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 *^ RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 TJisrioiNr, 
 
 IN A LETTER TO 
 
 Hon. [. 0. 
 
 U. S, Senator from New York. 
 
 JUDGE EDMONDS. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 
 ■> Nos. 119 & 121 Nassau Street. 
 
 
 i(^f^ 
 
Class L U 6 "^ 
 Book Ft. ^ 
 
3 
 / 3~ 7 
 
 EECON'STEUCTIOIT 
 
 
 XJNIO^, , 
 
 IN A LETTER TO 
 
 Hon. [. 0. MORGAN, U. S. Senator from New ki 
 
 JUDGE EDMONDS. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 
 
 Nos. 119 & 121 Nassau Street. 
 
 1867. 
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 The question stated — 
 
 Its determination depends more upon the people than on Govern- 
 ment, ............ 1 
 
 Preparation for its due consideration, 3 
 
 Anxiety for Reconstruction, 4 
 
 Very earnest and almost universal in the Loyal States. 
 
 What is wanted, . 5 
 
 Not merely a restoration of a nation, but a harmonious union of the 
 ■whole people. 
 
 The olistacles in the way, 6 
 
 Embracing herein the physical condition of the country, and the 
 mental and moral condition of the people to be aflected both North 
 and South. 
 
 At the South, 6 
 
 Five classes — 
 
 1. Loyal men, who have been such from the beginning, . G 
 
 2. Those who have become such since the war, including 
 herein recent immigrants, ...... 9 
 
 3. The poor Whites, whose condition has been and is one of 
 poverty and ignorance, . . . . . . .10 
 
 4. The Negroes, . 14 
 
 Their good qualities, IG 
 
 Their faults, 18 
 
IV 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 The rights they are to enjoy, , , 
 
 To bear arms, .... 
 
 To be "witnesses, 
 
 To be jurors, 
 
 To be voters, ...... 
 
 To hold office, 
 
 The duties and responsibilities that must follow. 
 Their aptitude for these rights and duties, 
 
 5. Secessionists, including herein the Slaveholder, and the 
 
 characteristics of both, 
 
 Their error as to the feeling at the North, 
 
 The effect of slavery on them, 
 
 Eeadiness to resort to force, 
 
 Ignorance of the power of public opinion, . 
 
 Castes and classes among them, 
 
 Social condition, 
 
 Estimation of labor, 
 
 Southern women, 
 
 Their politics, ...... 
 
 Doctrine of State Rights, .... 
 
 Fugitive slaves, 
 
 Extension of slavery, .... 
 
 Sectional patriotism, .... 
 
 Effect of peculiarities, .... 
 
 No general law can reach all these classes, 
 
 At the North, 
 
 Three classes — 
 
 1. Anti-slavery men. 
 
 What they have accomplished, 
 What they now demand, . 
 
 Sympathizers with Secession, 
 From mere party considerations. 
 From belief as to the capacity of the Negro, 
 The alternatives they present, . 
 
 3. The Conservatives, 
 What they desire. 
 What deprecate, . 
 Their feeling toward the South, 
 Change of feeling since the war, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 22 
 23 
 
 . 23 
 24 
 
 . 25 
 28 
 22 
 23 
 
 29 
 30 
 31 
 32 
 35 
 38 
 39 
 40 
 41 
 42 
 42 
 44 
 45 
 4G 
 48 
 
 52 
 
 53 
 
 53 
 
 53 
 54 
 
 54 
 57 
 55 
 50 
 
 58 
 58 
 58 
 59 
 60 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Magnitude of the work of Reconstruction, 
 The end in view, .... 
 Too much expected from government, 
 The lesson of past revolutions, 
 
 "What is to be done ? .... 
 
 No general scheme yet suggested by any one, 
 Time and events are making suggestions. 
 
 What has already been done. 
 
 "What remains to be done, . 
 
 A guaranty against further mischief, 
 As to peace and good order, . 
 As to poUtical action, . . . 
 The only guaranty thus far — 
 Free Suffrage, . . , 
 Military Government, . . 
 Efficiency of both, 
 Are they States still ? 
 
 Summary of the evils and the remedies. 
 Security to civil and political rights. 
 Protection to the loyal, 
 Suppression of violence and disorder, 
 Reorganization of labor, 
 Reform of social system, . , 
 
 Education to be diffused. 
 National patriotism engendered, 
 Self-Government restored, . 
 
 Conclusion — 
 
 Confidence in the result. 
 
 PAGE 
 62 
 
 , 63 
 63 
 
 . 6-i 
 
 66 
 
 . 66 
 
 68 
 
 . 68 
 
 68 
 . 68 
 
 68 
 . 72 
 
 71 
 . 71 
 
 69 
 
 . 74 
 
 76 
 
 . 78 
 
 77 
 
 . 76 
 
 79 
 
 . 79 
 80 
 
 . 80 
 80 
 
 81 
 
 Appendix — 
 
 Testimony of Generals Schofield, Sickles, "Wood and Thomas as to 
 the condition of the South, 83 
 
TO THE 
 
 Hon. EDWIN D. MORGAN, 
 
 U. S. SENATOR 
 
 FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 Dear Senator : 
 
 There is one feature in onr Institutions in this country wliicli 
 foreiacners, from their Avant of familiarity with it, find hard to 
 understand, and -whicli our own people, from their great famil- 
 iarity with it, do not seem fully to appreciate. 
 
 That feature is, that every great principle affecting the whole 
 people and the national welfare, is settled, not hy the Govern- 
 ment, but by the people. 
 
 The Government, in all its branches, executive, judicial and 
 legislative, is but the instrument of carrying into effect the de- 
 termination of the actually ruling power — the will of the people. 
 
 That determination is made by the masses. It is public 
 opinion that is the ruling power with us, and first or last, it is 
 sure to exercise its supreme control ; sometimes in one mode and 
 sometimes in another; sometimes by affirmative action, and 
 sometimes by abstinence from action ; sometimes rapidly and 
 often slowly, and only through the long deliberation of the 
 people. But, in the end, as sure as destiny, displaying and ex- 
 
2 QUESTION STATED. 
 
 ercisinty the sovereign power of the State. It "svas thus, that 
 after a lapse of some seven years after the close of the war of 
 the Revolution, our national constitution was adopted ; thus, 
 that many questions, then unsettled, have since been put to rest, 
 and thus, at a more recent period, that a gigantic rebellion has 
 been quelled, and slavery abolished throughout all the land. 
 
 And it is thus that the great question now before us, namely, 
 the Keconsteuction of our Uniox, is to be determined. 
 
 In order to arrive at a proper determination, the whole people 
 must be educated up to a proper understanding of the question, 
 and to a just appreciation of any proposed remedy ; and that 
 end is to be attained by a free interchange of sentiment among 
 them all. It is thus alone that, from numerous sources, full 
 knowledge can reach all, and thus alone that the union of 
 opinion, so absolutely essential, can be attained. 
 
 In this view of my duty at once, and my right as one of the 
 masses, it is that I address you, clothed with ])ower, as you are, 
 to act directly on the question, primarily to express my opinion 
 to you as my representative, and yet, not without a hope that I 
 may be able to assist others in arriving at a proper determina- 
 tion of a matter iutinitely momentous. 
 
PREPAKxVTIOX FOR ITS CONSIDERATION. 
 
 CHAP. 11. 
 
 Preparation for its Consideration. 
 
 As jou are aware, I was once an active politician. I shall 
 never be so again, for ray " three score years and ten " are rap- 
 idly creeping over nie. But when I was snch, during some 25 
 or 30 years of my life, 1 happened to be so situated, as to have 
 my attention called to the State Ivights Doctrine, as it cuhni- 
 nated in the form of Nullification, in South Carolina in 1833. I 
 was then a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, fully believing 
 in the State Rights Doctrine, as avowed in the Kentucky and 
 Yirginia resolutions of 1T9S, but I regarded the claim as then 
 asserted, that a single State had a right to nullify a law of Con- 
 gress, as a heresy in conflict with those resolutions, and utterly 
 incompatible with the continuance of the Union. It fell to my 
 lot, in the Senate of my State, to defend those doctrines from 
 that heresy. The debate was an earnest and protracted one. 
 I encountered in it some very able minds. In order to prepare 
 myself for it and to conduct it, as I did, I studied the doctrines 
 as fully and as understandingly as I was capable of doing, 
 and I then honestly believed that the distinction that I drew 
 Avas right, and that the principles of those resolutions did 
 not lead to Nullification and Secession, as it was then charged 
 that they did. The reflection and the events of the ensuing 
 period have satisfied me that I was in an error : that the dis- 
 tinction on which I rested, was altogether too metaphysical and 
 refined for the common understanding, and that the doctrine 
 was a dangerous weapon in the hands of the enthusiast or the 
 demagoi>;ue. 
 
 I recall these things, Senator, to your recollection, not from an 
 overweening desire of speaking of myself, but to show you that 
 ■what I shall say, is the legitimate result of the study, reflection 
 and experience of at least thirty A'ears. 
 
 And, now, alter this long, and I hope not inappropriate preface, 
 I approach the subject of my letter. 
 
Al^XIETY FOK EECONSTKUCTIOX. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 Anxiety for Reconstruction. 
 
 Except among those at the South who are still Secessionists 
 at heart, and a few sympatliisers with them at the North, I take 
 it for granted, — nay ! I know, that all onr people are anxious for 
 a reconstruction of the Union as it was before the rebellion, I 
 do not mean a reconstruction alone of the nation, and a restora- 
 tion of the national power over the whole territory once em- 
 braced within its dominion, but such a reconstruction as shall 
 bring back to us, in fraternal harmony, the seceding States, so 
 that they may become States in full communion with the rest 
 of us, and may sit down with us, as we of the North now sit down 
 together, under the same flag, with the same nationality, with 
 patriotism, not confined to a State, but embracing the wdiole 
 Country, and aiming for the whole people at that equal station 
 among the nations of the earth for which God has designed us, 
 and which is so essential to freedom among men. I mean a 
 restoration of Union, and not of the nation or its government 
 onl_y. 
 
 This, I believe, is what we want, and happy indeed will it be 
 for us and for mankind, when such a restoration shall be brought 
 about ! 
 
WHAT IS WANTED. 
 
 CHAP. lY. 
 
 "What is Wanted. 
 
 But liow sliall it be brought about ? 
 
 That is tlie great question. And it is one upon which it is 
 the duty of every American Citizen to have and to express an 
 opinion. 
 
 It is to tliat I address myself. And, in doing so, I do not stop 
 to consider the often mooted political refinements which are not 
 of any practical importance. They involve raanj' of those subtle 
 refinements which have already led our Southern people so far 
 astray, and will be giving force to an abstraction, when, what we 
 want is, what Bacon calls, good old-fashioned, ronnd-abont com- 
 mon sense. What we want, is to look our difficulties squarely 
 in the face, and encounter them, not by double distilled special 
 pleading, which will " keep the promise to our ear and break it 
 to our hope," but by a good sense, a sound sagacit}-, and such 
 kindly charity as will draw all hearts and minds into unison. 
 'SVe may all difl^r as to what the sun is, but we may all agree 
 that it does sliine at noon-day, and govern ourselves accordingly. 
 "We may have as many religious sects as we please, but we can 
 all agree upon the divine injunction to love God and our neigh- 
 bor as ourselves. 
 
THE LOYAL MEX. 
 
 CHAP. Y. 
 
 I propose to look first at the obstacles in the way of Eecon- 
 struction, and second at the Kemedy. 
 
 The Obstacles. 
 
 I first direct your attention to the Soutli. 
 
 There are five different classes of people there for -whom onr 
 measures must provide, neither of whom can be overlooked, viz., 
 those who have, through all the'struggle, been nniformly loyal ; 
 those who were secessionists, but have now become honestly 
 and truly loyal ; those who were secessionists all through the 
 struggle, and are so yet, in fact ; the negro population ; and the 
 lower class of the white population, who are known as " poor 
 white trash." 
 
 I approach this topic, with a full knowledge of the delicacy 
 of the task. It demands an intimate knowledge of the social 
 relations of the South, which can hardly be expected of a north- 
 ern man, yet we of the North have got to deal with the subject, 
 and dispose of it too ; and it happens that within the past six 
 years, the very interior of the South has been more thoroughly 
 and more generally penetrated from the North than ever before. 
 We may, therefore, hope to be able to form an opinion not very 
 far from being strictly accurate, and one not calculated to lead 
 us astray. 
 
 Section One. 
 
 Then as to the Lioyal Men. 
 
 And herein I include, not merely those who were resi- 
 dents there before and during the contest, but also the large 
 numbers whom our armies left behind them, or who have emi- 
 grated there since. 
 
 To the loyal residents, we owe a high and solemiU duty. 
 They have a right to demand from us protection from the enemy 
 
THE LOYAL MEN". 
 
 wliom we liave conquered, and from whom they have suffered. 
 "We pride ourselves on our loyalty to the cause of tlie nation, 
 and justly so, but it has been displayed by us without severe 
 trials, and under no great difficulties, but amid the continuance 
 of our wonted properity. Our soil has not been pressed by 
 the footstep of an enemy ; our lands have not been overrun by 
 moving armies or ruthless brigandage ; our homes have not 
 been invaded, nor our families driven from their shelter ; our 
 sons have not been compelled to take up arms and peril their 
 lives for a cause which they detested ; our lives and our prop- 
 erty have not been in liourly danger, and we have not been 
 crushed beneath the tread of an insolent aristocracy, backed by a 
 multitude of ignorant and debased dependants. But far other- 
 wise has it been at the South. There loyalty has been displayed 
 only at the hazard of all that man holds dear, and so displayed 
 as to impose on us an obligation of protection from which we 
 cannot and must not attem])t to escape. 
 
 To the other class of loyal men at the South, who abided, or 
 have gone there with a full reliance on our willingness and abil- 
 ity to afford them protection, we also owe a duty. And tlie 
 calls of that duty are the more imperative upon us, because their 
 condition of peril and alarm would seem to be even worse now 
 than it was during tlie war. 
 
 All accounts — Congressional records, official rejwrts to the 
 departments, newspapers, and private information — agree in 
 saying, that there are very many places in the seceding States 
 where neither safety nor justice are secured to loyal men, and 
 life, liberty and propert}'', are forever in peril.* 
 
 * The following account of a report recenily made in Congress, tells the 
 story : 
 
 •'The Connmittee had before them Generals Schofielcl, Thomas, Sickles, 
 Baird and Wood. Tlieir testimony accompanies the report. It proves that 
 lor the punishment of crime in the Southern States the Courts cannot be 
 rehed on. Neither magistrates nor juries will do their duty; that this con- 
 dition of things is growing worse rather than better; tliai, therelore, the 
 General Government must interfere. 
 
 " In the language of General Thomas, there should be established some 
 supervisory authority in these State.s, with power to advise and insi;st on the 
 inifiartial aiiniinistration of justice, acci'mpanied by sunicient force, if neces- 
 sary, to imluce the people to feel that the authority is sulHcient to enforce its 
 advice and instruction." 
 
8 
 
 THE LOYAL MEN. 
 
 And most lamentable it is, that very much of this state of 
 things is owing to tlie Government of the nation. How this has 
 become so, I shall have occasion to consider bje and bye. It 
 is enough here to say that this fact makes the duty of protection 
 the more imperative as it becomes more necessary, and that 
 necessity is ]3artly of our creation. 
 
 There is another consideration in this connection, of weight 
 enough to demand our attention. Hitherto tlie tide of emigra- 
 tion, fed from its inexhaustiljle sources in Europe, and which has 
 brought its millions of sturdy men to our shores, has avoided the 
 slave holding States, and reached the interior, either by the way 
 of the Mississippi or through the coast States north of Mason and 
 Dixon's line. Hence it was in a great measure, that in the 
 extraordinary growth of the nation, the South lagged behind 
 the North, and to such an extent, that the population of the 
 latter became nearly two-thirds of that of the whole country. 
 The climate, the soil, and the face of the country at the South 
 were all calculated in the highest degree, to be attractive to 
 the emigrants, and they have that attraction yet. But immi- 
 gration would not go where labor was deemed a degradation, 
 and now, when emancipation has removed that obstacle, it re- 
 quires only an assurance of safety to life and propei-ty to turn the 
 tide, a part of it at least, in the direction of the Southern States. 
 
 So, too, it is with emigration from the Eastern States, which 
 has hitherto in a great measure avoided the South, and ex- 
 pended its energies in building up the empire of the West. 
 
 Who is there that cannot see that in this emigration is a 
 mighty element for the organization of the devastated South, 
 and the binding the Union together in enduring bonds ? It 
 wants but such security for life, liberty and property as we en- 
 joy at the Korth, to have this element do its work. 
 
 As matter of national policy, then, as well as of duty to lo_yal 
 men, such security must be provided. By local institutions if 
 we may ; if not then by the power of the nation. 
 
THE LOYAL MEN. 
 
 Section Two. 
 
 The Secessionists who have become Lioyal. 
 
 Tliere are many men at the Sontli wlio earnestly became 
 secessionists and ^YQve sincere believers in the right claimed 
 by their ]eadei*s, and -who, having submitted the matter to the 
 arbitrament of arms, are now as honest and sincere in submitting 
 to the decision and in their willingness to become loyal Union 
 men. 
 
