At seven o'clock two colored ministers, Rev- 
 erend Mr. Hall and Reverend Mr. Reed, arrived and 
 requested permission to see Mr. Stevens and pray with 
 him. When asked if they should do so he said, " Oh, 
 
 _ 1 Mr. Stevens had secured a special congressional appropria- 
 tion of thirty thousand dollars for this institution, in spite of 
 great opposition. It was a Washington charity for negroes. 
 
586 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 yes." As they approached his bedside he looked 
 toward them, nodded his head and smiled. Reverend 
 Mr. Hall said, " Mr. Stevens, you have the prayers of 
 all the colored people of the country." About ten min- 
 utes before his death Sister Loretta requested the per- 
 mission of his friends to perform the baptismal rite, 
 and no objection being offered, the impressive cere- 
 mony was performed amid reverential silence. Mrs. 
 Smith, the colored housekeeper, knelt at the foot of the 
 bed while the sisters, also kneeling, continued to read 
 the prayers for the departing soul. The plaintive tones 
 of the holy sisters, the repressed and troubled breath- 
 ing of the dying man, mingled with the sobs of his 
 nephew and of his faithful friend and housekeeper, 
 Mrs. Smith, were indications of coining death. The 
 annalist relates that " the clock struck twelve, and in 
 three minutes he was dead. His last hour was one 
 of tranquillity, and when death came he passed calmly 
 and peacefully away as though falling into a sweet 
 slumber." * 
 
 The body lay in state in the rotunda of the Capitol 
 for two days and was then taken to Lancaster by 
 special train. At the tomb the Reverend Bishop Big- 
 ler of the Moravian church read the Ninetieth Psalm. 
 Reverend E. H. Nevin of the Presbyterian church 
 offered prayer. The services of the Lutheran church 
 were read by Reverend W. V. Getwald, and Doctor 
 Wombert delivered an address on the life and services 
 of Stevens. 
 
 1 Lancaster Express, August 12, 1868, and the current number 
 of the Philadelphia Press. 
 
CLOSING DAYS 587 
 
 The death of Stevens occurred four days before his 
 expected renomination for Congress. Martin S. Fry, 
 the chairman of the Republican County Committee, 
 after consultation with party leaders, recommended 
 that, " as a fitting tribute to the memory of our most 
 able and distinguished champion of freedom and jus- 
 tice the unanimous vote of the party be cast for the 
 name of Thaddeus Stevens in the ensuing primary- 
 meetings and that arrangements be made later for 
 filling the vacancy." This was done as a last political 
 tribute and testimonial of the confidence and esteem 
 in which Thaddeus Stevens was held by his constit- 
 uents and neighbors. 
 
 Among the papers in the court records of Lancaster 
 County may be found the last will and testament of 
 Thaddeus Stevens. Many of the items of the will are 
 significant and characteristic. The biographer de- 
 ciphered from the difficult handwriting of Stevens 
 himself the following bequests : 
 
 " To the town of Peacham, Vermont, one thousand dol- 
 lars at six per cent., in aid of the Library Association which 
 was founded at the Caledonia County Academy, — if the 
 same is still in existence. 
 
 " To the Trustees of the graveyard in which my mother 
 and brother are buried in the town of Peacham, Vermont, 
 five hundred dollars, the interest to be annually paid to the 
 sexton on condition that he keep the graves in good order 
 and plant roses and other cheerful flowers at each of the 
 four corners of said graves every spring. 
 
 " If either of said legacies should lapse the same shall go 
 to the support of the Baptist church, or meeting, nearest to 
 Danville Center, my native town in Vermont." 
 
88 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 To his housekeeper, Lydia Smith, he gave five hun- 
 dred dollars a year for the rest of her life, or, if she 
 chose instead, she might have a lump sum of five thou- 
 sand dollars. She was permitted to occupy his house 
 for five years. 
 
 To his nephew, Thaddeus W. Stevens, of Indian- 
 apolis, he gave two thousand dollars. He provided, 
 also, that if at the end of any five years Thaddeus 
 should show that he had totally abstained from all in- 
 toxicating drinks during that time, the trustees might 
 convey to him one- fourth of the whole property; and 
 if at the end of the next successive five-year period 
 Thaddeus should show that he had totally abstained 
 from all intoxicating drinks, he should have another 
 fourth of the property, and, if he fulfilled the same 
 condition for another five-year period, he was to have 
 the whole property in fee simple. 
 
 Here was a lesson and an inducement to temper- 
 ance for young Thaddeus, but he was not able to bear 
 it. He was not able to qualify for his inheritance 
 under the terms of the will, and, as in that case pro- 
 vided, the remaining aggregate property was to go 
 " to erect, establish and endow a house of refuge for 
 the relief of homeless orphans." The sum of twenty 
 thousand dollars was to be expended in building, and 
 the orphans were to be provided a home till they had 
 reached the age of fifteen, and longer if they were 
 infirm. They were to be educated carefully in the 
 English branches and in all industrial pursuits. No 
 preference was to be shown on account of race or 
 color in admission or treatment, and no one should be 
 excluded on account of the race or religion of his 
 
 
CLOSING DAYS 589 
 
 parents, and all should be educated alike in the same 
 classes, and fed at the same table. 
 
 In a separate codicil to his will Stevens provided 
 that one thousand dollars be paid to Pennsylvania Col- 
 lege, at Gettysburg, for the use of Stevens Hall. In 
 another he said, " I bought John Shertz' property at 
 sheriff's sale at much below its value. I only want my 
 own. All except three hundred dollars, the proceeds 
 of it and the interest, I direct shall be returned to the 
 estate." In another codicil he provided that one thou- 
 sand dollars be paid to the Baptist church in Lancaster 
 for a new church building. " I do this," he said, " out 
 of respect to the memory of my mother to whom I owe 
 what little of prosperity I have had on earth, and 
 which, small as it is, I desire emphatically to acknowl- 
 edge." 
 
 The will is of interest since it reveals something of 
 the character of Stevens and the interests and pur- 
 poses of his life. It was more than twenty years be- 
 fore the estate was finally settled up by the admin- 
 istrators and then it was found that the proceeds and 
 residue of the property amounted to about forty 
 thousand dollars. This sum was supplemented by an 
 appropriation by the state of Pennsylvania and was 
 devoted to the establishment of Stevens Institute, an 
 industrial school for poor boys and girls. Its worthy 
 site and buildings in the suburbs are an ornament to 
 the city of Lancaster. The work this school is doing 
 and will continue to do will be a fitting memorial in 
 the years to come to the commoner of Pennsylvania. 
 
 It would not seem at all fitting to close a biography 
 of Thaddeus Stevens without some reference to the 
 
590 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 anecdotes and stories that gathered about his life; — 
 especially is this so since these anecdotes aid, in a 
 way, in the revelation of his character. 
 
 The Stevens stories are innumerable, — perhaps 
 about no other man in American history have more 
 good stories been gathered. Colonel John W. Forney 
 in his sketch of Stevens 1 says that no justice can be 
 done to the story side of his life, and that " if some 
 congenial Boswell had been by his side there might 
 have been collected a volume of his sayings." It is 
 to be regretted that a suitable and reliable collection 
 was not made by a contemporary and friend compe- 
 tent to perform that task. Stevens' wit was spontane- 
 ous, never studied nor artificial. His jokes sprang 
 from the circumstance in which he found himself; 
 none was ever lugged in for the sake of the joke it- 
 self. He was not a story teller, but he was strong in 
 retort, in repartee, in quaint interrogatory. His fine 
 sense of humor he carried with him in disease and af- 
 fliction even to his death-bed. His friend John Hick- 
 man visited him in his last illness, and remarked how 
 well he appeared. " Ah, John," was Stevens' quick 
 reply, " it is not my appearance but my disappearance 
 that troubles me." When a House member was pacing 
 the aisle, walking up and down and back and forth 
 during his speech, Stevens, after watching the peri- 
 patetic performance for a while, called out to this mem- 
 ber, " Mr. do you expect to collect mileage for 
 
 that speech? " 
 
 Mr. Justin S. Morrill who served with Stevens for 
 many years in the House says that " never, indeed, was 
 1 Published in the Philadelphia Press, August, 1868. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 591 
 
 wit of all varieties, coarse and fine, exhibited in more 
 bewildering profusion. He daily wasted ... in his 
 distribution of mirth, sense, and satire ... a capital 
 sufficient, could it have been preserved, to rival almost 
 any of the acknowledged masters among the collo- 
 quial wits of this or possibly of any age." * Much of 
 his wit was personal, too, frequently partaking of the 
 gall of bitterness, but it was generally remarked even 
 by those who suffered from his unerring shafts that 
 no man was more ready to repair the injuries he in- 
 flicted. Once his vote was solicited at a general elec- 
 tion in Lancaster by an impecunious and incompetent 
 man who was a candidate for " Poor Commissioner/'V 
 
 " Certainly," said Stevens, in a most amiable way, 
 " we should make you Poor Commissioner, for I know 
 of no one in all Lancaster county who would make a 
 poorer Commissioner than you." 
 
 A judge in court, somewhat ruffled by Stevens' evi- 
 dent disgust and subdued expressions of displeasure 
 at some of the court's rulings, intimated that Stevens, 
 if he were not careful, might be arraigned for man- 
 ifesting contempt of court. " Manifesting contempt, 
 your Honor ! " said Stevens. " Sir, I am doing my 
 very best to conceal it." 
 
 It was always a delight to the man, who despised a 
 trimmer, and to his party adversaries who admired 
 the bold and honest candor with which Stevens ex- 
 pressed his political opinions and programs, to listen 
 to his frequent exposures of the pretenses, conceal- 
 ments, evasions, and the wavering weakness of some of 
 his party associates. A notable instance was in his 
 
 1 Senate Memorial Speeches, Globe, December 18, 1868. 
 
592 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 proposing that messengers be sent to the lobby of the 
 House to inform the weak-kneed Northern Whigs who 
 had dodged the vote on the historic Fugitive Slave Law 
 in 1850, that they might safely return to the hall now 
 that the vote had been taken and the bill had passed. 
 On one occasion a member who seemed to have no con- 
 victions on any question and who often confessed that 
 he seldom investigated a subject without finding him- 
 self a neutral, asked for a leave of absence and a pair. 
 " Mr. Speaker," said Stevens, " I do not rise to ob- 
 ject, but to suggest that the honorable member need 
 not ask this favor for he can easily pair off with him- 
 self." 
 
 He wished his party colleagues and his party to 
 stand out boldly. In June, 1868, a few weeks before 
 his death, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the plat- 
 form of his party which had just been framed by his 
 party convention for the contest of that memorable 
 year. He called it " tame and cowardly " on the sub- 
 ject of the suffrage, which his party was unwilling to 
 confer upon the negroes in the North. " For twenty 
 years before the war," he wrote, " the North behaved 
 like poltroons in all their legislative controversies with 
 slavery. They have much more physical than moral 
 courage. . . . What did the bold men at Chicago mean 
 by selling the right of suffrage? The Declaration of 
 Independence contains no such folly, no such wicked- 
 ness. We can not maintain liberty by skulking." He 
 liked stiff-backed men ; they were his kindred in moral 
 and spiritual qualities. " I wish you would say to Mr. 
 Stevens for me," said Chief Justice Chase to a visitor 
 who was starting to see Stevens, not long before his 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 593 
 
 death, " that when he goes out of the House lie will 
 take with him more backbone than he will leave." 1 
 He was not always scrupulous as to the methods of 
 accomplishing his ends. He often supported meas- 
 ures to which he could not give his unqualified assent, 
 recognizing, as he said on one occasion that " Con- 
 gress is composed of men, not of angels." He sought 
 the best attainable, and he believed that the game of 
 " practical politics " demanded the use of means which 
 in themselves he could not defend. In this he was 
 guilty of the common error and folly of the so-called 
 " practical men " of his time. He was far from be- 
 ing the strict moralist or purist who would stand for 
 the absolute good regardless of the circumstances and 
 opposition confronting him. Mr. Samuel S. Cox, of 
 Ohio, was a party to an affair which illustrates this 
 disposition of Stevens. 
 
 Soon after the war Mr. Stevens introduced a bill 
 to appropriate $800,000 to reimburse the state of 
 Pennsylvania for expenses incurred in repelling in- 
 vasions and suppressing insurrections. The bill was 
 referred to the Committee on Appropriation, of which 
 Stevens was chairman. Without delay he reported 
 the bill. During the Antietam and Gettysburg cam- 
 paigns bodies of troops had been organized for de- 
 fense, and expense had been incurred by towns and 
 counties, but no actual service had been performed. 
 The appropriation was intended to provide for the 
 payment of these expenses. There was opposition led 
 by Dawes, of Massachusetts; Boutwell, of Massachu- 
 setts, prepared a brief for Dawes' use. When it be- 
 1 Letter of Jonathan Blanchard. 
 
'594 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 came apparent that the bill would be lost, Cox, of Ohio, 
 arose and moved to insert after the word Pennsylvania 
 the words Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, 
 Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and the Territory 
 of New Mexico. Also to strike out $800,000 and in- 
 sert $10,000,000. This brought to the support of the 
 measure the members from all those states and the bill 
 was passed. The Senate never acted on the bill. 
 Bout well was indignant at the action of the House and 
 exclaimed to Stevens, whose seat was near to Bout- 
 well's, " This is the most outrageous thing that I have 
 seen on the floor of the House." Stevens doubled his 
 fist, but not in anger, shook it in my face and said : 
 " You rascal, if you had allowed me to have my rights 
 I should not have been compelled to make a corrupt 
 bargain in order to get them." " Thus," says Bout- 
 well, " he admitted his arrangement with Cox and the 
 character of it and laid the responsibility on me." 1 
 
 It was not parliamentary to call a man a liar in the 
 House, but when Stevens wished to convey an im- 
 pression to that effect concerning Brooks, of New York, 
 the Democratic leader, he maintained his contention by 
 saying that " there is nothing to the contrary but the 
 remark of the gentleman from New York, which, I 
 beg leave to say, is not now evidence in a court of jus- 
 tice." 
 