 But the misfortune seems to be that the moment, in the pres- 
 ent disturbed state of the South, they avow themselves to be 
 Unionists, they subject themselves to the same sort of persecu- 
 tion as the others of the sanie political feeling, and in some in- 
 stances, doubtless, more severe, because their inveterate enemies 
 deem them to have added the crime of loyalty to that of being 
 renegades. 
 
 So long as they continue loyal, they have the same right to 
 demand protection that the otherehave of whom I have spoken. 
 
 Bat there is an additional element of danger in their case, 
 namely, that they may be more easily drawn away from their 
 loyalty, because too newly born with theni, to have the strength 
 to endure the fiery ordeal to which it may be subjected, and 
 they had never regarded secession with the abhorrence which 
 was so characteristic of persistent unionists. To the one 
 class, secession was a choice between divided allegiances, and 
 nothing more. To the other it was abhorrent, as treason, and 
 nothing less. To the one it was but n;»atter of policy. To the 
 other it was a deadly aiid degrading crime. 
 
 We shall doubtless find in this class, men who will reason in 
 this wise : " Why should we continue to be loyal ? Thereby we 
 sul)ject ourselves to this intolerable persecution — peace and 
 safety are banished from our lives, and the government, to which 
 we would fain be loyal, affords no adequate protection or en- 
 couragement to be so." 
 
 This mode of reasoning would bo perfectly natural, and 
 equally natural would it be for them to return to their first love, 
 or become neutral, or at least lukewarm in their loyalty. 
 
10 THE POOR WHITES. 
 
 But that is not all. The very chance of such an effect would 
 render persecution inevitable, as there would be awakened in 
 the breast of their adversaries the hope that the sight of their 
 sufferings might deter others from imitating their example of 
 loyalty. 
 
 There is no plainer dictate of policy or good sense than for ns 
 to pursue such a course toward this class, as would arrest these 
 retrogade attempts, and encourage the spread of this new-born 
 national patriotism. 
 
 Forgiveness and oblivion towards the past are the elements 
 which lie at the very foundation of the line of conduct to 
 be pursned. Such, we well know, w^ere the sentiments which 
 prevailed in the mind of the lamented Lincoln — such the prin- 
 ciple, which at an early day prompted the Act of Congress as 
 to pardons to the erring ones, and such was the very general, 
 nay, the almost universal feeling of the I^orth when the war 
 closed. 
 
 AVe never entertained in the Free States, except only in few 
 and isolated instances, any such vindictive feeling towards the 
 South as they had almost universally towards us ; and when the 
 war ended, nothing would have been more pleasing to us, than 
 to have f:»und the whole South readj' at once to return heartily, 
 cordially and seriously to the Union, and in entire good faith 
 acquiesce in the decision which the result had produced. 
 
 If that feeling has, by this time, diminished in strength, or if 
 the number of those who entertained it has decreased, or the 
 number of those who had an opposite feeling been augmented, 
 it is deeply to be deplored, and the cause of the change ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 Section Theee. 
 
 The Lower Class of TVbite luliabitants. 
 
 Here the difficulty of a northern man's appreciation of the 
 actual state of things is very great, for we have no class among 
 ns, by comparison with whom we can form an accurate con- 
 ception. 
 
 We have among us, to be snre, a poor and an ignorant class, 
 
THE POOR WHITES. 
 
 11 
 
 but we have none npoii whose poverty and ignorance there lias 
 been erected so peculiar a superstructure of prejudice and error, 
 as renders them unfit for self-government, and reduces thetn to 
 such a condition of vassalage to the higher classes, that obedi- 
 ence, in political matters, becomes a necessity. 
 
 Poor, never enjoying the comforts of life, and often wanting 
 its necessaries, they have nevertheless learned, from the teachings 
 of the higher class of whites, to look down upon the colored 
 laborer with contempt, and to regard toil as a degradation. 
 With our poor people, the ownership of land and a house is the 
 great object of life, and, when attained, works a wonderful 
 change in the individual. lie becomes at once a participant in 
 the administration of justice, and the internal and closely apply- 
 ing government of the country, and thus, in every essential 
 political respect, the full equal of his fellow white men. But 
 with this class at the South, the great object of life has been the 
 ownership of a negro, for thus alone could they hope to better 
 their condition, to escape the degradation of labor, and make 
 even an approach towards an equality with those around them. 
 
 They were likewise afflicted with the blasting influence of the 
 institution of caste, M'hich, from England to Ilindostan, and in 
 all ages of the world, has been a curse upon man, and retarded 
 his progress. 
 
 The line of demarcation between the three classes at the 
 South — the slaveholder, the non-slaveholding whiles, and the 
 negro — was clear, distinct and unmistakable. 
 
 As in all cases of caste, there was an enduring struggle of the 
 lower to rise higher, and of the higher to keep the lower down. 
 Every effort of the poor white, therefore, to ascend, encountered 
 a determined effort at repression from above, and the great mis- 
 fortune was, that there was no hope of ascension except through 
 the crime of ownership in man. 
 
 It has been often and truly said, that the great curse of slavery 
 is not so much in its effect on the slave as on the master. This, 
 in the slaverholder, was reflected back on the class below, and 
 carried with it all its distortions. So that, the poor whites, not 
 only encountered the hostility of the upper class in their efforts 
 to rise, and had hopes of rising only through the commission of 
 a heinous sin, but were taught to follow the example and imitate 
 
12 THE POOK WHITES, 
 
 the life of those above tliem, who were disphaying all the evils 
 inflicted upon them by the institution of slavery. 
 
 This division into castes (of the two upper classes of whites) 
 was not, as in England and Ilindostan, the result of positive 
 law, but was a moral one, voluntary in its character and the re- 
 sult of social oro-anization. So that the hio;lier class could not 
 resort to the force of the law in its efforts at repression. It was 
 driven to its moral power — and that was exerted by keeping the 
 lower class in as profound ignorance as possible, and instilling 
 into their minds the grossest errori. 
 
 Oar common soldiers, in their penetration into the South, 
 were over and over aojain astonished at the icrnorance of these 
 people in matters known familiarly to the very commonest of 
 our people. 
 
 But the best evidence of their ignorance and of their degrada- 
 tion, both moral and mental, is shown by the census. 
 
 Take, as an illustration, the following facts from the census 
 statistics of 1860: 
 
 In l^ew York, out of a population of 3,880,735, there were 
 984,905 who attended schools, or about 1 in 4. 
 
 In Ohio, out of a population of 2,339,511, there were G05,G56 
 who attended schools, or about 1 in 4. 
 
 In Illinois, out of a population of 1,711,954, there were 405,- 
 121 who attended schools, or about 1 in 4. 
 
 In South Carolina, out of a population of 703,708, there were 
 46,590 who attended schools, or about 1 in 15. 
 
 In Georgia, out of a population of 1,057,280, there were 94,- 
 187 who attended schools, or about 1 in 11, 
 
 In Yirginia, out of a population of 1,576,318, there were 154, 
 903 who attended schools, or about 1 in 10. 
 
 In Mississippi, out of a population of 791,305, there were 60,- 
 524 who attended schools, or about 1 in 12 ; and Ohio, which 
 was only three times as populous as this State, had nearly ten 
 times as many at school. 
 
 "Wealth and education seem to have travelled together. The 
 States of New York, Ohio and Illinois, with an area of about 
 61,000,000 acres, had a valuation of real and personal property at 
 
THE TOOK WHITES. 13 
 
 $3,900,000,000, and the States of South Carolina, Georgia and 
 Virginia, with an area of about 72,000,000 acres, had a valua- 
 tion of $1,986,000,000, or, in other words, with one-sixth more 
 territory, the Southern States had only about half as much 
 wealth. 
 
 Illinois, which was a savage wild, long after Virginia had be- 
 come a populous territory, had in 1860, over 13,000,000 acres of 
 improved land, and about 8,000,000, acres of unimproved; and 
 Virginia had about 11,0:)0,000 acres of improved land, and 
 over 19,000,000 unimproved. In ten years, from 1850 to 1860, 
 the quantit}' of improved land in Illinois had increased about 
 8,000,000 acres, and in Virginia, in the same time, the increase 
 was about 1,000,000. In Indiana, the increase had been 
 3,000,000, and in South Carolina, 500,000, though in 1850, the 
 latter State had over 12,000,000 acres of unimproved land, and 
 Indiana about 8,000,000. 
 
 It is upon the laboring class of the inhabitants that reliance 
 must be placed to change this state of things. In the mean 
 time, these facts show how fiir short this class is of the education 
 and energy wliich have been so successfully cultivated elsewhere. 
 
 Many of them are voters, and have a voice in the government 
 of the country, as potential as the best instructed and most 
 elevated. And, as it is an inflexible law of the elective fran- 
 chise, that power always centres in the lowest class of the 
 qualified voters, it is not difficult to appreciate the result. If 
 they vote of their own free will, it is easy to see how igno- 
 rance and prejudice may ride triumphant. If, on the other 
 hand, they yield to the influence which surrounds them, and 
 which has thus far, been powerful enough to create this institu- 
 tion of " castes," it is as easy to see how they become mere 
 instruments for increasing the power of those above them. So 
 that the influence of slavery, if not shown directly by their 
 votes, is shown by the increase of the power of the slave-holder 
 caused by their submission to his influence. 
 
 Ijut it may be urged, that as-slavery has ceased to exist, this 
 state of things has ceased, l^ot so. Men are not clay in the 
 hands of the potter, to be moulded at once into any shape we 
 may desire. They can be changed only in process of time, and 
 it is often a long time before any change of circumstances can 
 
14 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 wear out the impressions of earlj training. It is so with these 
 people. They are yet living ; some of them possess the elective 
 franchise ; tlieir voice is, and as long as they live will be, to a 
 certain extent, influential in the government, and they have and 
 will have the physical power to disturb the peace of the commu- 
 
 An indisposition in them to do so must be created, and tliat is 
 not only necessarily the work of time, but must depend for its 
 development and progress upon their surroundings. Let them 
 be surrounded in tlie future, as they have been in the past, and 
 what ho]5e is there that tliey will be aught else than the submis- 
 sive instruments of a higher class, or the marauding disturbers 
 of the public peace, — goaded on to a greater desperation by tlie 
 loss of the only instrumentality — that of owning slaves — by 
 which they ever hoped to rise above their degraded position ? 
 From among them, the ranks of the "Regulators" may be easily 
 recruited, and to their poverty, pillage may be acceptable as 
 means of abundance, and murder palliated under the name of 
 patriotism. 
 
 Section Foue. 
 
 The Colored Population. 
 
 This class numbered at the census of 1S60, about 4,000,000, 
 and when we look upon the Declaration of Independence, not 
 as a " glittering generality," but as a fact, interwoven into the 
 very lite and soul of our Republic, \ve can readily comprehend 
 how high and imperative is the duty resting upon us, of 
 finishing the work which our fathers of the Revolution began. 
 My purpose, however, now is, not to look upon the question in 
 that aspect, but rather practically, to consider what the present 
 condition of this class is, and how they are to be dealt with, so 
 that they may form integral parts of a restored Union, and how 
 they can be best made to aid iti its reconstruction ? This in- 
 volves, of course, the inquiry how they can be best secured in 
 the enjoyment of their new-born freedom ? For unless that is 
 provided for, there is no alternative, they must either again be 
 slaves or cease to live in our countrv. 
 
TUE COLORED PEOPLE. 15 
 
 This is a broad and bold assertion, and yet let ns ponder and 
 see if there is or can be any other alternative ? 
 
 If this is so, as we have already determined that they shall 
 not be slaves, and as their expulsion from the country is out 
 of the question, there is and can be nothing remaining to us but 
 to secure them in the enjoyment of their freedom, in the lirst 
 instance, and to elevate them, in the end, to the dignity and res- 
 ponsibility of citizenship, with all its privileges. 
 
 Before, however, due provision can be made for them, we must 
 understand who and what they are, and what are their capaci- 
 ties for elevation. The humanitarian may say " they are men 
 and my brothers," but the political philosopher must go further, 
 and ask how the instructed Yalentine can elevate to an equality 
 with himself, the wild man of the woods, his brother Orson. It 
 may be easy to admit the right to that equality — but how to 
 achieve the enjoyment of it, is quite another question. 
 
 To achieve the possession of that right for the white man, cost 
 our fathers seven years war, in the revolution. To achieve it for 
 the colored man, has cost ns four years war in our day. To 
 secure it to the former then, was the work of years afterwards. 
 How to secure it to the latter now, is the grave question pre- 
 sented to us. 
 
 At the close of the Kevolutionary "War, we had earned the 
 freedom of 3,OD0,000, but it was eight years after that, before we 
 put into operation the institutions by which its continued enjoy- 
 ment was secured. We have now earned emancipation for 
 4,000,000. Two years have elapsed and it is not yet fully ascer- 
 tained what we shall do to secure its continuance. 
 
 For a government like ours, so complicated in its machinery, 
 so efficient, yet so well balanced, a people of advanced intellect 
 is required. To give such institutions to the Arabs of the Desert 
 or the serfs of Dahomey would be folly. Half a century of South 
 American independence shows us that it may be too much for 
 even a higher race than these. 
 
 We must therefore know — and know intimately, too— if we 
 would act wisely and well, and not run wild upon an abstrac- 
 tion — what is the condition of those for whom and on whom we 
 are to act. 
 
 One consideration is too important to be overlooked. The 
 
16 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 3,000,000 of the past were capable of acliicving their own eman- 
 cipation, and framing their own institntions to secure it. The 
 4,000,000 of to-day are capable of neitlier, but impose both tasks 
 upon us. The difference is indeed very great, but it merely 
 warns us not to be discouraged by tlie difficulties we may 
 encounter, but now, as of old, bring to the work a patriotism 
 that shall be at once calm, dispassionate, disinterested and ener- 
 getic. 
 
 The Southern negroes are by nature gentle and kind. They 
 are fond of children, of music and of flowers. They are ever 
 governed more by sentiment than by reason, more the creatures 
 of emotions than judgment. They are devotional. Instinct- 
 ively' they recognize a God and their dependence on Him. Un- 
 like many white men, devotion is not a matter of duty with 
 them, but a delight. They worship because the}' enjoy it. They 
 are eminently hilarious and joyous, enjoying the present and 
 doffing aside the future and bidding it pass. 
 
 The Freedmen have made good soldiers. Obedience, the first 
 duty of a soldier, came easy enough to thcnh But they have 
 also shown endurance and courage enough for their position, 
 and understanding enough to comprehend the necessity and 
 requirements of discipline. 
 
 The temptation for them to engage in insurrections was enor- 
 mous, yet they abstained, showing that they had not been so 
 brutalized, even by oppression, as to have the spirit of revenge 
 uppermost, and while, perhaps, they showed a want of organized 
 action, it appeared that they reasoned sound enough to realize 
 that an insurrection Avould not better their condition. 
 
 For a long time their ears were filled with stories — and from 
 those too, who had thus far, been their only teachers — of the 
 mischievous purposes of the Yankees in invading their land, yet 
 they had the good sense to know better, and judgment sound 
 enough to enable them to appreciate our real object. 
 
 There were very many of the people of the North, who, at 
 the beginning of the contest, went into it merel}^ for the preser- 
 vation of the Union, while there were many whose object ever 
 was the abolition of slavery, and who saw that such must be the 
 inevitable result. It would seem as if the Freedmen from the 
 first regarded the contest as really for their freedom. 
 
THE COLORED PEOPLE. 17 
 
 So too, man}^ of the wliite people of the South expected efficient 
 aid from that political party which had always stood by tliein 
 on the platform of fidelity to the compromises of the constitu- 
 tion. The Freedmen, however, were never carried away with 
 that delusion. 
 
 What was it — instinct or judgment that told them, that in 
 this great upheaving of the people, freedom was speaking to the 
 earth again ? At all events, their conclusions were more accu- 
 rate than those of their masters and those of a great many very 
 intelligent people of the North. And whatever it was that 
 enabled them to reason thus soundlj^, we cannot overlook the 
 fact that they were able to do so. 
 
 Then, again, think of what great service they were to us 
 throughout the whole contest. How many instances there were 
 of their protecting individual northerners, at great hazard to 
 themselves I How faithfully they labored to help on our armies I 
 How true and faithful they were in bringing intelligence and in 
 guiding our soldiers in unknown lands! "What induced this '^ 
 Was it an appreciation of the value of their services to the ad- 
 vancement of their own cause ? If it was, no white man could 
 have appreciated it better. Now, whether this was intuition or 
 intellect in them God knows ! But whatever it was, it com- 
 mands our respect and is too important to be disregarded. 
 
 So, too, see how they have met the new condition in which 
 they have suddenly found themselves ! So different from that 
 to which they had been accustomed all their lives ! The wonder 
 is that they did not run wild in their exhiliration, and, casting 
 aside all law and order, indulge their sensuality without stint. 
 It will not do to measure them, at such a moment, by our stan- 
 dard. Can you or I, Senator, realize the feelings of a man of 
 mature age, who, all his life long, had been trodden under the 
 foot of bondage, and bound submissive to the will and the lash 
 of another, suddenly emancipated and allowed to stand erect in 
 the presence of God and his fellows, a man and the equal of man? 
 Every nerve would vibrate, every vein would throb in the wild- 
 ness of joy, and it would be more than an ordinary mind that 
 would preserve its equipoise and avoid some outbreak of emotion. 
 Yet, when that magic proclamation went fortli, like the divine 
 command through the prophet of old, announcing " liberty 
 2 
 
18 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 through all the land," there was no outbreak. Deep and still 
 flowed the current of feeling in tlie Freedman's heart, and silent 
 gratitude to God absorbed all otlier emotions. 
 