 He frequently gave vent to his feelings in profan- 
 ity. On one occasion, hearing a crash of some dishes 
 in his dining-room and knowing that something was 
 broken, he shouted to the colored servant with im- 
 patience : " Well, it, what thing have you 
 
 1 George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences, Vol. II, pp. 9 and 10. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 595 
 
 broken now?" "I bless de Lawd," said the colored 
 woman, " that it am not de third commandment." 
 Stevens smiled in good humor and accepted the re- 
 proof. 
 
 His two strong stalwart colored servants were 
 carrying him up the steps of the Capitol in his chair, 
 as their custom was, during the last weeks of his at- 
 tendance upon the House. It had been apparent for 
 some time to those about him that he had but a short 
 time to live. One of the servants thought Stevens 
 seemed unusually sad one morning and ventured to 
 ask the reason for his depression. " Oh," said Stev- 
 ens, " I was thinking of your great kindness and won- 
 dering who will carry me up these steps when you two 
 men are gone." Mr. Forney says there is nothing 
 finer in the annals of humor than this. " Here was 
 not only uncommon wit, but a sense of intellectual im- 
 mortality." 1 
 
 The common report is that Stevens was an invet- 
 erate gambler. He played poker and other games of 
 cards for money, as the custom was in his time and 
 community. But he was not a professional gambler. 
 He played from the love of the game, for the excite- 
 ment and sociability of the gaming table, not from 
 avarice or love of money, or from a purpose and de- 
 sire to reap ill-gotten gains. When his friend Blanch- 
 ard who was ever anxious for the welfare of Stevens' 
 soul and who from love of Stevens never hesitated to 
 rebuke him for his sins and errors, once inquired about 
 his gambling Stevens told him a story of a good old 
 Lutheran pastor in Lancaster who applied to him once 
 1 Anecdotes of Public Men, p. 37. 
 
596 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 to prosecute one of his own church officers for slander- 
 ing him. Said Stevens, " Why, Father H., what 
 does Hans accuse you of?" "Why, gambling." 
 " Gambling! What did the fellow make the story out 
 of ? " The old gentleman said he was taking a friendly 
 game in the back room of a beer saloon owned by an- 
 other of his officers, and " Hans, he peeped his nose 
 in, and vent and told that ve vas gambling." " Father 
 H.," said Stevens, " you are sure there was no 
 money on the card table ? " " Vy, shust a leedle on 
 one corner to give interest to de game." Stevens ad- 
 vised the old pastor not to prosecute. " Thus you 
 see," said Stevens to Blanchard, " how an honest 
 man can play cards for money and not consider it 
 gambling. I condemn the practise. But I live alone 
 in my hotel and I play for the amusement and the 
 excitement." 
 
 This story and apology may explain his motive in 
 the game, but it does not reveal the extent of his sin- 
 ning. The gambling spirit was strong in him and 
 probably few men were more fond of " fighting the 
 tiger." One acquaintance testifies to seeing him lose 
 two thousand dollars in one night, but he was at the 
 game again the next night. He did not carry this 
 mania with him, however, to his later years, for 
 Blanchard testifies that Stevens told him but a few 
 weeks before his death that he had not touched a card 
 at gambling in five years. 
 
 One of the familiar stories suggesting his gambling- 
 habit relates to his spontaneous contribution to a 
 negro church in Washington. A former Vice-Presi- 
 dent, Mr. Adlai Stevenson, gives Mr. James G. Blaine 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 597 
 
 as authority for the story, that as Mr. Blaine, during 
 his first term in Congress was walking clown Penn- 
 sylvania Avenue he met Stevens coming down the 
 steps of what was then known to be a high-toned 
 gambling house. Immediately after his cordial greet- 
 ing to Mr. Blaine, Stevens was accosted by a negro 
 preacher who earnestly requested a contribution to- 
 ward the building of a church for his people. Stev- 
 ens was fresh from his earnings and promptly taking 
 a roll of money from his vest pocket, he handed the 
 negro a fifty dollar bill, and turning to Blaine he 
 observed with solemn mien, 
 
 " God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform." 
 
 He was generous with his winnings as this story il- 
 lustrates. He did not look upon the stakes with a 
 selfish and grasping love of money. He was gener- 
 ally the victim of men who had more skill and less 
 honor than himself, but he won at times, and that 
 worried him as much as to lose. A good natured 
 Irish friend challenged Stevens one night to a game 
 of poker. Stevens accepted and before they arose 
 from the table he had won the Irishman's five hundred 
 dollars, — the whole sum that he had so laboriously 
 saved for his wedding that was to come off the follow- 
 ing week. Fitz had promised the bride-elect a wedding 
 trip. He was now disconsolate, but necessity drove 
 him to inform his intended of his losses at gambling 
 and that he could not take her upon the extended trip 
 which they had been so fondly anticipating. " Well," 
 said the girl, " don't be downcast nor discouraged ; 
 
598 THE LIFE OF! THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 we'll get married and take the trip anyhow, for I have 
 money to pay the bills." On the wedding journey, 
 but not till then as she had been enjoined, she told the 
 happy bridegroom where she got the money for their 
 journey, — that Mr. Stevens had brought it to her the 
 day after Fitz had " lost " it and pressed it upon her, 
 saying he wished her to join with him in teaching Fitz 
 a lesson. One may feel quite sure that Stevens had 
 another devoted friend and supporter among his Irish 
 constituency. 
 
 It was well known that Stevens did not like the 
 Camerons. He was displeased with Simon Cameron's 
 presence in Lincoln's Cabinet. Cameron and Stevens 
 represented different elements, or factions, in the Re- 
 publican politics of Pennsylvania. Cameron was the 
 original founder and boss of the modern Republican 
 machine in that state which for crooked, dark, sordid, 
 and debasing trickery stands unrivaled in the history 
 of American politics. Late in Stevens' life, in the 
 winter of 1866-7, ne an d Cameron, Governor Curtin, 
 and John W. Forney were candidates for the United 
 States Senate before the Pennsylvania Legislature. 
 Curtin had no chance in the scramble. Forney with- 
 drew and advocated the claims of Stevens. If the 
 election could have been left with the people Stevens 
 would have been elected without much concern or at- 
 tention upon his part; at least, his friends so claimed. 
 But certain members of the legislature were Cam- 
 eron's henchmen. The hidden intrigues of the secret 
 caucus were resorted to, though there was no possible 
 danger of the election of a Democrat in the open leg- 
 islature. Money was used and " men were bought as 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 599 
 
 so many oxen or asses." 1 Stevens, although he had 
 not been guiltless of the illegitimate use of money in 
 his campaigns for nomination and election to Congress, 
 could not compete with Cameron in this respect, nor 
 did he wish to. He had never relied upon the party 
 machine for his successes. It may have been some- 
 thing more than his impending defeat for the Senate 
 by a man who could outdo him in the corrupt use of 
 money that now brought Stevens to make a plea for 
 the purity of elections. It is to be regretted that he 
 was so much of a misanthrope in his politics. He was 
 inclined to believe that all men, or at least the great 
 majority of men, would in the last resort always be 
 governed by their material interests and the baser in- 
 fluences, that sordid selfishness and not the public in- 
 terest would control men. It is hard to believe that 
 this was at heart his real philosophy. His own life 
 belied it, and he had known and appreciated zealous 
 and noble evangels like his friend Blanchard, whose 
 life of loyalty to ideals and sacrifices for a cause would 
 serve to burn out such a belief from any man's mind. 
 At any rate, Stevens in his later years had come to a 
 keener appreciation of the woful results to free insti- 
 tutions of the control of elections by the corrupt use 
 of money, and he desired that his candidacy for the 
 Senate should be conducted in the open where the 
 
 ^Letter of Samuel Kaufman to Stevens, January 4, 1867. 
 This letter was written, as several others from Kaufman, to 
 urge Stevens to throw himself personally into the senatorial 
 fight. This friend urged Stevens to investigate and expose 
 Cameron. "Give up a little of your niggerism and try to ferret 
 out dishonest government officials, no matter whom it may hit. 
 Whig, Republican, Democrat, Rebel, Union man, Odd Fellow, or 
 Free Mason." 
 
600 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 public could see and scrutinize his action and that of 
 his friends. But Cameron managed to have the secret 
 caucus nominate, and there he could " buy the mem- 
 bers with his ill-gotten treasure." 1 
 
 Kaufman reminded Stevens that as a member of 
 Congress he ought to have known " that Cameron 
 while Secretary of War was defrauding the govern- 
 ment out of millions by awarding contracts at large 
 figures and dividing the spoil, — given at times to Cop- 
 perhead gamblers; James Duffer, of Marietta, a notori- 
 ous gambler, received a large share ! " Stevens shared 
 Kaufman's opinion that Cameron was " the most con- 
 summate scoundrel in Pennsylvania." One of the 
 Stevens stories is to the effect that Lincoln once, in an- 
 swer to Stevens' protest against an appointment for 
 Cameron, asked Stevens if he intended to say that 
 Cameron would steal. " Well," said Stevens, " I do 
 not think he would steal a red hot stove." Lincoln 
 thought this too good to keep and he told it to Cam- 
 eron who demanded a retraction from Stevens. The 
 latter, always ready to make amends, went to Lincoln 
 and said : " Mr. Lincoln, why did you tell Mr. Cam- 
 eron what I said ? He is very mad and made me prom- 
 ise to retract. I will now do so. I believe I told you 
 that I didn't think he would steal a red hot stove. I 
 now take that back." 
 
 Many stories of another kind were told of Stevens 
 in derogation of his moral life, — the kind that many 
 men like to roll as sweet morsels under their tongue. 
 His personal and political enemies charged him with 
 all kinds of misdemeanors with the other sex. Ac- 
 
 1 Letter of Kaufman, January 4, 1867. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 601 
 
 cording to these his colored housekeeper was his mis- 
 tress; he was the father of mulattoes; and to his latest 
 years he was nothing short of " a hoary, habitual, and 
 beastly debauchee." 
 
 In this respect Stevens has but suffered the fate of 
 many another honored public man. It will not be 
 claimed that his life was above reproach, but impartial 
 witnesses who knew him best would not hesitate to 
 brand such stories, in their main content, as false and 
 malicious slanders. So far as can be learned, but twice 
 in his life did Stevens consent even to notice these 
 charges. He was a man of truth. His worst enemy 
 never charged him with lying and hypocrisy. His 
 friends and neighbors who knew his life will generally 
 assert that he would rest under the charges and carry 
 them to his grave rather than to deny them falsely. 
 But late in his life, while Stevens was at the height of 
 his power and fame, his old friend, Jonathan Blanch- 
 ard, who honored and applauded Stevens in his heated 
 political struggles of more than thirty years before, 
 came to him with the reports that were circulating 
 concerning his way of living. Blanchard was like a 
 veritable prophet in Israel who would have said with- 
 out fear or favor, to courtier or king, " Now hear the 
 word of the Lord!" He seemed determined that 
 Stevens should hear the word of rebuke and warning 
 for the reputed sins of his life, — licentiousness and 
 gambling. Before the interview which he sought 
 Blanchard wrote Stevens a letter. 
 
 " At present," he wrote, " in every part of the United 
 States people believe that your personal life has been one 
 
602 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 prolonged sin; that your lips have been defiled with 
 blasphemy; your hands with gambling; and your body with 
 women ! A man in Newburyport, Massachusetts, now a 
 Christian but then a card-playing lawyer, told me three 
 weeks since that he had, at the card-table, heard from your 
 mouth language fit only for an ordinary brothel, and such is 
 the general belief. Now you owe it to yourself and to your 
 mother's God, to leave some means of correcting this belief, 
 if false, or to show that you have always condemned and 
 despised yourself on account of these besetting sins ! 
 
 " I have a strange hope that you are not to be lost. 
 Though I will not Insult your intelligence by arguing that 
 ' whore-mongers and adulterers ' are necessarily left outside 
 ">f heaven with dogs, sorcerers and murderers, or that if you 
 c. : in these sins, where Christ is, you can not come. 
 
 " But as I have studied you the last quarter of a cen- 
 tury, you seem to me to have been at times able to say, 
 ' With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the 
 flesh the law of sin ' ; that, as I do, you really loathe and 
 despise yourself on account of sins. The good you have 
 done the country (and none have done more, if so much) 
 is no offset for vices such as I have named above. ' God 
 will not hold one guiltless for such violations of His law, 
 nor ought He/ Besides, what makes bad government is bad 
 and sinful men. If there were no vile men there would be 
 no bad government. 
 
 " But if you will say now, at the eleventh hour of life, 
 and just ready to strike twelve; — if, even now, you will go 
 to Christ, He has all the power in Heaven and earth and can 
 make your scarlet sins white ! I have loved and followed 
 you with a strange fascination. I have prayed and do still 
 pray for you with a terrible earnestness, and now I bid you 
 farewell." 
 