 I tell you, Senator, tliere must be a good deal in a people who 
 can thus receive such an event. 
 
 True, there were a good many at first who indulged their 
 natural indolence, who wandered about to realize an unknown 
 pleasure, that of freedom of locomotion, and who shared M'itli 
 some white men, whom I have known, in the idea that liberty 
 consisted in doing what they pleased ; but, as time flowed on, 
 and they became wonted to their new and untried condition, 
 habits of order and industry have become engendered, and, in 
 the short space of two years, they have generally become more 
 peaceable and self-supporting. It onl}^ requires proper treat- 
 ment of them by the Avhite man to make them wholly so. And 
 why not ? Heretofore they supported themselves and their 
 owners too, by their industry, and why not now be capable of 
 supporting themselves alone? And is the experience of the last 
 few years empty of all lesson for the future ? 
 
 In another respect, too, the same space of time has shown their 
 susceptibility to improvement. All accounts agree in proclaim- 
 ing how readily they resort to, and how much they advance 
 under, the opportunities afforded them of education. We have 
 thus been taught that it had not been their inaptitude for learn- 
 ing, but their masters' dread of it Mdiich had kept them in igno- 
 rance. 
 
 Here, then, are elements of humanit}' on which it would seem 
 that a noble superstructure might be built, but, unhappily, there 
 are countervailing faults. 
 
 The negro has, by nature, little or no energy. He is consti- 
 tutionally indolent, and, content with the enjoyment of the pres- 
 ent moment, he cannot awake to action, unless aroused by some 
 impulse outside of himself. He has no conception of that fiery 
 energy which characterizes the genuine Yankee, and which sent 
 him to an unexplored continent and thence to make its wilder- 
 ness bud and blossom like the rose. He looks with amazement 
 on restless activity and wonders why it cannot be still. 
 
 Nor has he any conception of the imperious obligation of 
 
THE COLORED PEOrLE. 19 
 
 truth. Ever readj- to draw on his itnagination for his facts, he 
 can hardly understand how any one can sacrifice life for it. 
 
 lie has the cunningness and the mischievousness of the 
 monkey, and allows treachery and deception to spring np in him, 
 as if it were a natural growth, as, to a certain extent, it is. 
 
 And as to the greater problems in the arts and sciences, the 
 discovery and realization of which have marked the progress of 
 the white man, tliey are all " Hebrew-Greek " to him. They 
 are simply incomprehensible. 
 
 These are respectively what may be deemed natural traits of 
 the Negro's organization, but there are others too important to 
 be overlooked, which are the result of training and the life 
 that he lias led. 
 
 If he is ever blood-thirsty or cruel, it has been because he has 
 been taught to set little store by human life, and learned how 
 efficacious a means death sometimes is of removing the cause of 
 apprehended evil. He has often seen slaves saved from the 
 death penalty simply because of their money value, and as often 
 seen a dreaded negro slain, notwithstanding the pecuniary loss, 
 — the fear of the culprit's power of mischief l)eing the palpable 
 cause of the difference. If he had been by nature cruel or re- 
 vengeful, so many years would not have passed without servile 
 insurrections, especially in localities where the blacks greatly out- 
 numbered the whites, and the temptations of the war would not 
 have passed without some uprising somewhere. 
 
 He is not by nature so indiff'erent to danger, as to be bold and 
 hard}', nor yet so sensitive to it as to be timidly shrinking, j^et 
 he has seen so much of the fear which has ever been uppermost 
 in the slave master, and so much of a blustering, boisterous man- 
 ner, assumed for a disguise of timidity, that he learned to be at 
 once bragging and cowardly. Yet, when away from the con- 
 tamination of such example, those traits soon wore off", and wlicu 
 guided by intelligent officers, he made a passably good soldier. 
 
 Those, however, who have not had the advantage of such 
 training, show now, even in their state of freedom, a timid yield- 
 ing to the aggressions of the white man, which is the result, at 
 
20 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 once, of their nature and their earlier training. "Were it other- 
 wise, thej Avould soon learn that thej are numerous enough for 
 self-protection. 
 
 The Negro has very little self-reliance. He has so long been 
 in a state of dependence upon the will of others, that it will take 
 much time and experience to teacli him that reliance upon his 
 own powers, whicli is so essential to making him a full grown 
 man mentally and morally, as well as physically. 
 
 He is not provident. He is by nature neither ciqndus nor 
 avidus, neither grasping nor miserly, but content with present 
 enjoyment, and taught by the experience of a whole life, to de- 
 pend upon the providence of others, he is now, as a general 
 thing, unfit to care for himself, and becomes an easy prey to the 
 designing and better trained white man. It will only bo 
 through much time and much suffering that he will learn the 
 necessary lessons of a saving industry. In the meantime, t e 
 necessity of a " Freedman's Buueau," and the frequent appeals 
 made to the North for relief to the "■ suffering blacks," tell the 
 reality of this tale. 
 
 He is profoundly ignorant. His master has deemed it a 
 " necessity of the position " to keep him so. This ignorance, 
 joined with his natural spirit of devotion, has filled him with idle 
 superstitions, which are ever affecting his actions. 
 
 The removal of this ignorance lies at the very foundation of 
 all hope of his elevation. While it exists, it must aft'ect every 
 relation of life with him, and make him ever dependent upon 
 others and submissive to their guidance. This will be particu- 
 larly manifest in his political action, whenever he becomes 
 clothed with the powers of an elector. Without the knowledge 
 to enable him to have a will of his own, and with his long trained 
 habits of submission to more instructed minds, it is difficult to 
 conceive how it can be safe to trust the destinies of the country 
 in his hands ; for however well inclined he may now be, we can 
 have no security that in time, his ignorance may not direct his 
 power to the advancement of the wildest and most fanatical of 
 objects. 
 
THE COLORED PEOPLE. 21 
 
 !Naj, more ! Ma)^ it not, with some reason, be apprehended 
 that he might in time be even arrayed on the side of secession ? 
 His freedom once fully secured, all cause of controversy with his 
 former master, which now keeps him so steadily in sympathy 
 with ns, would be removed. Living at a distance from ns, and 
 in the midst of people who arc now, as much as ever M'cd- 
 ded in licart to their secession sentiments, it wonld be most 
 natural that he should partake of the public opinion around 
 him. Hearing only one side ot the question, such would natu- 
 rally come to be his views. Ignorant of the nature of our 
 government, and even of the geography of the country, he would 
 have but little idea of the danger of doctrines, which it has taken 
 more than half a century in time, and much hard lighting, for 
 many of even a more instructed class among us, to learn to con- 
 demn ; and yet, unweaned from the long-wonted habit of sub- 
 mission, it is not really extravagant to anticipate the possibility 
 of his being yet found arrayed on the side of secession. 
 
 Equally difficult is it for us to conceive how the negro can se- 
 cure the enjoyment of his other rights, civil and social — until he 
 has learned what those rights are, what are the responsibilities 
 the possession of tliem imjiose upon him, and the nature and 
 workings of the machinery by which their enjoyment can be 
 secured. As at present instructed, he knows but of two modes, 
 — force, and an absolute dependence upon others. Such an 
 emancipation is nominal only. The reality of dependence exists 
 as much as ever — its form alone is changed. He must learn the 
 use of the tools which freedom has put into his hands, or he 
 will be apt to cut himself and others. 
 
 He must learn to think and judge for himself in this matter, 
 as we all have to. This is self government, which he has never, 
 or at best, very imperfectly learned, but in which we have been 
 instructed by long training, from early childliood to full-grown 
 manhood. We exclude from the elective franchise all under 
 twenty-one years of age, because we require the instruction of 
 that period as a basis for the exercise of the right. Of what 
 use will the twenty-one years be to the negro, if at that age he 
 has all the ignorance of childhood ? 
 
 There are four kinds of action in which the American citizen 
 has to engage ; to bear arms, to be a witness, to serve as a juror 
 
Iil5 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 and to vote. These are at once rights and duties — privileges 
 and responsibilities. And the exercise of them, while it marks 
 his position as a citizen, is ever at its work of fitting him for 
 that exercise. 
 
 We would not put fire-arms into the hands of a child, or trust 
 a fool with edge-tools. And we must take care, when we enable 
 the negro to bear arms — that is, when we accord to him the con- 
 stitutional right " of the people, to keep and bear arms," that he 
 be sufficiently elevated above the child or the fool, to render it 
 safe. " Abstract right" might dispense with such an inquiry, 
 but practical wisdom demands that it should be made ; not to 
 withhold the right forever, as the slave-holder would require, 
 but to prepare its recipients for its enjoyment at the proper 
 time. 
 
 Whether that time has already arrived, or is yet to be waited 
 for, is the question. In the meanwhile it would seem to be- 
 come us to avoid both extremes. 
 
 As to being a witness, the inquiry is, has the negro such a re- 
 gard for truth, as to make it safe to rely upon him ? In the con- 
 dition of slavery, it has been a " necessity of the position," that 
 force and deception were the instruments of governing him. 
 Plence he has lived from childhood to old age, in an atmosphere 
 of falsehood, and the habit uf nnti'uthfulness thus engendered 
 by the example of those above him, superadded to the innate 
 cunning of his nature, luis made him an adept in the art of de- 
 ception. 
 
 I do not mean to say that he is always false and never to be 
 relied upon, but that the circunistances to which I have re- 
 ferred, have not been calculated to nuike him astute in inquir- 
 ing what truth is, or sternly inflexible in sticking to it. 
 
 Then again, there is something in the natural conformation 
 of people which afl:ects their power of conceiving truth and im- 
 parting it. No man has ever been engaged, for any length of 
 time, in the administration of justice, without having met with 
 persons, who would state as a fact, that which they only be- 
 lieved, but did not know to be so. Women and Irishmen par- 
 ticularly — indeed all those who are creatures rather of sentiment 
 than of stern reason — are of this class. And it often requires 
 much scrutiny to make even the witness comprehend the dilTer- 
 
THE COLOKED TEOPLE. 23 
 
 encc between belief and knowledge. Then, on the other hand, 
 there is a class of cold, severe, puritanical reasoncrs, whose 
 statements are most reliable exjxjnents of the actual reality. 
 Now, to which of these classes does the negro belong? We all 
 know that he is, by nature, the very creature of impulse, and 
 without the training necessary to give that impulse the ]u-oper 
 direction, he is liable to have in his mind the wildest conlusion 
 between what he believes and what he knows, and to become, 
 of course, a very unsafe witness. 
 
 I do not speak of a disposition in either of these classes will- 
 fully to falsity the truth. Such a dis])osition may be found in 
 both, and perhaps more frequently in the culdly-reasoning than 
 in the M'armly-impulsive witness. I am speaking only of differ- 
 ently constituted minds, and of their trustworthiness as chan- 
 nels for the conveyance of truth. " Truth is like water — ever 
 the same — but it will take the shape of the vessel into which it 
 is poured." 
 
 We all know — for history is full of it — that men are just as 
 ready to go to the death for error as tor truth, if they are only 
 made sincerely to believe in it. The voluntary human sacrifices 
 on the Druidical altars —the mother, casting her oftspriug into 
 the Ganges, and the worshipper who prostrates himself to bo 
 crushed beneath the wheels of Juggernaut, were just as sincere 
 and as self-sacriticing as any one who was ever exposed to wild, 
 beasts at Ephesus, or perished amid the fires of Smithtield. 
 
 It is, therefore, surely important to inquire in what condition 
 is the Negro is this respect ? If his natural organization and 
 his life-long training have combined to make him unreliable, 
 then a change must be wrought in him, and education can do 
 it. Why? Galileo was imprisoned for years for the " damnable 
 heresy"" of announcing, in respect to our planetary system, ideas 
 W'hicli our young children now receive as unquestioned truths, 
 The world has been educated up to their reception and compre- 
 hension. Nay, it was five or six hundred years before the be- 
 ginning of the Christian era that the idea was born among men 
 that the earth was not the centre of our system. Yet it is now 
 only within three hundred years that it has ]net with general 
 acceptance, and simply because men were not belbre that edu- 
 cated up to it. 
 
24 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 It can hardly take as long to educate the Negro to a just ap- 
 preciation of the value of truth ; but if he is not yet in that 
 condition, and it reqnires time to bring him there, "why, in 
 Heaven's name ! let ns wait, and meanwhile send the school- 
 master and preacher abroad, and make it alike his interest and 
 that of those immediately around him to make those appliances 
 availa1)le and effective. The education of Prussia tells the tale; 
 for it has been the chief cause of her rise to empire. Millions 
 of ignorant serfs might not have wrought out in years what her 
 educated eonnnon people accomplished in weeks. And it was 
 the instructed condition of our common soldiers which enabled 
 ns, in so short a period, to overcome the most stupendous re- 
 bellion known in history, and to astonish the monarchies of the 
 world by performing a task which they really believed to be 
 impracticable, and with them wonld doubtless have been so. 
 
 But let ns pass from that topic to another — that of the per- 
 formance of jury duty. 
 
 Yery many of onr people look npon this as a grievous bur- 
 den, which they seek to avoid, and very few seem ever to have 
 appreciated its real value. This is a great mistake. Yon are 
 aware, Senator, that I have been abont fifty years engaged — 
 either on the Bench or at the Bar — in the administration of 
 justice. During that time I have carefully noticed the effect of 
 this feature of our institutions. And I believe that if you take 
 the greatest rowdy which any of our worst governed cities can 
 produce, and pnt him into the jury box, for some weeks, the 
 effect will inevitably be to make him a deserter from the cause 
 of disorder, and enlist him on the side of law and order. Why ! 
 he feels himself identified with the administration of justice, 
 and that every uprising against the supremacy of the law or the 
 peace of society, is rebellion against him; for is he not a minis- 
 ter of the law, and at whom does that rebellion aim its assanlts, 
 but him and the others of its ministers ? He thus becomes one 
 of the governing class, and not merely one of the governed. He 
 is thus taught law, justice and mercy. He feels himself the 
 equal of others, and, unconsciously to himself, he acquires self- 
 respect, in the same manner that the Judge does, though doubt- 
 less in a less degree. How can it be otherwise, when he is 
 thus deciding on such momentous matters as life, liberty, repu- 
 
THE COLOKED PEOPLE. 25 
 
 tation and property, when lie feels himself called upon to cru- 
 cify passion and prejudice, to seek for truth and aim at justice? 
 
 Lo ! how important a school this is for the Xegro. But is he 
 fit to enter it yet, or must we wait for time to do its work ? 
 
 It is said that the right to vote is essential to tlu; Negro's pro- 
 tection. Is not his participation in the administration of justice 
 equally, if not more so ? Yet, he can enjoy neither of these 
 rights, or, if you please, discharge neither of these duties, without 
 having the power, in the same degree, to aifect others. Hence 
 is it so important to know if he is yet fit for the task, and if not, 
 how he can be made so ? 
 
 It is easy to imagine what effect his possession of this right 
 might have on his elevation, and in lightening the burden of 
 our duty of protecting him; but is it as easy to imagine what 
 the injury might be to himself and to others, if he thus possessed 
 it, when steeped in ignorance, conscious of dependence, and 
 swayed by prejudice and passion ? 
 
 Let the fate of our city help to answer the question. Here 
 we have 50,000 native voters who have been educated to a 
 knowledge of their duty; and 70,000 naturalized voters whose 
 education in this respect has been, to say the least, somewhat 
 neglected, and so great have been the abuses by the regularly 
 constituted authorities chosen by the people, that our Legislature 
 has been engaged for several years in the necessary and praise- 
 worthy task of transferring the power of government to special 
 commissions, deriving their authority and their existence from 
 the central power of the State ; or, in plain English, taking away 
 from a locality the power of self government, because the unfit- 
 ness of the electors renders it dangerous to the public welfare to 
 entrust them with its exercise. 
 
 Fortunate, indeed, has it been for us, that there has been a 
 power both able and willing to perform the work ! 
 
 Tocqueville was one of the wisest of those who have pub- 
 lished their travels in our country. lie says, in his Democracy 
 in America — I quote the idea only, for I have not time to hunt 
 up the passage — he says, when he is discussing the problem of 
 our aptitude for self-government, that it is owing to the early 
 training our people get. Thus, in our childhood, at our schools 
 and at our games — in our manhood, in our various voluntary 
 
20 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 associations, religions, charitable, meclianical, and tlie like ; in 
 all onr political partitions of territory, asinonr school, and high- 
 way and election districts ; in our towns, villages, wards and 
 cities ; in our counties and States we are frequently engaged in 
 the function of government ; sometimes in mere local matters and 
 sometimes in those of a national character, so that a change of 
 the Chief Magistrate of the nation, which in other lands would 
 involve a bloody I'evolution, with us, hardly gets up a greater 
 excitement, in any given locality, than the election of a path 
 master or a town constable. 
 