 This letter was written by Blanchard from Wash- 
 ington, February 15, 1865. The brave and faithful 
 preacher of righteousness wrote thus to Stevens after 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 603 
 
 visiting him for the purpose of soliciting funds for a 
 college ! * He had made it clear to Stevens that he 
 would not waive his religion to secure Stevens' friend- 
 ship, and while disclaiming any knowledge of the truth 
 or falsehood of the charges to which he referred, he 
 sought Stevens' help, as he told him in fullest candor, 
 as " that of a wicked man of influence in behalf of a 
 good cause which it was for his interest to serve." 
 
 Blanchard afterward learned and acknowledged the 
 injustice of much that was implied in this private let- 
 ter, and he reports the following words in Stevens' re- 
 ply. 
 
 " This is the first line or word I have ever penned in 
 explanation of my conduct as assailed by my enemies. 
 Probably as between us and our Creator, all of us are 
 somewhat deficient. I know I am deplorably so. But 
 as to my fellow men, I hope so to live that no one 
 shall ever be wronged, or §uffer on my account." 
 
 " I believe," added Blanchard, " that his confession 
 was as sincere as his purpose was magnanimous." 
 When he wrote his remarkable letter Blanchard did 
 not know how Stevens, very early in his political 
 career, had prosecuted and closed up a Democratic 
 newspaper for charging him with licentiousness and 
 indecent blasphemy. He had been charged among 
 other coarse and indecent things with " administering 
 the sacrament to a dog." " I have allowed slander- 
 ers," continued Stevens in his reply, " to say what they 
 pleased. I made up my mind not to answer anything 
 till I saw this charge. That was a little too much. I 
 knew if my mother saw that and had any idea that it 
 
 1 Wheaton College, in Illinois. 
 
604 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 was true it would break her heart. I pursued and 
 brought the slanderers to the door of the prison and 
 then the Governor pardoned them out." 
 
 Again two years later, September 14, 1867, being 
 earnestly urged for public reasons, he wrote to a con- 
 fidential friend, 
 
 " Perhaps no man in the state has received more slanders 
 or been charged with more vices or malignant crimes than 
 I have. It has been my misfortune for forty years to be a 
 bitter object of attack by violent politicians. I have seldom 
 noticed them, — never to contradict them unless they 
 affected my moral character aside from politics or unless a 
 contradiction was required by the interest of others. You 
 tell me the charge may influence the next election; hence I 
 notice it." 
 
 He then made full denial of certain specific charges 
 brought against his private life, and continued: 
 
 " This is a larger disclosure than, I believe, I have ever 
 made before of my private affairs, and I have done it now 
 only out of what you think is required by public affairs. 
 
 " These calumnies, and worse, have been perennially pub- 
 lished all around me, by fellows living within sight of my 
 door. I know of no one who has believed any of them, or 
 scarcely pretended to believe them." 
 
 He was accused of being coarse and contemptuous 
 toward all religion and of always " sitting in the seat 
 of the scornful." In fact, he had no scorn nor con- 
 tempt for true religion. He was not a Christian in the 
 churchly or orthodox sense. But for true piety and 
 humility, for holy sacrifice and service, for Christian 
 living and the ideals of the Christian, he had a deep 
 and sincere respect. When Blanchard asked him in 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 605 
 
 his last interview what he thought of Christ, he said, 
 " Why, to know Him and not to love Him a man must 
 be a brute indeed, but whether I do or not God is my 
 judge." 
 
 He was accused of drunkenness. Instead, he was 
 a man of sobriety. In his early life he had been a 
 drinker. But one night, after a carousal with some 
 companions, he made up his mind to drink no more, 
 and by his own testimony, for the last thirty years of 
 his life not a drop of intoxicating liquors passed his 
 lips except by the prescription of a physician, and then, 
 he said, he took " the stuff " with distaste and re- 
 luctance. 
 
 He was, indeed, a man of serious shortcomings and 
 imperfections. His life was in the limelight and in 
 public strife with men. He could not, therefore, 
 escape reproaches that his fellow-sinners escaped. As 
 he was great in his virtues his vices may have appeared 
 correspondingly great, but that he was especially darker 
 in his moral life than the men of his place and time 
 is not believed by those who lived by him through a 
 long period of years. 1 It is sufficient, after noticing 
 the tales of slander about his life, to let his denial and 
 the respect of his neighbors and friends stand against 
 hateful and irresponsible accusation. " It should be 
 remembered that the life of public men is a life of 
 calumny and misery. When therefore they have re- 
 tired let their good deeds be inscribed on tables of 
 brass and over their errors be thrown the mantle of 
 oblivion." In these words of Stevens himself, uttered 
 early in his career while pleading in the Pennsylvania 
 
 1 Conversations with citizens of Lancaster. 
 
606 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 Legislature for a School of Liberal Arts for his 
 adopted commonwealth, one finds expressed a fair 
 criterion for dealing with the character of public men. 
 
 The chief theme of the biographer is the public life 
 of his subject, what he contributed through public 
 speech, influence, and policy to the welfare and to the 
 history of his country, and what factors in his char- 
 acter prompted him so to do. Like most great leaders 
 who guide the destinies of contending parties in a 
 crisis of revolutionary strife, Stevens' character has 
 been the subject of most divergent views. To his ad- 
 mirers he was brave and lion-hearted, ready, without 
 thought of self, to sacrifice life and fortune and the 
 favor of his fellow men for the sake of noble purposes 
 and high ideals. To his detractors he was but little 
 short of a monster, who, reckless of his country's wel- 
 fare, deformed in body and misanthropic in spirit, 
 found a keen and malicious pleasure in inflicting injury 
 upon those whom he hated. 
 
 It is obvious that neither of these extreme views of 
 the man is worthy of acceptance. It is undoubtedly 
 the verdict of history that Stevens indulged too long 
 and too intensely the heat and wrath and hate en- 
 gendered by a bloody civil war. This aspect of his 
 public life, during a divided and distressing period of 
 his country's history, has made him appear as alto- 
 gether implacable and unforgiving. But his hatreds 
 were not personal, and the enemies whom he faced in 
 heat and passion were, as he thought, not his own 
 enemies, but the enemies of his country, the enemies 
 of a righteous and noble cause. It was for this sake 
 and not for his own that he used the language of de- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 607 
 
 nunciation. He must be judged not by the feeling and 
 disposition of these later and happier times of peace, 
 reconciliation, and good will between the sections, but 
 by the times of strife and passion in which he lived. 
 
 There was, no doubt, nobility and greatness in Ste- 
 vens' character. He brought to his country's service 
 learning and eloquence, firmness of will, directness and 
 tenacity of purpose, the noblest courage, and a fine and 
 consuming scorn and contempt for evasion and hypoc- 
 risy and the low arts of political tricksters. He was 
 an unrelenting foe to every form of tyranny over the 
 minds of men. He was a man of great mind and 
 clear vision, to a degree quite rare among men, and, 
 what is rarer still, he had the courage to assert his mind 
 and to follow his vision. The time-server and the 
 trimmer stepped aside to let him pass. Amid the great- 
 est changes that ever occurred in any decade of our 
 national life, facing the detraction of enemies, the ti- 
 midity of friends, the corruption and tyranny of power, 
 and the cowardice of party, he stood with Puritan and 
 Spartan firmness for a definite end, the goal of equity 
 and justice that had been fixed for him by his unwaver- 
 ing democratic faith. Indifferent to praise or blame 
 where his cause was at stake; unmoved by considera- 
 tions of rank, title, wealth, or position, selfish motives 
 did not animate his public conduct. The selfishness 
 that was in him, as it is in all men, was not of the mean 
 and miserly kind. While seeking his own interest and 
 his own end in private life he would not defraud and 
 oppress his neighbor. His selfishness in public life 
 also was of the nobler kind. While he frequently 
 sought place and power, not in honor preferring oth- 
 
608 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 ers, but crushing them or pushing them aside, some- 
 times with seeming meanness sacrificing his friends; 
 and while, in natural vanity, he was possessed of a 
 strong love of prominence and public praise, yet he 
 pursued his ends and sought place and power not chiefly 
 for his own glory, but that he might elevate his country 
 and lift up the mass of downtrodden humanity which 
 he saw around him. 
 
 He was not a saint by any means; but like Crom- 
 well, who was in many ways his prototype, he was 
 ready to be painted as he was. " I am just what I 
 am whether you like me or not," he said. In spite 
 of the defects of his character — and they were many 
 — it seems clear to those who study his life that the 
 motives and aims that impelled him to speak and fight 
 and labor and spend himself for his cause were not 
 mean nor selfish. His detractors were generally little 
 men of conventional opinion, without vision or the 
 spirit that would lead them to do battle and sacrifice 
 for a cause. Stevens, on the other hand, was a man 
 of large mold and of great purposes, who was striving 
 with his whole soul, to carve other and better channels 
 for the life of society, pursuing steadily, without vari- 
 ation or shadow of turning, the two great purposes of 
 his public life, the unity of the nation and the freedom 
 of the slave. 
 
 " He was undoubtedly, all things considered," says 
 Mr. Forney, " the ablest parliamentary leader of his 
 time. Tall in stature, 1 deliberate in utterance and in 
 
 1 Stevens was five feet eleven inches tall, clear, ruddy, smooth 
 of skin, a fine horseman, an excellent swimmer, and fond of the 
 chase. A. H. Hood, History of Lancaster County. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS 609 
 
 gesticulation, and with a massive head and features so 
 remarkable that no one who saw him once could ever 
 forget him, his whole presence conveyed the idea of 
 dignity and force. His forehead was uncommonly 
 high and broad, his features were bold and striking, his 
 brows projecting and his cavernous eyes bright and 
 piercing and full of expression. He was simple and 
 direct in conversation, and when he listened he looked, 
 as it were, into the very soul of the talker, piercing 
 through duplicity and laying bare deceit." * 
 
 In the chief cemeteries of Lancaster it was stipulated 
 by charter that no person of color should be interred 
 therein. Stevens had lots in both cemeteries, but he 
 sent back the deeds, preferring to be laid to rest in 
 Shreiner's cemetery, a private and humble burying- 
 ground not far from the center of Lancaster and near 
 one of its public schools. There on a worthy monu- 
 ment erected to his memory the visitor may read these 
 characteristic words composed for his epitaph by the 
 Great Democractic Commoner himself: 
 
 I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, 
 
 Not from any natural preference for solitude, 
 
 But finding other cemeteries limited by charter rules 
 
 as to race, 
 
 I have chosen this that I might illustrate 
 
 in my death 
 The principles which I advocated through 
 a long life, 
 Equality of man before his Creator. 
 
 He died as he lived, the relentless foe of Privilege, 
 the uncompromising advocate of Democracy, — of 
 1 Philadelphia Press, August 12, 1868. 
 
610 THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS 
 
 equal rights for all and special privileges for none be- 
 neath the law. " I know not what record of sin 
 awaits me in the other world, but this I know, — that 
 I have never been guilty of despising a man because he 
 was poor, because he was ignorant, or because he was 
 black." These words fitly apply to the life and char- 
 acter of Thaddeus Stevens. 1 Before all else he stood 
 for liberty and the equal rights of men. To this 
 faith he bore his consistent testimony from early life 
 to the open grave and beyond. No truer democrat, 
 no abler advocate of popular rights, ever stood in 
 American legislative halls. 
 
 1 Attributed to Governor John A. Andrew, of Massachusetts. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 613 
 
 Abolitionists, 57 sqq. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 154, 155, 156. 
 
 Adams, J. Q., 69. 
 
 Alaska, purchase of, 585. 
 
 Amnesty, 295. 
 
 Anti-Lecompton Democrats, 130, 142. 
 
 Anti-Masonic party, 13 sqq. 
 
 Archer, Stevenson, 10. 
 
 Arkansas, reconstruction in, 303. 
 
 Ashley, of Ohio, 200. 
 
 Aydelotte, Doctor, 68. 
 
 Banks, General N. P., 298. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 53, 126. 
 
 Bigelow, John, 500. 
 
 Bingham, John A., 341, 379, 380, 399, 400, 402, 437, 443, 445, 451, 
 
 452, 463, 464, 498, 504, 505. 
 Birney, James G., 69. 
 Blaine, James G., 336, 337, 386, 387, 433, 463, 468, 479, 482, 498, 
 
 556, 597. 
 Blair, Francis P., 226 sqq., 317, 570, 571. 
 Blanchard, Jonathan, 8, 57 sqq., 68, 601 sqq. 
 Blockade, 213. 
 Border states, 169, 187. 
 Boutwell, George S., 341, 419, 462, 495, 557. 
 Brooks, James, 339, 340. 
 Brooks, Phillips, 483, 484. 
 Brown, John, 133, 136. 
 Brown, William J., 82. 
 Brownson, O. A., 354, 355. 
 Buchanan, President, 157, 159, 160. 
 "Buckshot" war, 27 sqq., 137. 
 Bull Run, 171. 
 
 Burgess, Professor J. W., 441. 
 Burrowes, 28, 31, 32. 
 Butler, Benjamin F., 293, 510, 575. 
 
614 INDEX 
 
 Calhoun and Southern leaders, 75. 
 
 California, 73, 77, 113. 
 
 Cameron, Simon, 151, 239, 598, 600. 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., 67, 69; policy as Secretary of the Treasury, 
 
 242 sqq. ; 333, 555. 
 Chase, Samuel, impeachment of, 493. 
 Chase, Solon, 544. 
 