 This is eminently true, and when to it we add the fact of our 
 widely diffused common school education, and the fact that al- 
 most every one of us is, sometime in the course of our life, called 
 upon to fill some official station, we will see a solution of the 
 problem, and that it is this long and continued training which 
 alone fits us for the task. What we should be without this train- 
 ing, and v/itli the addition of the habit of depending upon others, 
 let the condition of the South American Republics answer, where 
 the winds and the weather are not more unstable than their 
 government, and where the public peace and security are expir- 
 ing under a chronic disease of revolutionism, before which there 
 is much cause to fear that freedom itself may perish. 
 
 I have dwelt so much at length on these three topics, of bear- 
 ing arms, giving testimony, and serving as a juror, because in all 
 the discussions on the status of the Freedmen in his new condi- 
 tion, which I have known anything about, I have seen very lit- 
 tle notice taken of them ; yet they have seemed to me to be as 
 fully important as civil rights as the political right of voting. 
 At the same time, all the considerations suggested, as to them, 
 have just as strong an application to the other, that of voting. 
 
 Before going farther, I must guard against being misunder- 
 stood. I am aware that there is among the Freedmen, as among 
 the white men, an infinite variety of condition of intellectual 
 capacity, morals and mental cultivation, and that there are those 
 of so superior a mental and moral condition that my suggestions 
 will have little or no application to them.'^^ It is not of them, 
 
 * I confess I can see no objection to their possession of all the rights of a 
 citizen, excepting only the fanciful one of difference of color. That is matter 
 
THE COLOKED PEOrLE. 27 
 
 however, that I am speaking in this paper. But I am referring 
 miiinly to the great mass of the 4,0iJ0,00n, to whom freedom is 
 a novelty, and whose education, in the merest rudiments of 
 knowledge, lias only just begun. Unhappily, that is far the 
 largest number, and by far of the mo:t consequence. 
 
 But it cannot be overlooked, that the four rights which are 
 thus to be conferred on the Freedmen, as parts of his regenera- 
 tion, and appurtenant to his citizenship, namely, to bear arms, to 
 bear testimonj', to vote, and to act as jurors, can be exercised 
 for evil as well as good, and that the influence for either evil or 
 good must come, most forcibly, from those among whom they 
 live rather than from those at a distance. 
 
 "What is to be our safeguard against this tendency to evil? 
 
 When a Freedman is a witness, it will be found in the power 
 and intelligence of the tribunal before which he is bearing testi- 
 mony. They can test his credibility, and receive or reject, as 
 good sense may dictate. 
 
 In the selection of men to be jurors, it is the uniform practice 
 to require something as a qualification besides manhood. Thus 
 you know. Senator, in our State a man to be a juror must be 
 between twenty-one and sixty years of age, possessing §250 of 
 personal or § 150 of real estate, in ihe possession of his natural lacul- 
 ties, not decrepit or inflrm, and of fair character, approved in- 
 tegrity, of sound judgment and well informed. Such a practice, 
 if prevalent at the South, would aftord there, as it does here, a 
 sufficient safeguard in this respect. 
 
 In bearing arms, the Freedmen might be subjected to a mili- 
 tary discipline under a properly organized system, whereby they, 
 as our militia are, might be taught not only habits of order, but 
 how to use and not abuse the right. Like the soldiers in some 
 parts of Germany, they might be educated at the same time that 
 they were disciplined. 
 
 But how when thev come to votintr ? "Where then the safe- 
 
 of taste and education, but it is a small game, and one, by the way, that two 
 can play at, and, indeed, I believe, have played at ; for it is said that the Ethiop- 
 ian Christian insists that Jesus of Nazareth and his mother were black people. 
 
28 
 
 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 
 
 ganrd ? There will be no judge nor jury to sift and weigh their 
 action at the ballot box, and restrain the power to do mischief. 
 There can be no military discipline to marshal them to their 
 duty and teach them how to use their arms. 
 
 But there can be required the same safeguard there, as in the 
 selection of jurors, and here too, the possession of the natural 
 faculties, a fiiir character, approved integrity, a well informed 
 and sound judgment may be made the necessary qualifications. 
 And why not ? Both are alike capable of affecting the welfare 
 of others, and both are duties as well as privileges, full as well of 
 responsibility to others as protection to themselves. 
 
 The power of Congress cannot, under the Constitution, as it 
 now stands, go further than to require that there sliall be no dis- 
 tinction of race or color in the enjoyment of the rights of citizen 
 ship. The power of defining those rights has been reserved to 
 the States, and it is very much to be doubted whether the peo- 
 ple are prepared to consent to any change in this respect. A 
 transfer of this power to the National Government would be a 
 step toward concentration far beyond anything ever yet pro- 
 posed. 
 
 One thing must be remembered, that when the Freedman be- 
 comes a citizen, he comes within that provision of the Constitu- 
 tion, which declares that " the citizens of each State shall be en- 
 titled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several 
 States." 
 
 And another thing must be remembered, that with the right 
 to vote comes the right to hold office, and thus is increased the 
 power of evil as well as of good. This must be so, unless there 
 is introduced into our institutions a provision that a right to be 
 an elector is not of itself sufficient to constitute a right to be 
 elected. There are such provisions now existing among us. 
 Thus, though a man be an elector, he cannot be President, un- 
 less he is a native bom citizen, thirty-five years of age, and 
 twenty-four years a resident of the United States — nor a Sena- 
 tor, unless thirty years of age and for nine years a citizen — nor 
 a member of the House of iiepresentatives, nnless twenty-five 
 years of age and for seven years a citizen; bat unless some re- 
 striction shall be expressly provided, the right to hold office will 
 
THE SLAVEirOLDEK. 29 
 
 follow witli and belong to the riglit of voting. What will there 
 be to prevent it ? 
 
 Section Five, 
 
 The Slaveholder and Secessionist. 
 
 The next class of people at the South who are to be con- 
 sidered in the contemplation of the idea of Reconstruction, 
 comprehends the out and out Secessionist, as well, those who 
 were ready to use secession as a stepping stone for their own rise, 
 as those who really and honestly believed in it. 
 
 And here let us bear in mind that Secession and Slavery ex- 
 isted together. They were inseparable companions, and neither 
 was found where the other was not. And it would be a very 
 unsatisfactory mode of treating the subject if they were to be 
 considered without due attention to their connection with and 
 influence upon each other. The " logic of events" bound them 
 together in ties, which we cannot now sever, and in my paper I 
 shall have due regard to their union. The fact is before me, and 
 I need not pause to demonstrate that it is so, or inquire why it 
 is so. It cannot be said that either produced the other, but the 
 greater one of the two, that whicli was deepest in the great 
 Southern heart — Slavery — found Secession in its path and used 
 it as its instrument. 
 
 It was a strange feature of the contest, that while Slavery was 
 really at the bottom of it all on both sides, one side aiming at 
 its abolition and the other at its perpetuation, neither would 
 admit it, and both went before the M'orld, one for the preserva- 
 tion of the Union, or the other for the establishment of the right 
 to secede from it. 
 
 Had Secession stood alone it would not have recpiired such a 
 war to overthrow it. It could have been disposed of nearly as 
 easily as its kindred heresy of Kullifieation was thirty years ago. 
 
 But it did require a war to abolish Slavery, and a war came 
 and did abolish it. 
 
 In abolishing it, however, it has left many delicate and diffi- 
 cult questions for us or our posterity to settle. But Secession 
 
30 THE SLAVEIIOLDEE. 
 
 has left beliincl no problem to solve. It is dead, and ^vitll regard 
 to it we have only, like the Patriarch of ancient times, to bury 
 onr dead out of our sight. Let it rest in peace. It will never 
 trouble us again. It will never rise from the grave to push ns 
 from our seats. 
 
 But the other questions ! They are numerous indeed, and de- 
 mand a careful wisdom in adjusting them which nothing short 
 of Divine Providence can endow our people with. 
 
 They all spring from Slavery, its influences and its conse- 
 quences, and it would be unwise to deny it. 
 
 Errors of the Soutli as to Northern Feeling-. 
 
 In one respect, the South has been in error from the beginning 
 all through, and that is, as to the real feeling of the North in 
 regard to Slavery, and that error has unifornil}- affected their 
 action. 
 
 It is true, the ultra abolitionists, who aimed as a high moral 
 duty, at the destruction of Slavery, irrespective of all the com- 
 promises of the Constitution, filled the public ear full of accounts 
 of individual suffering, and dwelling on isolated cases of bru- 
 tality and cruelty, appealed to the feelings of humanity. 
 
 The slaveholders met this charge fully and frankly, referred 
 to the hilarious condition of the slave, and appealed to the dif- 
 ference between his physical condition and that of the free 
 negro at the North. 
 
 The argument and the evidence, so far as physical condition 
 was concerned, being altogether on his side, the Southerner has 
 been unable to understand why they have not been able to affect 
 the Northern mind, and he has become irritated at the convic- 
 tion that prejudice, and not fact or reason governed. He, there- 
 fore, felt that he was to be sacrificed, not to fact and reason, but 
 to prejudice, backed by superior power. No wonder then that 
 he rebelled against such a result, and was ready to risk everything 
 to defend himself. 
 
 Looking then at the question, as one simply involving the 
 physical condition of the Negro, it is difhcult to say that the 
 Southerner ouglit, at all events, to be condemned. 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 31 
 
 But all this is a very limited view of the question aud does 
 not comprehend the real feeling -which led to the results that are 
 before us. 
 
 Eft'ect of Slavery on the Whites. 
 
 There has been at the Xorth, fur man}" years, an earnest and 
 growing hostility to Slavery and a determination — sometime or 
 other— to have it abolished. This has been founded, not so much 
 upon the physical condition of the Negro, as upon its moral 
 effect on him and on the white man, his master. 
 
 There have been millions of our fellow beings held in slavery 
 by us, and whatever the lia])piness of their physical condition, 
 their condition of bondage proclaimed to the world, that the 
 doctrine of liberty and equality which we claimed to be the very 
 foundation of our institutions, was a living lie. And whether 
 any one spoke it or not, the position rankled in every intelligent 
 mind, as a reproach. 
 
 There were millions, whom we were condemning to enduring 
 ignorance and darkness, and our Christianity rebelled. 
 
 And liere was a condition of society which was creating in the 
 superior governing classes, an aristocracy not of intellect, but of 
 property and position, which was virtually at war witli the 
 whole spirit of our institutions. 
 
 It was tliesc considerations, rather than any affecting the 
 physical condition of the Negro, which swayed tlie northern 
 mind, unconsciously, perhaps, to itself, yet working out in the 
 end, the great results that are before us. 
 
 Of the universality and sincerity of this feeling, the southern 
 people seem to have been ignorant from the beginning. 
 
 Am I not right in saying this ? ITow seldom have we heard 
 among the advocates of slavery, any discussion of its effects upon 
 the white man ? How seldom heard of au}- hope held out for 
 the mental or moral elevation of tlie Negro ? On the other hand, 
 the public ear has been filled with accounts of his hilarious and 
 happy condition. Mr. Calhoun was undoubtedly sincere, and 
 the true exponent of southern feeling, when on the floor of the 
 United States Senate he proclaimed slavery to be a " Great 
 
32 THE SLAVEHOLDEB. 
 
 Good." And Christian preachers at tlie South, in advocating 
 it as a divine institution, have rested their position on their power 
 and tlieir duty to render the Negro's physical condition a happy 
 one. 
 
 Here they seemed to think tliat the argument ended, and that 
 tliey liad altogether the best of it. But oh ! how far short they 
 fell of comprehending the whole question I 
 
 It was the effect of slavery upon the master, that was, in the 
 northern mind, the great consideration, and it is that effect, 
 which we are now encountering in our eflorts at reconstruction — 
 not of a nation only, but of a Union that shall be harmonious 
 and progressive, and a beacon light to freedom throughout the 
 whole world. 
 
 "What, then, are the southern people, and what is the effect 
 which slavery has produced upon their character ? What is the 
 mental and moral condition which has grown out of the circum- 
 stances which have surrounded them, and which, engrafted into 
 the habits of a lifetime, now stand in the way of the much cov- 
 eted result ? 
 
 Resort to Force. 
 
 In the first place, there is one respect in which they are en- 
 tirely different from us at the North. They have lived amid a 
 servile population of four millions, whose instincts and interests 
 were ever on the side of rebellion against the domination which 
 kept them under. There was, therefore, an eternal apprehen- 
 sion of insurrection — an endurino-necessitv of making therulino- 
 power felt. 
 
 The instrumentality for preserving that domination was not 
 so much reason, or affection, as force and fraud — the gallows, 
 the stake, the lash, and deception and ignorance being the tools 
 used for the purpose. 
 
 Now, what of necessit}', must be the effect of such a state of 
 things upon the governing class ? Can you expect it to be gen- 
 tleness, kindness, forbearance, regard for others rather than for 
 self? 
 
 Anything like a knowledge of human nature teaches us that 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 33 
 
 the very opposite must be the result, and so the facts tell us was 
 the case here. 
 
 Let not individual instances of an opposite character be cited 
 against me. I am aware of their existence, and am willing to 
 admit they were numerous. But I am sjieaking of the masses — 
 of 8,000,000 of white people, and 4,000,000 negroes, and of their 
 general condition, and I am sure that as to such a general view, 
 I am correct. 
 
 The wliite man, then — the slaveholder and his co-equal — lived 
 in an atmosphere of force and fraud. The lash was an instru- 
 ment of government, and so far M'as it sometimes carried, that 
 numerous instances liave been known where women have caused 
 •women to be whipped ! To deceive the slave, to keep him in 
 ignorance, and instill into his mind certain ideas, no matter 
 whetlier trne or false, was a necessity of the position, and it was 
 a continual jji^iwe between tiie neo;ro and his master Avliich could 
 deceive the other the most. Trutli was witldield from the negro 
 and untrnths told to him in order to give his action the desired 
 direction, and this, with the white man became habitual from 
 childhood, and so habitual that he was unconscious that, in this 
 respect, he differed at all from the rest of the world, or that he 
 was carrying the habit abroad with him into the world, and 
 with it, affecting all his intercourse with men. 
 
 This was one of the great curses of slavery on the master, for 
 it produced a false state of society, ran all through his social 
 relations, affected his whole life, and is now one of the great 
 obstacles that stand in tlie way of reunion. And yet I sujipose 
 the soutlierner can hardly be persuaded tluit it is so, and will be 
 apt to look upon my r>ssertion as a scandal. Yet let him pause a 
 moment and see if it is not so, and at least inquire whether the 
 reproof — if such it must be deemed — does not come from the 
 lips of one whose great object is reconciliation between estranged 
 friends ? 
 
 "What was it, but a familiarity with a resort to violence, that 
 caused at the South — what was so uncommon at the North — 
 frequent personal combats with deadly weapons ? What that 
 caused our National Capitol, at every session of Congress, to be 
 disgraced by such contests, until the South seceded, since which 
 nothing of the kind has occurred, except a solitary instance, 
 3 
 
34: THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 where the offender was a Kentuckian, and by a private brawl 
 wiped out tlie memory of valuable military service? What was 
 it that made them such good soldiers at the very beginning, but 
 this habit of bearing and using arms, in which our soldiers be- 
 came their equals, only after two or three years training? "What 
 was it that caused them even to train their women, to the unfem- 
 inine accomplishment of being adepts at the use of the pistol and 
 the bowie knife/- 
 
 And all this which made them so unlike us, and all the rest 
 of the civilized world — (except only the disorderly people of the 
 South American Republics) instead of being looked upon by 
 them as a demerit — as a curse inflicted by slavery, has been so 
 far misunderstood by them, as to be regarded as praiseworthy, 
 as chivalric ! It was chivalry indeed, so far as it carried man- 
 ners hack to the days when men sj^ent their lives in lighting, 
 and, thanked God, they could not write their names. But unhap- 
 pily, they forgot that the lapse of 500 years and advancing civil- 
 ization, had left all that away behind. So fast a hold, however, 
 had this obtained upon them that they looked upon our abhor- 
 rence of these private brawls as cowardice, and actuall}' persuaded 
 themselves, that in any personal conflict, they would be greatly 
 our su|)eriors— a delusion hurtful in the end, only to themselves. 
 
 They are not yet disabused of these delusions. They attri- 
 bute their ultimate defeat in the contest, not to our equality in 
 the attributes of the soldier, but to our superiority in numbers, 
 and they are so wedded yet to their ideas of the superiority of 
 force, that all accounts that come to us, agree in representing 
 them as yet appealing to violence and bloodshed. It was thus 
 that the schools of Memphis were interrupted — thus that the Con- 
 stitutional Convention of Louisiana was broken up, and thus 
 
 *The exent and character of this feeling is well shown by the following 
 extract from language used in ISGl, by a man (John Young Brown,) now a 
 candidate for Congress in Kentucky. It seems to me that the reconstruction 
 which will admit such sentiments into the Halls of Congress, is rather a haz- 
 ardous business. 
 
 " If this Northern army shall attempt to cross our borders we will resist it 
 " to ihe death, and if one man shall be found in our Commonwealth to join 
 " him. he ought, and I believe he will, be shot down before he leaves the 
 " State." 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 35 
 
 that all over the South, now life and property are rendered un- 
 safe.* 
 
 Ignorance of the Power of Opinion. 
 
 They seem to have Iiad no conception of the marvelous power 
 of public opinion, where it is provided, as it is in this country, 
 with the means of executing its own behest. They seem to be 
 as ignorant of that, as are the subjects of the IMonarchies of 
 Europe. Instead of understanding, as we do, that we can, 
 through the ballot box, work out a National Revolution every 
 four years, they go back to the days when England could 
 get rid of the doctrine of the divine right of Kings, only by 
 bringing the Monarch to the scaffold, or to the times of the 
 French Revolutions, when the guillotine and the barricade were 
 the only means of regeneration. The institution of slavery, and 
 its necessity for the use of force and fraud dimmed their mental 
 vision, and prevented their seeing the mighty power of the 
 public will, when institutions of freedom give it fair play. ■ 
 
 Let us illustrate this by an instance, which is of interest, irres- 
 pective of its connection with this topic : 
 
 We all know how often, during the war, personal liberty was 
 invaded, and men were imprisoned upon mere telegraphic dis- 
 patches. Tims realizing, in their worse form the lettres de 
 cachet, which were so disturbing an element in the French revo- 
 lution. This awakened among our people only an occasional 
 and faint murmur, but no outbreak of remonstrance. Southern 
 people could not understand this, but pointed to it and our ac- 
 quiescence in it as evidence of the tyranny of our government. 
 Foreigners were astonislied, because they felt that no such 
 authoritv could be exerted in their monarchies, without jrrowino- 
 into a precedent and giving to the monarch a permanent power 
 over personal freedom ; but we had no such fears. We were all 
 able to judge and did judge, whether the necessity of the case 
 warranted it, and we felt and knew, that if the occupant of the 
 Executive Department should attempt to assert it as a perma- 
 
 *I add in an appendix, some extracts from the testimony taken before a 
 Congressional Committee. 
 
36 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 nent incident to liis office, we could in less tlian four jears liurl 
 liini from liis place and give an admonition whicli would prevent 
 an imitation of his example. Our consciousness of the existence 
 of freedom of thouglit, of assemblage, of the press, and of the 
 ballot box, gave us the assurance that in our country, the cor- 
 rection of all political evil was in the omnipotence of public 
 opinion. 
 
 This never has been fullj understood at the South. They 
 have kept the lower classes of the population — white and black, 
 in subjection, by the use or display of force ; they have by a like 
 display, once and again extorted from our government, conces- 
 sions to their peculiar institutions, which public opinion did not 
 sanction but slumbered over, and they fondly believed they 
 could play that game to the end and compel us to a compliance 
 with their measures. The first gun that Avas fired at Fort Sum- 
 ter was the sound of the voice which proclaimed that idea to tlie 
 world and marvelous was its effect in awakening public 
 opinon ! And when tlie war finally ended, the surrender was 
 not to a change of opinion, but to the domination of that force 
 whicli they had ever regarded as the supreme arbiter, and to 
 which they liad appealed as such. Had the display on our part 
 of that power among them continued, habit might ultimately 
 have engendered a change of opinion, and, in tlie meantime, 
 would have suppressed all exhibitions of a resort to violence on 
 their part, to advance their own notions. 
 
 Hence it was, that at the close of the war, while provisional 
 governments, backed by our military power, existed in the con- 
 quered territory, we heard little or nothing of the white man's 
 violence, and his reluctance to accept the result, but much more 
 of the unreadiness of the negro to accept it. 
 
 But in an unhappy hour those governments were withdrawn, 
 and the class of the people of whom I am speaking, were res- 
 tored to their power of local self-government. The opinions 
 which had led them to wage war upon our Union, and which 
 had not yet been subjected to a superior power long enough to 
 be changed, immediately found vent through those local govern- 
 ments ; they put into office the very worst enemies of the Union, 
 because thus they could enforce their own ideas to a pai'tial, if 
 not, a general acceptance. Encouraged since then by the policy 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 37 
 
 of the President, by his conflict M'ith Congress, by his resistance 
 to tlie puljlic opinion in the loyal States, and by a supposed sym- 
 pathy on Iiis part with tlieir views, they have not been content 
 witli tlie opportunity thus prematurely afforded them of dis|)lay- 
 ing their force through the legal channels, but have resorted to 
 its display in a lawless manner, and have thus not only dis- 
 turbed the peace of their communities, but admonished us that 
 with them, now as heretofore, force is in their estimation, the 
 chief if not the only governing power. 
 
 It is probably true, that the lawlessness and violence, which 
 all accounts agree in saying prevails to so great an extent at the 
 South, would not now be found there if it had not been for the 
 encouragement which these people have drawn from the lan- 
 ffuafice and action of the President and his administration. But 
 it is equally true, that but for that cause we should not now 
 have known how unchanged were the opinions of this hostile 
 class, how bitter tlieir hatred towards us and our cherished 
 notions of freedom, and how ready they are, at heart, to seize 
 upon every opportunity', lawless or otherw'ise, to show the deter- 
 mination not to submit to the result. So that while we mourn 
 over this lawlessness and violence, we may be thankful for the 
 opportunity of learning how deep seated is its cause^ and how 
 certain it is that that cause exists. 
 
 There is a good deal in this. For so kind and forgiving was the 
 generous feeling of the Korth, at the close of the war, among 
 the masses of our people, that we might easily have been in- 
 duced by a different line of conduct on their part, to have re- 
 admitted them to the Union before they were fit for it, and we 
 might have been slumbering on a volcano, that was only delay- 
 ing its eruption until it had recruited its exhausted strength. 
 
 It is charitable to suppose that this has been the error of the 
 President and it is to be supposed that in due time he will ap- 
 preciate the lesson which the disturbed state of the South so 
 plainly teaches. At all events, you of the Legislature must not 
 neglect it, for you may be assured that there are many thousands 
 in the land who, in the beginning shared with that officer in his 
 forgiving temper, who have now so thoroughly imbibed that 
 lesson, that the}' will not forgive you or him for disregarding it. 
 
 I have dwelt so lonir on this feature in the character of the 
 
38 THE SLAVEIIOLDEE. 
 
 secessionists, because it hus sprung so directly from the main 
 cause of all the trouble, and because it bore so directly on tlieir 
 political relations to the country. 
 
 Castes and Classes of tlie South. 
 
 There are other features however, springing from the same 
 cause, which must be considered. 
 
 The people were divided into castes, and at the top of the so- 
 cial pyramid, rested an aristocracy, to which the secessionists 
 claimed to belong. This aristocracy had all the evils which have 
 ever marked its existence, from the patrician days of Rome, to 
 the titled nobility of England. It was fast leading our South- 
 ern States to the condition in which Great Britain now is, where 
 even the liberals, who are, at this moment agitating for reform, 
 admit, that under their unwritten constitution, a member of 
 Parliament represents the property, and not the people of the 
 country. Such an unwritten constitution was fast creeping over 
 the South. 
 
 Take South Carolina as an instance. There the people never 
 voted for President, — the electors were appointed by the Legis- 
 lature. No man could be a member of the Legislature, unless 
 he owned land, or land and negroes, and no man could vote for 
 members of the Legislature, unless he owned 50 acres of land, or 
 a town lot. 
 
 The mode of appointing Presidential electors by the Legis- 
 latures, being permitted by the constitution, had at one time 
 prevailed in some of the Northern States, but had long ago been 
 resumed by the people. It was easier for South Carolina to 
 keep her presidential vote under the control of a few, and so 
 South Carolina adhered to the practice. 
 
 In several of the Southern States, there was a similar leaning 
 towards the id^a, that the governments represented property, 
 and not humanit}'. In Kortli Carolina, no man could be 
 Governor, unless he had a freehold, worth £1,000, nor in South 
 Carolina, unless he had a " settled freehold," worth £1,500 ; nor 
 in Georgia, unless he had 500 acres in land, or was worth $-i,000. 
 
 But it was not in those express enactments alone, that this 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 39 
 
 growth of an aristocracy was manifest. Wealth was rapidly 
 concentratini; in a few hands. Take Sonth Carolina again as an 
 example. In 1850, one twenty-fifth part of all her improved 
 lands was owned by sixteen persons, and there were persons in 
 the State, who owned, each over 1,000 hnman beings; and when 
 to this you add, that out of a male population of about 330,000, 
 nearly 200,000 were forever excluded from any participation in 
 tlie government, yon will see how growing was the evil of this 
 aristocracy. 
 
 I need not dilate upon the natural result of such a state of 
 things. But when we contrast it with the condition of the free 
 States, in those respects, we cannot wonder that there was found 
 among those people, a greater s^'uipathy with, and attachment 
 to the institutions of other countries, than to those of the free 
 States of America.* 
 
 In tlie one, such a condition might be perpetuated and encou- 
 raged. In the other, it would encounter an everlasting antago- 
 nism, before which it must ultimatelj' fall down and j^erish. 
 
 Power M'as permitted to yield to its natural propensity, of 
 stealing from the many to the few. 
 
 Social Condition. 
 
 Out of this state of things, grew up a condition of social life, 
 which had its effect all through society. 
 
 There was engendered a haughtiness, verging on insolence, 
 towards those whom they pleased to deem their inferiors, which 
 was calculated to alienate one portion of society from another, 
 and destroy all harmony between them. 
 
 And from this, naturally sprung a desire to keep down those 
 
 * In a publication by Riissel, the correspondent of the London Times in this 
 country, in 1801, he says: "There cropped out again the expression of re- 
 gret for the rebellion of 177G, and the desire, that if it came to the vorst, 
 England would receive back her erring children, or give them a prince, under 
 whom they could secure a monai'chical form of government. There is no 
 doubt about the earnestness with which these things are said." 
 
40 
 
 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 inferior, and above all, not to make any efforts at elevating 
 them. See how this worked ! South Carolina, with a popula- 
 tion of 715,371, expended for free schools in 1850, 874,4SG.31. 
 Connecticut, Avith a population of 460,670, expended the same 
 year for free schools, $411,794.17. 
 
 Hence, ai'ose an injurious influence to both classes, by foster- 
 ing in one a selfish habit of domination, and in the other a tame 
 subsers^iency. Has that influence been yet all removed, or is it 
 still lingering among the people, — an obstacle in the way of a 
 Avise reunion ? 
 
 Liabor Disreputable. 
 
 Hence flowed another idea, equally if not more injurious, and 
 that was that labor was not respectable. This idea, prevalent as 
 it was among all the white inhabitants, had a tendency to keep 
 the poorer class down, and to send the higlier class to ofiice and 
 public employments. Therefore so many Southerners, when the 
 war broke out, were found in the army and navy, and in the pub- 
 lic offices in the Capitol.* 
 
 Here again was an imitation of British example, where, as 
 we well know, the younger members of the aristocracy are 
 foisted upon the church, the arm}', the navy, and the pension 
 bureau and public office, not only at home but all abroad amid 
 England's vast colonial empire. The existence of this state of 
 things is sad enough there to the masses, because, if it does not 
 increase the public burdens, it at least kills all hope of reducing 
 them, and it is sustained there only because the legislative 
 power represents money and not man. Its continued existence 
 among us was simply impossible. But, in the meantime, ^YG 
 must inquire whether the state of opinion which produced this 
 condition of thino;s has been chans-ed, or exists still to stand in 
 the way of re-union now as earnestly as it stood up for disunion 
 five or six years ago. One thing is certain : the idea that Icgis- 
 
 * Tlie importance of tliis idea is manifest from tliis, tliat in all the discussions 
 at the South wliieh have resulted in their unanimous rejection of the proposed 
 Amemhnentto the Constitution, that clause wliich excludes them from office Las 
 occupied a prominent place. 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 41 
 
 lative power represents property and not the people, cannot bj 
 any possibility be permitted to exis-t in this countr}'. Our peo- 
 ple \vill eradicate it root and branch at all hazards. They will 
 not give to gold and silver a predominance over intellect and 
 virtue. 
 
 Another effect of this state of things was lavishness of expen- 
 diture, and extravagance of living, accompanied by a generous 
 hospitality, Avhich it was delightful to enjoy if painful to observe. 
 So far did this go throughout the Avhole of that society, that 
 even the " Poor White Trash," in bis rags, would turn up his 
 nose at our copper-coin, and that severe economy which had 
 laid the foundation of our progress at the North, was universally 
 regarded as meanness. Industry and economy were looked 
 down upon with scorn : untbrift and idleness were marks of the 
 gentleman. Has this been changed yet I It takes time to form 
 habits of thought. It takes time to form a wish to change those 
 habits, and it takes time to carry such a wish into effect. 
 
 Out of all this grew a superficialness of manner — a life U]x>n 
 the surface, which did not, as a first duty^ aim at the cultivation 
 of the inner and deeper, and more spiritual virtues. It forgot 
 that law of humanity which makes man instinctively " struggle 
 against beauty, genius and fascination, and yet cause him to 
 yield without reluctance to the charms of an amiable heart." 
 
 The Soiitberu Womeu. 
 
 This is eminently true of the women of the South, who, 
 throughout the contest, have been our most formidable adversa- 
 ries, and the most inveterate supportei^ of secessionism and 
 slavery'. 
 
 Is it strange that this should be so? Creatures, as they are, 
 rather of sentiment than of reason, swayed more by instinct than 
 by judgment, educated as they were from early childhood, in 
 the belief of the righteousness of their condition, and taught 
 from infancy in their churches, their schools and their social re- 
 lations, that slavery was a divine institution ; it is not wonder- 
 ful, that, in their characteristic devotion to what they believed 
 to be true, they should be ready to make every sacrifice for 
 
42 
 
 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 tlieir cause, and that even now they deem it a merit to endure 
 any amount of suffering in defence of what they honestly believe 
 to be right. 
 
 If this is so, then this must be viewed as an important con- 
 sideration to be wisely regarded in all efforts at reconstruction. 
 For it must be ever borne in mind, that reconstruction, to be 
 valuable, must be a cordial, heartfelt union of sentiment, and 
 not a mere external conformity produced by force. 
 
 Southern Politics. 
 
 The political sentiments of this class of people, and how far 
 they have been or may be changed, must be regarded. To un- 
 derstand this, it may be well to refer to the events out of which 
 they gi-ew. 
 
 Far back as the Convention which framed our National Con- 
 stitution, there was a strife between the idea of forming a strong 
 national government, capable within itself,' as the confederation 
 had not been, of carrying out all the purposes of nationality — or 
 one so restricted and hemmed in by counteracting powers, as 
 to prevent the recurrence of such tyranny as they had lately re- 
 belled against. This division of opinion has run through our 
 history from that day to this, and at that early period gave rise 
 to two parties, then known as Federal and -Republican. 
 
 In the Convention, these principles elicited much discussion, 
 and the result was a compromise, in Avhich however, the Re- 
 publican principles achieved the greatest predominance. 
 
 That success was greatly increased by the action of the States, 
 to whom the constitution was submitted for adoption. Several 
 amendments were proposed by the States, and finally agreed to. 
 
 Among them, the Ninth was " The enumeration in the Con- 
 " stitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or 
 " disparage others, retained by the people," and the Tenth M-as, 
 " The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 
 " tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
 " States respectively, or to the people." 
 
 It will be readily perceived that it was the reserved power of 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 43 
 
 the States, wliicli was looked to as the chief instrument of pre- 
 venting; too stronof a national 2;overnment. 
 
 In Washington's first administration, he took care to have in 
 his cabinet, representatives of both those principles, — Jefferson 
 Secretar}- of State, and Randolph, Attorney-General, the leaders 
 of one, and Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, and Knox, 
 Secretary of War, the leaders of the other. 
 
 There was not only this conflict of principle, but there was 
 then as now, a local or territorial rivalry. When the question 
 had arisen, who should become the leader of the armies of the 
 Kevolution, there was an earnest contest between a Virginia and 
 a Massachusetts man. Massachusetts had struck the first blow, 
 but Virginia was the most populous and wealthy. The contest 
 was ended by a magnanimous surrender by Massachusetts to 
 Virginia. It was on motion of John Adams, that the command 
 was given to Colonel Washington, of Virginia, and rich indeed 
 to the Avhole country, was the reward of this self-denial. But to 
 Massachusetts was accorded the Presidenc}' of the Confederate 
 Congress, in the person of John Hancock. 
 
 So, when the government was organized under the new 
 constitution, the Presidency was given to Virginia, and the Vice- 
 Presidency and the succession to Massachusetts. 
 
 The contest between these contending elernents of principle 
 and of territory, extended all through the administration of 
 Washington, which closed in 17D7, and into that of his successor, 
 Adams, when it culminated and ended, at tlie close of his admin- 
 istration, in the triumph of the Republican principle and the 
 bestowal of the Presidency upon citizens of Vii'ginia, for a period 
 of twenty-four successive 3'ears. 
 
 It was during the administration of Adams, that two of the 
 Southern States, at the instigation of Jefferson and Madison, 
 who became the two next Presidents, — passed what is familiarly 
 known in our political history, as the Kentucky and Virginia 
 Resolutions. 
 