 Cheever, Doctor H. T. approves Stevens, 355. 
 Circulating medium in 1865, 547, 548. 
 Civil rights bill, 366, 371, 379, 381, 383. 
 Civil War, and slavery, 168 sqq. ; and the constitution, 207 sqq. ; 
 
 ways and means in, 239 sqq. 
 Clay, Henry, 65, 71, 81, 111, 113, 269. 
 Clemens, of Virginia, 147. 
 Cobb, Howell, 81, 90. 
 Covode's resolution, 498. 
 Colfax, Schuyler, 340. 
 
 Confiscation, 173, 210, 215, 217, 350, 521 sqq. 
 Congressional campaign committee, 407. 
 Conkling, Roscoe, 341, 387, 388. 
 Constitution, the, in the war, 207 sqq. 
 Contraction, 536 sqq. 
 Cooke, Jay, 564, 579. 
 Cooper, Peter, 269, 277, 545. 
 
 "Copperheads", 193 sqq., 349, 352, 364, 365, 396, 528. 
 Corwin, Thomas, 130, 137, 146. 
 Crittenden compromise, 156. 
 Crittenden Resolutions, 171, 172, 174. 
 Curtis, Benjamin R., 507, 508. 
 Curtis, George William, 484, 530. 
 
 Dana, Charles A., 235. 
 Davis, Garrett, 367. 
 Davis, Henry Winter, 306 sqq. 
 Davis, Jefferson, 228, 522. 
 Debt, national, 240, 241. 
 
INDEX 615 
 
 Debt payment, 536 sqq. ; 561 sqq. 
 Demand notes, 245. 
 
 Democratic party, policy on reconstruction, 312 sqq.; on John- 
 son's reconstruction, 325 sqq. 
 Dewey, Professor D. R., quoted, 256. 
 District of Columbia, slavery in, 78 sqq. 
 Disunion, 152 sqq. 
 Doolittle, Senator, 409. 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 155. 
 
 Ellmaker, Amos, 25. 
 
 Emancipation, 210. 
 
 Evarts, William M., 507, 585. 
 
 Fessenden, William P., 248, 249, 279, 341, 433. 
 
 Finck, Representative, 466, 467. 
 
 Forney, John W., 50, 560. 
 
 Fourteenth amendment, 384 sqq. ; attitude of the South toward, 
 
 434, 470. 
 Free schools, Stevens' fight for, 41 sqq. 
 Free soil, struggle for, 55 sqq. 
 Free-soil party, 155. 
 
 Freedmen's Bureau bill, 355, 358, 369 sqq. 
 Fremont, John C, 128, 183, 210. 
 Fugitive slave law, 79 sqq., 110, 122 sqq., 165. 
 Funding the war debt, 536 sqq. 
 
 Gallatin, James, 246, 261. 
 
 Garfield, James A., 437, 565, 566, 567. 
 
 Gibson, John B., 125. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., 70, 83, 90, 114, 126. 
 
 Gilmer, of North Carolina, 131, 132, 133, 137, 138. 
 
 "Gold gamblers", 555, 574, 575. 
 
 Gold standard and greenbacks, 269 sqq., 287 sqq. 
 
 Gorsuch case, 122 sqq. 
 
 Granger, Francis, 65. 
 
6i6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grant, General U. S., 458, 495, 513. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 155, 515, 564. 
 
 Greenbacks, 239 sqq. ; amount of, 280 ; and cost of the war, 287 
 
 sqq., 541 sqq., 565. 
 Greenback party, 277, 290, 291, 537 sqq., 561 sqq. 
 Gyger, John, 573. 
 
 Hahn, Michael, 294, 298, 318. 
 Hanway, Castner, 122 sqq. 
 Harrison, William Henry, 25, 26. 
 Helper, Hinton, 131, 133, 139. 
 Howard, General O. O., 370. 
 Hunter, General, 183, 184, 185. 
 
 Impeachment of Johnson, 491 sqq. 
 "Impending Crisis", 131. 
 
 Johnson, Oliver, 126. 
 
 Johnson, President, and reconstruction. 324 sqq. ; early life of, 
 328 sqq.; military governor of Tennessee, 329; character 
 of, 330 ; breach with Congress, 339 sqq. ; denounces Stev- 
 ens, Sumner and others, 358 ; veto of civil rights bill, 372 
 sqq. ; "swinging round the circle", 410 sqq. ; obstacle to re- 
 construction, 433; impeachment of, 491 sqq.; defense of, 
 507; acquittal of, 516. 
 
 Johnson, Reverdy, 531. 
 
 Julian, George W., 84. 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska act, 127. 
 Keitt, of South Carolina, 134, 135. 
 Kelly, William D., 462, 534. 
 Ketcham, John L., 354. 
 Know-Nothings, 130. 
 
 Lamar, L. Q. C, 136. 
 Lancaster, 11. 
 
 LeBlond, Representative, 465, 466. 
 Legal tender notes, 249 sqq., 282. 
 
INDEX 617 
 
 Letcher, Governor, 224. 
 
 Liberty party, 67, 70. 
 
 Lincoln, President, 152 sqq., 168, 199, 208; misuse of patronage, 
 
 235 ; plan of reconstruction, 293 sqq. ; veto of Wade-Davis 
 
 bill, 320. 
 Loan bill of 1863, 550, 567, 568; of 1865, 556. 
 Logan, John A., 498. 
 
 Lord, Eleazar, financial writings, 250, 258, 259, 260, 261, 268, 269, 
 
 545. 
 Louisiana, reconstruction in, 293 sqq. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 484. 
 
 McCall, Samuel W., 43, 156, 341, 363, 425. 
 
 McClure, A. K., 65. 
 
 McCulloch, Hugh, Secretary of the Treasury, 539 sqq., 550, 561 
 
 sqq. 
 McElwee, Thomas B., 37, 38. 
 McLean, Justice, 151. 
 Mann, Horace, 84, 90, 102, 103, 114. 
 Medill, Joseph, 484. 
 Merrill, Samuel, 7, 8, 354. 
 Mexican cessions, 73. 
 Missouri compromise, 127. 
 Morrill, Justin S., 250, 252, 341, 568, 590. 
 Morrill tariff, 151. 
 
 "National Union" convention, 408. 
 Negro suffrage, 486. 
 Nevada, admission of, 235. 
 New Orleans, capture of, 293. 
 
 Orth, Godlove S., 56. 
 
 Peace democrats, 214, 218, 231. 
 
 Peacham academy, 4. 
 
 Pendleton, George H., 130, 200 sqq., 209, 214, 236, 312-316. 
 
6i8 INDEX 
 
 i 
 
 Pennsylvania college, 51. 
 
 Penrose, Charles B., 31, 32, 61. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 155, 358, 397, 410, 411, 530. 
 
 Pierpont government, 221, 222, 331, 361. 
 
 Randall, Josiah, 66. 
 
 Randall, Samuel J., 435. 
 