 The main object of those resolutions, was to assert and give 
 force and vigor to the restraining power of State rights, and 
 ever since ISOl, they have been the text book and profession of 
 faith of tlie Southern States, and of that party which, for at least 
 Lalf-a-century, has had the control of our government, and which 
 amid its various changes of name, is now known as the De- 
 
44 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 mocratic. And so great a hold did these ideas obtain in the 
 process of time, npon the Southern States, that, notwithstanding 
 their division into political parties, they gave their votes, during 
 several Presidential elections, in one solid body, and with entire 
 unanimity, and thus, owing to divisions at the North, were en- 
 abled to control the results. To this it was that the country 
 owed the administrations of Pierce and Buchanan. 
 
 There was something in all this, beyond a mere selfish struggle 
 for power and position, — something beyond the triumph of an 
 ephemeral party of a da}'. The sagacious men of the South saw, 
 in this State rights doctrine, a means of protecting and per- 
 petuating their cherished institution of slavery, and for years, 
 they have followed the scent with a persistency and a wisdom 
 which challenges our admiration. They insisted that slavery 
 was a local institution, subject only to the control of the States 
 in which it existed, and so the non-slaveholding States were 
 taught to regard it, and did regard it, until it became too powerful 
 and aggressive to be any longer safe or endural)le. 
 
 Let me enumerate some of the evidences of this, for they are 
 calculated to show how fast and strong a hold these sentiments 
 have obtained on the Southern mind. 
 
 Fugitive Slaves. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States provides for the surren 
 der, in the several States, of fugitives from justice and from 
 servitude. 
 
 In regard to the surrender of fugitives from justice, there 
 never has been the slightest objection to the action of the State 
 to which the criminal had fled, in regulating his surrender. But, 
 in regard to the fugitives from service, there has been from the 
 beginning, an objection on the part of the South, against the 
 respective States having anything to do with the matter, and 
 they have obtained from the Supreme Court of the United States 
 the judgment that individual States cannot interfere, and that 
 the whole matter is exclusively in the hands of the National 
 Government. Hence, laws passed by Northern States, aiming 
 at the protection of personal liberty, and the defence of their 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 45 
 
 citizens against unfounded claims to the right of servitude, have 
 been declared unconstitutional, and Congress has, once and 
 again, yielding to the clamor of the slave interest, passed laws 
 to prevent State interference, and to provide for the efficient 
 exercise of the national power. 
 
 Extension of Slavery. 
 
 I have ever believed, from the very beginning of my invest! 
 gations into the institutions of our country, that notwithstand- 
 ing the concessions to slavery in our Constitution, there was, at 
 the time of its adoption, a general conviction among our people, 
 that it was in due time, to cease to exist among us. And I have 
 always supposed, that but for that expectation, the Constitution 
 would never have been ratified by the Northern States, as it 
 would probaldy, never have been ratified by the Southern States 
 but for those concessions.'^^ 
 
 From that moment, this antagonism of expectation has been 
 at work in our midst. The determination, to have an end to 
 slavery, has been quietly but silently growing among us, and 
 the determination to have it continue, has been increasing in 
 strength at the South. But the latter has been the active inter- 
 est, ever impelled forward by the instinct of self-preservation. 
 At a State Convention which you and I attended, in 1856, you 
 may remember that I had occasion to say : " The slavery inter- 
 " est, from the foundation of our government, has been agares- 
 " sive. And so lonfr as it is surrounded bv freedom, as large 
 " and as wide-spread as that which pervades our land, it must 
 " be aggressive. Aggression is a necessity of its existence. It 
 " must advance, or die. If it retreats, or pauses in its onward 
 " course, its fate is sealed, and it must perish." 
 
 * It is a singular fact, showing how indiflerent the people were to this 
 " instrument of compromises," that one State, (New York,) did not take the 
 trouble of casting its vote for the first President, and a quorum of the first 
 Congress, wliich was to have assembled in Marcli, did not appear till the 
 middle of April. 
 
46 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 To that onward progress the whole energies of the southern 
 mind have been devoted for a century, and to the conviction of 
 that necessity, all her people have been educated now and in 
 times past. 
 
 Hence the number of slaves in the nation swelled up from 
 some 7( '0,000 at the adoption of the Constitution to somewhere 
 between 8,000,000 and 4,000,000, in eighty years : the number 
 of slave States at the South augmented from six to fifteen, and 
 the area of slavery was enlarged by the acquisition of Florida 
 and Louisiana, by the annexation of Texas, and spoliations from 
 Mexico. 
 
 All this, Avhile it was repulsive to the anti-slavery feeling of 
 the xSorth, and only awakened there a sort of inert hostility, 
 was entirely consonant to southern feeling — was in unison with 
 a thorough and honest conviction of right, and aroused a spirit 
 of active aggression. And out of the feeling grew the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise, the attempt to introduce slavery into 
 Kansas, and the " filibustering " attacks on Cuba and Central 
 Ajuerica. 
 
 Sectional Patriotism. 
 
 This state of things not only showed a strong bias in public 
 feeliu'i- at the South, and alienated them from us at the Xorth, 
 because of our undoubted hostility to such a line of action, but 
 created in them a strange sort of local or sectional patriotism, 
 Avhich persuaded them that their attachment and their alle- 
 o-iauce to their State governments were stronger and more bind- 
 ino- than those to the nation, so that while we boasted of, and 
 prided ourselves on being citizens of the United States, they 
 claimed to be citizens of Virginia or South Carolina, and the 
 like. And so that, when the question was presented to them of 
 a choice between their allegiance to the nation or their State, 
 thev hesitated not one moment in choosing the latter, and men 
 like General Lee, high in position, of intelligence and integrity, 
 who had been educated at the expense of the nation, and M'ho 
 had sworn to support its constitution, did not scruple at violat- 
 ino- all these obligations and ignoring national patriotism, or at 
 
THE 3LAVEIfOLDEK. 47 
 
 yielding to the impulse of a local one, and what they deemed, 
 the superior obligations of State allegiance. 
 
 While we, as evidence of our national patriotism, may poiut 
 to our expenditure of thousands of millions of money, and to 
 sending into the field millions of men, they may point as evi- 
 dence of the sincerity of their local patriotism to a correspond- 
 ing expenditure and armament on their part. 
 
 Xow, the question is, has that perverted f»atriotism, which 
 has liitherto Ijeen so powerful with these people been changed, 
 or does it still exist — now, as of old, ready to produce immense 
 sacrifices, and to aim once more at the destruction of our nation- 
 ality? Xationality I Have they any idea of such a thing be- 
 yond that of the contracted limits of their own States ? Does 
 their heart swell and their pulse throb at saying " 1 am an 
 American Citizen?" — at the idea that they are parts of the peo- 
 ple, and of tlie ruling power of thirty millions of freemen who 
 have achieved " among the powers of the earth the separate and 
 equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God 
 entitle them '. " If they have not yet attained this sublimitv of 
 feeling, what is there left for us but the hope that in time they 
 may be educated up to it. And what law can be j>as5ed that 
 can compel it to exist ? 
 
 The condition of Ireland is a fair illustration of the difference 
 between local and national patriotism. 
 
 AVhatever may have caused it, the fact is, that an Irishman 
 unlike the Englishman, the Scotchman, the .Canadian or the 
 Australian, never claims to be a British subject, and with few 
 exceptions only, never recognizes the force or the feeling of 
 British patriotism ; and Ireland has for generations, been in a 
 chronic state of disorder and rebellion. How soon would all 
 her insurrections end, if she was only fully imbued with a 
 national patriotism I How soon would all her internal discord 
 cease, if she only had some Aaron's rod of nationality, powerful 
 enough to swallow up all the sham or smaller reptiles that wind 
 their devious way among her impulsive |>eople I 
 
 Patriotism — national, enlarged and unselfish I How noble is 
 its character I Ninety years ago it enabled 3,000,000 of people, 
 thinly scattered over a vast territory, to achieve their indepen- 
 dence of 003 of the mightiest nations of the earth. Lately it 
 
4:S THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 caused our people to send into the iield to crush rebellion, 
 600,000 more men than the government called for. And it is 
 now ready to renew the combat or bury the hatchet, to fight or 
 forgive, and to bear readily in either event, any sacrifice or suf- 
 fering, which the restoration of our Union, and the establish- 
 lishment of our nationality on a firmer basis, may demand. 
 
 Oh ! how thrice fortunate would it be, if we could only in- 
 duce our southern brethren to meet us on this platform ! — a 
 platform of a family of men, not of a collection of conquerors 
 and the conquered — a platform of equality, not of subjugation. 
 
 I would to God that my voice could reach every ear beyond 
 Mason and Dixon's line and penetrate every heart there, to dis- 
 pel the illusions which have misguided, and persuade the people 
 of the reality of that fraternal regard among us, which it is not 
 yet too late to awaken into activity on their behalf. For it is a 
 sad truth, of which you. Senator, must be as conscious as I am, 
 that, owing to the manner in which our advances towards con- 
 ciliation have been received, there is, at this moment, more 
 asperity in the feelings of the North toward the South than ever 
 before, and it is terrifying to think how much worse it may be 
 made. How soon would an enthusiatic national patriotism 
 dispel all these feelings and restore harmony ! 
 
 But it seems to me that I need not dilate any more at large 
 upon those peculiarities of the southern character which Ave 
 must regard in our efibrts at reconstruction. Tliere are others 
 which flow from those already noticed, which will readily sug- 
 gest themselves to you. 
 
 Section Six. 
 
 Effect ot Southern Peculiarities. 
 
 Two questions, hoAvever, naturally present themselves ; one is 
 what effect have these peculiarities already produced ? — and how 
 far arc they to be considered in our eflforts at reconstruction ? 
 
 Their effect has been most unhappy. 
 
 1. Aside from their having produced the war itself and caused 
 its stupendous sacrifices and suffering on both sides, they have 
 
THE SLAVEHOLDER. 49 
 
 caused tlic rejection of all the offers of conciliation wliicli we 
 have made. 
 
 2. Tiiey have caused their people to submit to the result of the 
 war of arms, sullenly and reluctantly, thus plainly telling us 
 that nothing but the consciousness of our superior power has 
 extorted from them even an appearance of submission, 
 
 3. When, through the policy of the President, they were again 
 clothed with the power of local self government, instead of jus- 
 tifying his confidence in them and uniting with him in his efforts 
 at a cordial reunion, the)' conferred their power upon the very 
 worst enemies of the Union, and would seem to have striven, 
 with all their might, to defeat his humane purposes and to ren- 
 der him and his policy of conciliation odious to the M'hole 
 country. 
 
 4. Instead of meeting half way the kind and forgiving spirit of 
 the North, they seem to have cherished a feeling of hatred 
 towards us, and to have aimed to make it more bitter and vin- 
 dictive tiian it was even while the war was in progress. 
 
 5. With their fields laid waste, their whole industrial s_ystem 
 deranged, wealth gone, and poverty walking in their midst, and 
 when every ingress of capital and enterprise was of the greatest 
 value to them, they have met the effort of wealth and labor to 
 aid them with an insane persecution for opinion's sake, which 
 has arrested the inflow of both. Strange delusion ! They seem 
 to have been delighted at the opportunity of standing on the 
 grave of their former prosperity and crying ha! ha! over its 
 dead body. 
 
 What is it that has caused this suicidal course of conduct ? If 
 it were princi])le, we could make allowances for it ; nay ! we 
 could admire it, as we do the devotion of the Hollanders, who 
 cut their dykes and inundated their country, to repel the inva- 
 sion of the XlVth Louis of France, or that of Russia, Avhen she 
 fired her Moscow at the approach of Napoleon. But it is hard 
 to find the principle, and it is much to be feared that it springs 
 from a baser passion — Piide.* It is possible — and, therefore, we 
 
 * There are two words which the last few years have rendered marvelously 
 distasteful to me — namely, "Pride" and "Chivalry." They awaken in me 
 now always the idea of what our traders call " hollow ware." 
 4 
 
50 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 
 
 must view it in that aspect — it is, I say, possible that it may be 
 pride — pride, wliich revolts at the idea of being compelled to 
 recognize as equals those whom they once ruled as slaves — at 
 seeing the despised Yanlcee developing the wealth which slum- 
 bers valueless under their incapacity — at being reduced to the 
 necessity of recognizing the superiority of a people whom they 
 once persuaded themselves they could conquer Mith so much 
 ease — at being sunk from what they' would deem the supremacy 
 of idleness to the degradation of toil. 
 
 But to leave this digression and return to a consideration of 
 what the Southerners have done since they have been left to act 
 for themselves. 
 
 6. They have caused or permitted — it matters not which, 
 because they could have prevented — a state of disorder, in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country which renders life and property un- 
 safe. It may very well be that some of the newspaper accounts 
 are exaggerated, and that the disorder is less widely spread than 
 they represent, but the fact seems to be beyond dispute, that 
 there is, in the lately Confederated States, a condition of lawless- 
 ness and violence unbecoming a well regulated community, and 
 which is calculated at least, if not designed, to keep away from 
 the territory that immigration which would contribute so greatly 
 to its regeneration. 
 
 7. Unrestricted manhood suffrage, not founded on property, 
 has prevailed too long and too generally in this country not to 
 be deemed, at this day, a fixed feature of our institutions. This 
 inv(tlves, for the sake of us all, upon the class who are fortunate 
 enough to have property and education, a duty to do all in their 
 power to elevate those who have not been so fortunafe in edu- 
 cation at least, so that they may become intelligent and reliable 
 voters.* This duty, always sadly neglected in the slave States, 
 
 * It would seem as if in the Providence of God, the establishment of man- 
 hood instead of property suffrage with us, was to be an instrument of eleva- 
 ting the people, and even of those who immigrate with their own wonted 
 ignorance, for it compels the higher classes possessing wealth and cultivation, 
 (or their own safety sake, to make stupendous efforts at the diffusion of educa- 
 tion among all classes. See the consequences at the South, where that stim- 
 ulant was wanting ! 
 
TUE SLAYEIIOLDEK. Ol 
 
 lias not been entered upon by the residents there M'ith zeal, shice 
 the war, and it is much to be feared that in some instances, 
 efforts at it, from without the territor}', have been retarded, if 
 not actually thwarted. If the Southern people had entered 
 zealously upon the performance of this most important duty, 
 how gladly would the people of the North have flown to their 
 aid, and have contributed all that was necessary to have made 
 the effort successfnl ! The very expenditure that is now ren- 
 dered necessary for the maintenance there of military power, 
 would have gone a great way towards it, and most joyfully 
 would that direction have been given to it. 
 
 But it seems long to have been a prevalent idea at the South, 
 that education was the privilege of the few, and not the right 
 of the mass, audits discouragement among them has had the 
 evident effect of concentrating power in the hands of the few, 
 and disfranchising the many. It has been hard therefore for 
 an imperfectly comprehended duty to overcome so powerful a 
 temptation. Is it so yet? And is this one of the obstacles we 
 are to encounter ? 
 
 8. In fine, while we have within the last two years contributed 
 freely of our means to the relief of the destitute among them, 
 white and colored ; while we have sent them labor and capital, 
 and evinced a wish to send more ; while we have striven to in- 
 troduce education among them, and trusted them again witli 
 the power of self government; and while we have thus — and 
 wisel}', as I think the future will show — made all these efforts at 
 conciliation, and would most gladly have made more, their mode 
 of receiving our advances has been such as to admonish us, 
 greatly to our sorrow, that the experiment has been a failure. 
 
 It is not our fault that it is so, for some of our efforts at con- 
 ciliation have been made at a great sacrifice, and at the hazard 
 of discord among ourselves, that has approached nigh unto dis- 
 astrous results. The conti'ibution to their aid which we would 
 have gladly made our chief duty, they have compelled us to 
 postpone, and give the first place to the imperative obligation to 
 protect the loyal, the peaceable and the orderly from the aggres- 
 sion of propensities long cultivated, always mischievous, and 
 which there seems to be no desire to correct. 
 
52 the slaveiioldee. 
 
 Section Sevej?. 
 Absence of General L-aw. 
 
 If I have been as trutlifiil as [ have been sincere, one conclu- 
 sion is most apparent, and it is one of the most unhappy 
 features of this whole thing; and that is, that no general law 
 which jou can pass, can reach them all. Thev have jjlaced 
 themselves in such a position, that that which is with us, the 
 happj privilege of living under general laws applicable alike to 
 all classes, can have no existence with them. If we aim at 
 elevating the negro, we auger the white man, and his habit of 
 resorting to force for the redress of all grievances, is at once 
 awakened into activity. If we aim at conciliating the seces- 
 sionist by restoring to liim ngain the power that of riglit belongs 
 to citizenship, that power is abused, and other classes rendered 
 unsafe. If we aim at protecting the loyal and the peaceable, 
 we can do so only by establishing military rule, which is not 
 only repugnant to the feelings of our people, but is calculated, 
 by the irritation of its operation, to alienate from us still more 
 those whom we would so gladly conciliate. It is a difficult 
 thing, out of a subjugated province to make a free State, in full 
 and equal communion with others. Poland, Hungary and Ire- 
 land are melancholy examples of the difficulty of the task. 
 
 To this state of things, after two years of a contrary effijrt on 
 our part, we have been forced by the conduct of the Southern 
 people themselves, and it is one of the saddest reflections which 
 flow from the contemplation of the subject, that the Southern 
 mind is so wretchedly perverted as to have produced it. Is it 
 ao-ain to be their fate to have inscribed over the entrance into 
 their country Quein deus, &c., " whom the Gods would destroy 
 they first make mad 7" and must those words again, in the 
 providence of God, denounce war upon them — war with all its 
 brutalizing and desolating consequences ? Will they again be 
 so infatuated as to endeavor to concentrate into one grand effort, 
 the broken fragments of violence and disorder which now lie 
 scattered throughout their land ? 
 