 Raymond, Henry J., 427, 434, 435, 467, 468. 
 
 Reagan, John H., 140. 
 
 Reconstruction, Lincoln's plan, 293 sqq. ; Johnson's plan, 324 sqq. ; 
 joint committee on, 340 sqq., 357, 397, 398, 416, 417, reap- 
 pointed, 442, 445, 458, 498; first congressional plan, 369 
 sqq. ; before the people, 406 sqq. ; military process of, 
 431 sqq. 
 
 Reconstruction acts of 1867, 458 sqq., 506. 
 
 Reed, W. B., 196. 
 
 Republican party, 127 sqq. ; in reconstruction, 307 sqq. 
 
 Resumption of specie payment, 546. 
 
 Rhodes, James R, on Stevens, 450, 451, 472, 474, 509. 
 
 Ritner, Joseph, 14, 27, 29, 33, 35, 57, 125. 
 
 Root, Joseph M., 84, 87 sqq. 
 
 Saulsbury, Senator, 377. 
 
 Schurz, Carl, 355, 484. 
 
 Scott, Winfield S., 65, 72, 120, 121. 
 
 Secession, 152 sqq. 
 
 Seward, William H., 68, 69, 136, 345, 407. 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, 571. 
 
 Shellabarger, Representative, 462. 
 
 Shepley, George F., 293. 
 
 Sheridan, General, 412, 495. 
 
 Sherman, John, 130, 542, 548, 572. 
 
 Sickles, General, 347. 
 
 Slavery, 168 sqq. 
 
 Smith, Garrit, 69. 
 
 Soldiers and sailors convention, 407. 
 
 South, the, constitutional rights of, in war, 215 sqq. 
 
INDEX 619 
 
 "South Americans", 131, 142. 
 
 Spaulding, E. G., 251. 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., 495 sqq., 511, 515. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., 86, 336, 337. 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, birth and early life, 1 sqq.; student life, 5 
 sqq.; admission to the Bar, 9; settles in Gettysburg, 11; 
 early anti-Mason, 13 sqq. ; denounces masonry, 15 sq. ; in 
 the "Buckshot" war, 28 sqq. ; in the Pennsylvania legisla- 
 ture, 34 sqq. ; defender of free schools, 41 sqq. ; early Eree- 
 soiler, 55 sqq. ; in Pennsylvania constitutional convention, 
 64 sqq. ; opposition to Clay, 65 ; supports Harrison, 65 ; 
 removes to Lancaster, 66; in Congress before the war, 73 
 sqq.; anti-slavery Philippics, 90 sqq. ; tariff views, 114 sqq.; 
 defender of fugitive slaves, 122 s(}q. ; eulogy on Chief Jus- 
 tice Gibson, 125, 126; on eve of the war, 125 sqq.; conflict 
 with Southern radicals, 141 sqq. ; on Ways and Means Com- 
 mittee, 149; denounces Buchanan, 159 sqq.; opposition to 
 compromise, 163; estimate of abolitionists, 170; opposes 
 Crittenden Resolutions, 171 sqq.; on confiscation, 173, 471, 
 521 sqq.; on arming the blacks, 174, 185; radical anti- 
 slavery war policy, 175 sqq., 230 ; approved by anti-slavery 
 constituents, 181 sqq.; approves military emancipation, 184 
 sqq. ; criticizes Lincoln, 186 sqq. ; opposes the "Union as it 
 was", 192, 193; approves Lincoln, 199; hatred of slavery, 
 204 sqq. ; on the constitution in war, 207 sqq. ; controversy 
 with F. P. Blair, 226 sqq.; doctrine of Southern belliger- 
 ency, 227 sqq. ; doctrine of the abrogation of the constitu- 
 tion, 230 sqq. ; chairman of Ways and Means Committee, 
 239 sqq. ; aspirant for Cabinet appointment under Lincoln, 
 239 ; policy on legal tender money, 249 sqq. ; opposition to 
 the gold standard, 268 sqq. ; as a Greenbackcr, 286 sqq., 536 
 sqq. ; on Lincoln's reconstruction, 302 sqq. ;' open struggle 
 with Johnson, 340 sqq. ; party motive' in reconstruction, 
 352 sqq.; advocacy of equal rights, 353, 429; public ap- 
 proval, 354; mock eulogy of Johnson, 362 sqq.; in Con- 
 gressional reconstruction, 369 sqq. ; on civil rights bill, 377 
 sqq. ; on the fourteenth amendment, 384 sqq., 470 ; in the 
 campaign of 1866, 418 sqq. ; on military reconstruction, 
 434 sqq., 458 sqq. ; vindictiveness of, 450, 451 ; triumphs 
 in reconstruction, 472; criticisms of, 474 sqq.; in impeach- 
 ment trial, 491 sqq. ; and Wall Street, 560, 575 ; advocates 
 bond payment in greenbacks, 570, 571 ; closing days, 584 
 sqq.; will of, 589; anecdotes of, 590 sqq.; character of, 
 601 sqq. ; epitaph, 609. 
 
620 INDEX 
 
 Stevens Institute, 589. 
 
 Stockton, Senator, 375. 
 
 Stuart, Reverend Moses, 112. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 126, 2,22, 355, 395, 411, 438, 484, 530. 
 
 Sumter, Fort, 166, 170. 
 
 Taft, Alphonso, approves Stevens, 354. 
 
 Talleyrand, Count, 2. 
 
 Tariff, 114. 
 
 Tenure of Office act, 496, 501, 506, 508, 511 sqq. 
 
 Texas, 73 ; reconstruction of, 335. 
 
 Thirteenth amendment, 235. 
 
 Thomas, Lorenzo B., 496 sqq., 513. 
 
 Toombs, Robert, 85, 91, 120. 
 
 Trumbull, Lyman, 322, 374. 
 
 Vallandigham, C. C, 142. 
 Van Buren, Martin, 76. 
 Virginia, division of, 221 sqq. 
 
 Wade, Benjamin, 307, 320, 376, 377, 484, 500. 
 
 Wade-Davis plan of reconstruction, 307 sqq., 333. 
 
 Walker tariff of 1846, 116. 
 
 Washburn, E. B, 128. 
 
 Wells, David A., 541. 
 
 Welles, Gideon, 500. 
 
 West Virginia, admission of, 221 sqq. 
 
 Wheelock, John and Eleazar, 6. 
 
 Whig party, 25, 66, 118 sqq. 
 
 White, Horace, quoted, 276, 279. 
 
 Wilmot, David, 74, 82. 
 
 Wilmot proviso, 74 sqq., 88, 91, 114. 
 
 Wilson, Henry, 278, 484. 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C, 81, 83. 
 
 Wirt, William, 14. 
 
 Wolf, Governor, 22, 23, 47, 50. 
 
 -79 
 
 ■ * i 
 « 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 I II II I 
 
 011 933 070 1