 It certainly looks like it, but at all events the question is an 
 important one, and must be asked, and answered too, before we 
 can devise the proper measures to be adopted. 
 
THE NORTIIEKN PEOrLE. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 The Northern People. 
 
 We must not, however, in considerino; the question of TJecon- 
 struction, confine our attention to the Southern people. Those 
 of the North must also be considered. For it is an undoubted 
 fact among us — Mxll understood and ajipreciated b}^ us, however 
 much foreigners may sneer at or lail to comprehend it — that no 
 law or measure of government can be successful or permanent 
 that conflicts with public sentiment. It will be sure to be dis- 
 regarded or revoked. It is, therefore, necessary to regard in this 
 connection, the people in the loyal States and their sentiments. 
 
 It is most easy for me in this pajier to do that, by dividing 
 them into classes, and I will do so, though I see no necessity for 
 entering so much into detail as I have in speaking of the South- 
 ern people. 
 
 Section One. 
 
 Auti-Slavery Men. 
 
 One of our classes is so decidedly radical in its detestation of 
 Slavery, that that, and everything connected with it, is, if not 
 the sole, yet the chief object of vision with them. Earnestly 
 intent upon emancipation from the beginning, they have done a 
 mighty work before God and man, and are, probabl}-, as much 
 astonished as is the rest of the world, at the rapidity and ease 
 with which it was accomplished. The excitement which the 
 stupendous conflict awakened has not yet entirely died out with 
 them, and demands food for its continued existence. And then, 
 the honest conviction which impelled their earlier action has 
 wrought in their minds a sense of duty to elevate those for 
 whom they have obtained freedom. This is a righteous feeling, 
 
51 ANTI-SLAVERY MEN. 
 
 and will lead to no spirit of peroccution, unless it is found that 
 the efforts at elevating the Freedmeu are persistently thwarted 
 by the quondam slave-holder, or his sympathizing retainers. If, 
 at the close of the war and since, they had belield even a willing 
 acquiescence in the efforts of the humane at the elevation of the 
 colored race, they would have been content, though not easily 
 overlooking the neglect, by the slave-holder, of his duty in this 
 respect. At all events, they would, doubtless, have troubled 
 themselves but little about other measures, so that the perform- 
 ance of this great duty was insured ; and they would be quite 
 satisfied now with any measure which would be certain to acconi- 
 p)lish that end. That being done, all feelings of anger, which 
 have grown out of the obstacles which the perverse madness of 
 Southern people have interposed, would soon vanish. Nay, 
 more ! soon give place to a kindly feeling of pity for those whose 
 training has been so perverted as to deny to them the knowledge 
 of how great may be the enjoyment flowing from the luxury of 
 bearing light and knowledge to the ignorant, and of lifting up 
 the down-trodden from their fallen estate. 
 
 There is one measure which this class would, doubtless, have 
 gladly seen adopted, and that is, the securing of universal suf- 
 frage by a provision in the National Constitution, and not leave 
 it to the State Constitutions, whence it may, at any time, be 
 removed by State power. That may yet be done, if there should 
 occur a necessity for it. In the meantime, suffrage being given 
 to the Freedmen, it will be for them to say whether it shall be 
 taken from them. In such a vote, the negro's voice will be as 
 potential as that of the white man, and it will be far better for 
 them to learn to be able to protect themselves than to depend 
 upon others — far better for them to learn at the earliest possible 
 moment the important lesson that eternal vigilance is the price 
 of liberty. 
 
 Section Two. 
 
 Sympathisers with Secession. 
 
 Another class consists of those who, from political association, 
 and from an imperfect knowledge of the negro character, have 
 
SYMPATHISERS WITH SECESSION. 00 
 
 all along, and do now, earnestly sympathize with the quondam 
 slave-holder and secessionist. 
 
 Some of these are, doubtless, earnest in the belief that the 
 Kegro is, by nature, so inferior — not inferior only to the white 
 man — but so inferior, that he can never be elevated to a condi- 
 tion of being capable of exercising the privileges of citizenship 
 as wisely and as well as themslves. Neither law, nor argument, 
 nor government measure can ever remove this impression. 
 Time and experience alone can settle that question in their 
 minds. But, in the meantime, their apprehensions are aggra- 
 vated by the belief that if full powers of citizenship are once 
 given to the Negro, they can never be taken away from him 
 again, however unwisely to himself or unsafely to others he may 
 exercise them. This matter also, time will settle, for a quarter 
 of a century will not elapse before our people will have a more 
 just conception of the status of the Negro among us, than they 
 have now or can have, until the excitement of the still lingering 
 conflict shall have entirely passed away. 
 
 That the two races cannot live together en permanence, on 
 terms of political equality, is a proposition which I suppose the 
 history of mankind has not yet settled. It maybe that coloniza- 
 tion may be the necessity, or a forcible expulsion from the 
 country, like the Moors from Spain : or it may be that in obe- 
 dience to that law of progress which pervades all nature, and 
 which causes the inferior to give way to the superior, the Negro 
 may, like the Indian, perish in the presence of the white man: 
 or it may be that experience may demonstrate the practicability 
 of political, if not social equality between the races. But, what- 
 ever doubts I may have on this question, I confess I do not 
 share in the apprehensions to which I have referred. For after 
 the ol)servation of a long life, I have imbibed great confidence 
 in the capacity of our people to meet the emergency which may 
 grow out of the solution of this question. 
 
 I do not mean to be understood as expressing that confidence 
 in all the decisions of the people. It is not infreipient that ])as- 
 sion, prejudice, indifference or ignorance may sway them, but 
 it is that judgment of theirs which is founded upon their s<;ber, 
 second thought, and for which they have been educated by the 
 circumstances which have surrounded them, in which I repose 
 
56 SYMPATHISERS WITH SECESSION. 
 
 my confidence. The state of education among the mass of our 
 people was far greater when the Eebellion broke out in 186 1, 
 than that when the Revolution ended in 1783 ; and when the 
 mighty question of emancipation came npon us, almost covertly, 
 certainly unexpectedly, it was found that unconsciously to our- 
 selves, the public mind had been prepared for the emergency, and 
 M'as fully capable of meeting it. So I apprehend it will be 
 when the hour shall come for us to determine definitely what 
 to do with the Negro, now that we have freed him. . 
 
 True, we may then again find among us elements like the 
 " poor white trash " of the South, or the uninstructed alien at 
 the North, who will obstruct rather than aid a proper determina- 
 tion, and the one class may be found indulging in a riot, and 
 the other enlisted in the war against freedom. But even they 
 can be educated up to an understanding of the crisis — or their 
 descendants at least. If, however, they shall not be, past ex- 
 perience shows that in the very worst condition of their passion 
 and ignorance they can only disturb. They cannot thwart. 
 
 I repeat, then, that I do not share in these apprehensions. 
 Time, alone, can show whether they are well founded. No law 
 can settle the question, and to time we must leave it, unless we 
 are prepared now to say, that they rest on so solid a foundation 
 that equality of citizenship is out of the question : and the only 
 alternatives between which we are left to choose are coloniza- 
 tion, expulsion, or extinction. 
 
 lean hardly think that even the class of whom I am speak- 
 ing, are yet prepared to say that we arc reduced to these alterna- 
 tives. They are fearful to contemplate, but they are upon us, 
 and we must choose between them, unless we conclude to try 
 the experiment of allowing the colored race to live with us, and 
 on such terms as will enable them to protect themselves, and 
 themselves contribute to their own necessary elevation. 
 
 Still, these considerations do not answer the whole of the ob- 
 jections of this class. They ask, with great pertinency, " can 
 they not be elevated without giving them political equality ? 
 Prussia is an illustration of the practicability and effect of com- 
 pulsory education ! " The answer is as pertinent : " The Prus- 
 sian is educated to become the subject of absolutism — to be of 
 the governed and not of the governors, and when educated, he 
 
SYMPATHISERS WITH SECESSION. 57 
 
 has social equality with the world around him." That tlie 
 Negro, probably, never can have, and in every attempt at com- 
 pulsory education he M'ill find himself amid social relations 
 which are indifferent, if not actually hostile to his elevation. 
 
 And this must be so, arising from the diiference between the 
 races, long after slavery shall have been forgotten and all its in- 
 fluences expired. 
 
 The force of tins answer will be appreciated when Ave reflect 
 that the application of this compulsory education must be local 
 — must be exerted in the vicinage of the Negro, and be con- 
 fined to a portion only of our temtory, away from the daily ob- 
 servation and interruption of at least three-quarters of the 
 whole people, and especially of those who take the deepest in- 
 terest in their elevation. 
 
 But in order that I may be certain to be nnderstood, I beg 
 leave to repeat the position I have taken. AVe have the Ne- 
 groes among us to the number of three or four millions ; we 
 have emancipated them, and we find them poor, degraded and 
 ignorant ; we cannot colonize them all ; we cannot expel them 
 from tl^e country ; we cannot look to their extirpation, and have 
 we anything left but to elevate them 1 And, considering that 
 they are confined to a portion of our territory, and not wide- 
 spread among us all, and are destined to live among an un- 
 friendly population, how can we hope for their elevation unless 
 we confer on them the power of self-protection ? 
 
 There is another portion of this class of Northern people who 
 are swayed by far dift'erent motives. They have sympathised 
 with secession from the beginning from mere party considera- 
 tions. Having enjoyed power for years by a coalition with 
 Southern voters, they have clung to their " confederates" from 
 a reluctance to abandon their hold on power and patronage. 
 For them, I invoke no sympathy. They have " given up to 
 party what was due to mankind." 
 
 During our war of 1S12, with Great Britain, there was a 
 party in the Eastern States so hostile to our Government and 
 the war, that they assembled in convention at Hartford, and 
 claimed the right to make a separate treaty of peace with the 
 common enemy. It was not long before public opinion so 
 thoroughly ostracised them, that to be known as a " Hartford 
 
58 THE CONSERVATIVES. 
 
 Conventioiiist," was a perfect disqualification for all public posi- 
 tion. The stain was, in the estimation of the people indelible, 
 and even death did not eradicate it. The class of to-day of 
 whom I am speakino', may profit by the example. Our people 
 have other means than tlie gibbet for punishing sympathy with 
 treason, and it may be true yet that — 
 
 Men may live but in history's curse, 
 
 Be forgotten as fools or remembered as worse. 
 
 Their number, however, is not large enough to demand much 
 consideration, and death and shame will alike contribute daily 
 to diminish it, and that the more rapidly, as our people grow 
 more and more to appreciate tlie magnitude of the conflict in 
 which they have triumphed, and the vastuess of the sacriflces 
 which a national patriotism has prompted them to make for 
 their country and for freedom. 
 
 Section Theee. 
 
 The Conservatives. 
 
 Tlie remaining class of our Northern people are those who 
 eschew both the extremes of which I have spoken, and on the 
 question of Reconstruction, may be emphatically termed " Con- 
 servative." This is by far the most numerous class of all, and. 
 while the one extreme may clamor above all things for severity 
 and punishment upon the authors of disorder and violence, and 
 the other clamor with equal vehemence for universal and un- 
 conditional amnesty, this large class are anxious, above all things, 
 for a harmonious and pernmnent reunion of the whole country. 
 They deprecate both extremes, for they see mischief in both. 
 They have beheld, with regret, the too great lenity of the Presi- 
 dent, for events have shown that in many cases, his pardons, un- 
 like those of God, have been bestowed upon the persistent and 
 not upon the repentant offender. They have beheld with sor- 
 row, the intolerance with which some have met every difference 
 from their own opinions, and the vindictive spirit with which 
 
THE CONSERVATIVES. 69 
 
 they have insisted that tlie prime duty of power in the emer- 
 gency is to punish and to crush, — forgetful, that in this they are 
 copying after the very people whom they have condemned for 
 regarding force as the chief instrument of government ; and for- 
 getful, too, of the teaching, both of wisdom and of Christianity, 
 that love is a far more effective instrument of control than fear. 
 This class, compassionating the wretched condition of hnmilia- 
 tion and suffering to M'liich the Southern people have, in their 
 infatuation, reduced themselves, and inclined to leniency from 
 the very close of the war, have been put out of all patience 
 with the continued madness which has abnsed every offer at 
 conciliation. But there is sorrow rather than anger in this feel- 
 ing, and they would even yet gladly forgive, if forgiveness 
 could onlj' produce reformation : and while they are ready now 
 to permit the existence of a military government over the con- 
 quered States, they do so with the greatest reluctance, and only 
 because the preservation of peace and good order demand it. 
 They will insist upon its being temporary and will ever be 
 found ready to adopt any measure which the wisdom of events 
 may suggest as best calculated to produce a harmonious union. 
 There is no danger that habit or familiarity with it, will ever 
 induce them to submit to the predominance of the military 
 power one moment longer than absolute necessit}'' shall demand. 
 
60 CHANGES SINCE THE WAE, 
 
 CPIAP. VII. 
 
 The CliaDges since the War. 
 
 I have thus enumerated eight classes of people — live at the 
 South, and three at the ]N'orth, who are to be regarded in our 
 efforts at Eeconstruction. To which of them the most impera- 
 tive duty may be owing, at any given moment, must depend 
 upon the circumstances existing at the time. So, I have referred 
 to various measures which it would be necessary to adopt, but 
 which of them would be most necessary, at the moment, must 
 also depend upon circumstances. 
 
 At the close of the war, no restrictive measures on the seces- 
 sionists were required, for their submission to the result seemed 
 to be complete and uncpalified, and our chief duty appeared to 
 be the elevation of the Freedmen ; but now, repression of the 
 still existing and rampant spirit of rebellion has become a neces- 
 sity. Then, it was the hour of triumph and apparently of safety 
 to the loval man ; now, his protection against intolerant aggres- 
 sion is as imperative in its demands as it ever was in the very 
 worst days of the war. At one time it seemed as if nothing was 
 necessary to complete reunion but a restoration to the South of 
 the power of local self government ; but now so wantonly has 
 that power been abused, and I had almost said so insolently has 
 it been exercised in contempt of our spirit of forbearance, that 
 the elevation of the Freednaen, the protection of the loyal, and 
 the hope of reunion alike forbid their further exercise of it, at 
 least for the present, and until they can teach themselves or be 
 taught by us how to use it. At one time it was believed that 
 having of their own volition submitted to the arbitrament of 
 arms the questions of Slavery and Secession, and having been 
 defeated, after the utmost effort on their part, they would, like 
 people of common sense, acquiesce in the result and at least 
 suffer those who had misled them to this defeat, to pass out of 
 
CHANGES SINCE THE WAK. 61 
 
 sight and be forgotton ; but now those leaders are industriously 
 thrust into the most prominent places among them, as if to show 
 to us that they are determined to use what little of power there 
 is left to them, in rewarding those who were most prominent 
 and most efficient in the effort to perpetuate slavery and destroy 
 the Union, as if to show that rebellion was far more acceptable 
 to them than loyalty. 
 
 Was the instance ever known in history in which rebellion, 
 when defeated, was permitted thus to flaunt itself in the face of 
 loyalty ? At one time we could smile at this, and let it pass as 
 harmless bravado, but now it is assuming too serious an aspect 
 to be trifled with, for it is becoming in their minds conclusive 
 evidence of their being at once right and powerful. 
 
 Such have been the changes in our condition wrought during 
 . the past two years. Who can tell what may occur in the near 
 future ? When we look back upon the last six years and Ijchold 
 what great changes have been wrouglit, far beyond anything 
 that human foresight could have foretold, we are warned that 
 others may yet come before the national mind shall be fully 
 prepared to adopt the precise measures necessary for a ]:)crfect 
 reunion. We may look back upon that past in solemn awe, and 
 recognize the hand of a Divine Providence, both in the means 
 and the end, but we must also recognize that, now as then, a 
 duty of action rests upon us as His instruments in the work. 
 
 Tiie evils under which we have suftered owe their oriiiin to 
 early training, to habits of thought and action acquired in early 
 youth, to necessities growing out of a peculiar condition of so- 
 ciety, and it must be the work of time to produce a change. 
 The social system of a territory as large as most modern em- 
 pires, has to be regenerated. The industrial system of 12,000,000 
 of people is to be reorganized. The instinctive repugnance of 
 races having no natural affinity for each other, is to be overcome. 
 Four or Ave millions have to be educated up from a state of bar- 
 barous ignorance. A national patriotism is to be engendered 
 and fraternal harmony created among those who have encoun- 
 tered each other in a deadly strife, in which many hundix'd thou- 
 sands have perished, leaving sorrow and mourning in thousands 
 of homes. 
 
62 
 
 MAGNITUDE OF THE TASK. 
 
 CHAP. YIII. 
 
 Magnitude of our Task. 
 
 Tliis is indeed a mighty work, and it may very well be that 
 it cannot be performed until this generation shall have passed 
 away and given place to a new one, trained by events to a 
 familiarity with very diflerent sentiments. It was long after 
 the union upon one head of the Crown of the two Kingdoms, 
 before the English and the Scotch, after previous hostility be- 
 tween them, became so habituated to each other as to produce 
 the harmonious union that now exists. It was long after the 
 doctrine of the divine right of kings perished on the scatFuld of 
 Charles Stuart, before peace and freedom were restored to 
 England — long after Louis XYI expiated at the guillotine the 
 crimes of despotism, before order reigned in France again. It 
 is a hundred years since the proclamation in our land of the 
 principle of an equality of human rights, and it is only now 
 that its actual existence is beginning to be established in its 
 proper universality. 
 
 Such, in the providence of God, is the tardiness with which 
 "man's elevation always progresses, and we cannot hope for an 
 exemption from the universal law. 
 
THE END IN VIEW. C3 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 Tlie End in VicAV. 
 
 Still, this is no reason why we, who are living actors in the 
 passing scene, should sit down in inactivity. We can do much 
 to hasten the result; much to prevent or alleviate the suffering 
 which might otherwise attend its advent. Keeping the restora- 
 tion of a liarmonions reunion ever in view, as the chief object to 
 be attained ; and inspired, as we may well be, with an abiding 
 confidence that it will yet be attained, we can do much, very 
 much in the meanwhile. 
 
 Section One. 
 
 Not expect too much of Government. 
 
 But of one error we must beware — we must not ask or expect 
 too nmch of our Government. There are other instruments of 
 rule with us than political and otticial action ; other means of 
 control than the direct application of force; other appliances for 
 human advancement than those with which Government has to 
 do. It is not to laws or constitutions alone that we need resort 
 for a redress of grievances or the diffusion of happiness. With 
 us, religion, education, social life, industry, trade, ask and will 
 permit from Government nothing but protection, and that pro- 
 tection which shall permit to each its broadest freedom of action. 
 So that, it will readily be seen, that there are many other engines 
 besides Government that may be set to work in the task that is 
 before us. 
 
64 PAST REVOLL''nONS. 
 
 Section Two. 
 
 Past Revolutions with us. ' 
 
 Let mfi pause a moment, Senator, to illustrate this by instances 
 from our history of changes "wrought in this manner. 
 
 In the jealousy of concentrated power in the nation, which 
 had so strong a hold upon the convention which framed our con- 
 stitution, it was provided that the appointment of the officers 
 and the authority of training the militia should be reserved to 
 the States respectively. Yet, under the invention of " volunteer- 
 ing," the Government of the nation has assumed the whole 
 power of discipline, and the power of appointment of all officers 
 above the rank of Colonel of our vast army which conquered the 
 rebellion, and not of the regular army, as was originally designed. 
 
 So it has been, for many years, a disputed question whether 
 Congress had power to establish a national bank and thus ob- 
 tain a control over the currency as well as the coin of the nation. 
 During the Presidency of Jackson, that question was distinctly 
 presented to the people, and so distinctly settled, that the U. S. 
 Bank was suffered to expire and none been created since in its 
 place; but now, the national government has obtained a greater 
 control over the currency than was ever before even attempted — 
 has usurped to itself, indeed, an almost conq^lete monojDoly of 
 it. 
 
 So, too, with the doctrine of State Rights, which also had its 
 fast hold on the convention and the people in 1790. Without 
 the recognition of those rights, as contained in the constitution 
 and its amendments, the States would not have gone into the 
 Union. Now, no State will be admitted with that recognition 
 in the sense in which they were then understood. 
 
 Individual rebellion against the Government was provided 
 for, but there was no provision for punishing the rebellion of 
 States. It might be prevented or suppressed — the constitution 
 gave power to do that, but it gave no power to punish. But 
 now, under the pressure of necessitv", civil government is with- 
 drawn from such States, and they are punished with a military 
 rule. The disability of self-government is the penalt}" of their 
 offence. 
 
PAST REVOLUTIONS. 65 
 
 And W3 have these strange anomalies. The mastery of the 
 sword, in other hands, is establislied over those who were the 
 first to appeal to that mastery, and those States "who insisted 
 npon their right to go oat of the Union, are now, notwithstand- 
 ing their earnest claim for admittance, kept ont, and by those 
 very States ^A"ho went into tlie Avar for the avowed pnrpose of 
 preventing their going out. 
 
 In like manner our general government, which for the first 
 thirty or forty years of this century Avas conducted on the princi- 
 ple of the strictest construction of limited and delegated powers, 
 has, now, by a series of events an<l the necessities growing out 
 of them, by the action of Congress, by the adjudications of our 
 Courts, and by the nndisputed exercise of power, become as 
 strong, as vigorous, and as exempt from the trammels of rigid in- 
 terpretation as even Alexander Hamilton himself ever advocated 
 or desired, and as free from the weaknesses which beset the 
 Articles of Confederation as any one can wish. 
 
 The ruling politicians of that period would be not a little as- 
 tonished to-day, at the great change that has been wrought in 
 this respect. 
 
 Another instance will be found in the Office Tenure Bill, 
 lately passed, whereby there has in a great measure been ter- 
 minated a principle and a practice, which have obtained for 
 many years : that of removing men from office, howe\'er faithful 
 or capable, for difference of opinion, and making a wide-SAveep- 
 ing change at every fiuctuation of party ascendancy ; tlms treat- 
 ing office designed for the public welfiire, as the spoils of a cap- 
 tured city, — belonging to tlie victor. The corruption and mis- 
 chief which have flowed from this pernicious practice have been 
 but too apparent, and now a revolution has come and ended it. 
 — Esto ])erpetua ! The destruction of this element of corrup- 
 tion, is of itself almost worth what the war has cost. 
 
 These are things Avhich have grown up in the progress of 
 events, and are the products of power found, not in our written, 
 but our unwritten institutions — the power of public opinion, 
 wdiich is now, and ever will be mighty indeed where freedom 
 of opinion rules. 
 
 And it is to this power, as well as to that of the administra- 
 tion of the Government, that we must appeal in this eraergeac3\ 
 5 
 
GQ WHAT IS TO BE DONE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Section One. 
 
 Wlint is to be Done? 
 
 How naturally, from all these considerations, flows the ques- 
 tion : What these powers — separately or conjointl}^ — can or 
 onght to do ? 
 
 This is a question which it is indeed hard to answer, and I 
 doubt if the country is yet prepared to answer it. It must, how- 
 ever, be answered some time or other, and we can now, at least, 
 approximate to a solution. 
 
 No scheme of Reconstruction has been yet proposed that em- 
 braced the whole subject, or was generally acceptable, nor do I 
 believe that it is best that any such scheme should be proposed. 
 It seems to me that the work must be done in detail, now one 
 measure and now another, just as events occur: for I have 
 always found that no human sagacity could so well devise a 
 remedy, as the event itself would suggest when it occurred. It 
 seems to me, therefore, that we must take this matter up by 
 piece-meal, and now provide one remedy, and by-and-by 
 another, as circumstances demand. Our own history is an ex- 
 ample of this truth. 
 
 In 1777, the States which had revolted from Great Britain 
 formed a confederacy, and in 1778 adopted " Articles of Con- 
 federation," and formed of thirteen colonies, a nation called 
 " The United States of America." Those Articles carried us 
 through the Revolutionary war, after a fashion, but after the 
 close of the war in 1783, they were utterly incapable of answer- 
 ing the exigencies of a national government. So, in 1787, after 
 four years of disorder and weakness, a convention assembled and 
 framed a Constitution, which was adopted in 1788, and the 
 
WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE. 67 
 
 Government organized under it in 1789. It was amended in 
 1798, and again in 1803, so that a period of 25 years elapsed 
 between the first attenij^t at and tlie final consummation of a com- 
 plete union, in the form in which it has ever since existed. 
 
 So our revolutionary struggle began at least ten years before 
 the Declaration of Independence,* and ended only after a lapse 
 of some seventeen years. And all along through the beginning 
 of it, there were distinct avowals that a separation from Great 
 Britain was not sought for. But time brought independence in 
 its train as an inevitable consequence. As in our late struggle, 
 we began by disavowing all intention to interfere with slavery, 
 yet in the course of events, found emancipation in our path and 
 embraced it. 
 
 In all these matters, the grand results seem not so much to 
 have been aimed at in the beginning, as to have flowed of neces- 
 sity from intervening events. 
 
 Section Tavo. 
 
 What lias Already been Done. 
 
 So it seems to me, it mast be with us now. No general scheme 
 embracing the whole subject, I repeat, has yet been suggested, 
 or, apparently, even devised in any mind. But many isolated 
 steps have been taken, important as tending to the ultimate 
 result. 
 
 Thus, we have abolished Slavery : we have compelled the 
 Confederate States to repudiate their war debt : we have begun 
 the system of universal education, faintly and feebly, to be sure, 
 and mainly through private enterprise, l;)ut yet actually begun 
 it: we have begun the attempt to regenerate their industr}' and 
 reclaim their desolate fields by the introduction of labor and 
 wealth : we have tried the experiment of self-government, 
 abandoned it, and are about substituting a military power, to 
 afford the protection and order that is demanded : and we have 
 
 * The Stamp Act was passed ia 1765. 
 
68 WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE. 
 
 made a distinct offer of the terms on wliicli tliey may attain 
 political equality in the Union, aiming therein at universal 
 suffrage. 
 
 When you come to look at these things, Senator, in the aggre- 
 gate, you will readily see that a great deal has already been 
 done and many important steps taken tending to the much 
 coveted result of re-union. 
 
 Section Theee. 
 
 What Kemains to be Done. 
 
 But what next ? First and foremost of all things, the whole 
 country, if it overlooks past treason, will and does demand an 
 adequate guaranty for future loyalty. We must liave a satis- 
 factory assurance ihat the peace of the country will not be again 
 disturbed — that the Freedmen sha 1 not again, under any pre- 
 tence, be brought under the domination of their former masters, 
 and that the incipient aristocracy of the South shall be crushed 
 out forever. 
 
 It is supposed by many that the bestowal of the elective fran- 
 chise upon the Freedmen will afford that guaranty. Perhaps it 
 may — partially, at least, so far as their protection is concerned. 
 But whether it wi 1 afford all the guaranty required, time alone 
 can determine, for no man can yet say how the Freedmen will 
 ultimately use their new born power. 
 
 Then, again, it may be said, that the substitution of a military 
 for the civil power will, at least, contribute to the guaranty. 
 Undoubtedly, it may, as long as it lasts, but that must, of 
 necessity, be temporary in its character. Our people will never 
 consent to that's being a permanence among us, and nothing but 
 the necessity of the moment, springing from the mad infatua- 
 tion of the Southern people themselves, would ever excuse, to 
 the minds of our people, its existence anywhere in our land, 
 for a moment. 
 
 But aside from this strong repugnance of our people, there is 
 another reason why we must regard the supremacy of the mili- 
 tary power as temporary, and that is, the irritation and conse- 
 
WHAT REMAINS TO BE DOXE. C9 
 
 quent alienation it mnst inevitably produce. I will not dilate 
 npon this topic, but simply ask yon, Senator, wliat yon think 
 the effect would be anywhere among onr commnnities in the 
 loyal States of receiving such a missile as the following from a 
 military Chieftain, backed np by a force strong enongh to en- 
 force his commands ? 
 
 General Thomas has sent the following letter to the Mayor 
 of Home, Georgia: 
 
 Headquarters Department of Tennessee, \ 
 Louisville, Ky,, February 0, 1867. \ 
 
 Charles H. Smith, Mayor of the city of Rome, Ga., and others : 
 
 Gentlemen : The ]\[ajor-General commanding the depart- 
 ment directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your communi- 
 cation of the 25th ultimo, addressed to Brevet Major-General 
 Davis Tilson, commanding sub-district of Georgia, giving state- 
 ment of facts and circumstances wliich caused the arrest of cer- 
 tain citizens of Rome, Georgia, for being concerned in the dis- 
 play of the flag of the late Southern Confederacy in that city, 
 and asking that justice may be done, and the prisoners released. 
 
 In your letter you state no disrespect was intended to the 
 United States government by the exhibition of the Confederate 
 flag, and that the parties who displayed it, have accepted in 
 good fiiith the present status of aft'airs, and do acknowledge the 
 jurisdiction of the United States government, &c. 
 
 If that is the case, it can only be supposed, presuming that 
 they possess ordinary intelligence, that they misunderstood the 
 present status of att'airs, which is that the rebellion has been de- 
 cided to be a huge crime, embodying all the crimes of the deca- 
 logue, and that it has been conquered and disarmed, and that 
 its very name and emblems are hateful to the people of the 
 United States ; and he must be indeed obtuse, who expects, 
 without oflence, to parade before the eyes of loyal people, that 
 whicli they execrate, and their abhorrence of which, they have 
 expressed in the most emphatic language in which it is jiossible 
 for a great nation to utter its sentiments. 
 
 It is pretended by certain newspapers that because no order 
 has been issued from these headquarters that the flag of the 
 Confederacy was not to see the light, the citizens were not 
 warned that it would be a treasonable act. 
 
 This excuse is too puerile to answer, and unworthy of a school- 
 boy, even. The young men arrested, as well as other citizens of 
 the South, know well enough what is right and what is wrong 
 in such matters, without waiting to be guided by orders espec- 
 
TO WHAT EEMAINS TO BE DONE, 
 
 ially naming and proliibiting displays honoring treason, and of 
 conrse contemning loyalty. Were they so stnpid as not to pos- 
 sess snch innate sense of propriety, the order from these head- 
 qnarters forbidding a rebel glorification over the remains of the 
 rebel Brigadier-General Hanson, should have been a sufficient 
 warning that such performance would not be tolerated. 
 
 The sole cause of this and similar offences, lies in the fact that 
 certain citizens of Rome, and a portion of the people of the 
 States lately in rebellion, do not and have not accepted the situ- 
 ation, and that is, that the late civil war was a rebellion, and 
 history will so record it. Those engaged in it are and will be 
 pronounced rebels ; rebellion implies treason, and treason is a 
 crime, and a heinous one, too, and deserving of punishment ; and 
 that traitors have not been punished is owing to the magnanim- 
 ity of the conquerors. With too many peojDle of the South the 
 late civil war is called a revolution, rebels are called " Confede- 
 rates," loyalists to the whole country are called damned Yankees 
 and traitors, and over the whole great crime, and its accursed 
 record of slaughtered heroes, patriots murdered because of their 
 true hearted love of country, widowed wives and orphaned 
 children, and prisoners of war slain amid such horrors as iind ]io 
 parallel in the history of the world, they are ti'ving to throw the 
 gloss of respectability, and thrusting with contumely and deris- 
 ion from their society the men and women who would not join 
 hands with them in the work of ruining their country. Every- 
 where in the States lately in rebellion treason is respectable and 
 loyalty odious. This the people of the United States, who 
 ended the rebellion and saved the country, will not permit, and 
 all attempts to maintain this unnatural order of things will be 
 met by decided disapproval. 
 
 As, however, it is pretended by the friends of the citizens ar- 
 rested that they were so innocent as not to know that it was 
 wrong for paroled prisoners and unpunished traitors to glory in 
 their shame, and flaunt the symbol of their crime in the lace of 
 the country, they will be released from confinement, with the 
 understanding that no act of treason will be passed unnoticed 
 when detected, and may they, and others who think like them, 
 profit by the lesson they have received. 
 
 Wm. D. WniprLE, 
 Brevet Major-General U. S. A. and A. A. G. 
 
 These two, suffrage to the Freedmen and domination of the 
 military power, are the only fragments even yet obtained of the 
 guaranty which we demand and must have. One of these is 
 necessarily slow and uncertain in its operation, and the other 
 
WHAT KEMAINS TO BE DOXE. 
 
 Tt 
 
 merely temporary; and uiiliappiljMvc have been forced to create 
 these om-selves. The South have furnished neither. Aside from 
 the oath of allegiance, which all experience has shown sits 
 lightly on the Southern conscience, they have done nothing to 
 aiford the guaranty which the i^orth has for two years, with en- 
 tire unanimity, demanded of them. Though possessed of the civil 
 power, and thus capable of compliance, they have used that 
 power to reject our demands with contempt,— and what else is 
 to be done? Congress has again, with a just magnanimity, by 
 the " Military Bill," afforded them another opportunity them- 
 selves to give the required guaranty. And until they deter- 
 mine how they ■will treat this new offer of ours, I confess, for 
 m}^ part, notwithstanding my abhorrence of military domina- 
 tion, I can see no alternative— such has been their conduct — 
 such their strange infatuation — no alternative between the rule 
 among them of the military, or that of violence and disorder. 
 
 Wisely has Congress provided that they may, at any moment, 
 relieve themselves from both. And what more can v:e do in 
 that respect ? 
 
 There is another guaranty which the Korth will be likely to 
 demand, and that is, against such a concentration of political 
 power in the hands of a few, as will enable the South to give, 
 on all national occasions, a united vote, and by a coalition with 
 a factious minority at the North, exercise a controlling power 
 in the councils of the nation.* This has been the case in times 
 past, and has been brought about by the exercise of a tyranny 
 over opinion utterly at war with all our notions of freedom. 
 At the assemblage to which I have heretofore referred, where 
 
 * I have seen it stated in the newspapers, that Wade TTampton, one of the 
 rebel generals, had lately, in a speech, at the South, advised against the forma- 
 tion of political parties, and recommended entire unanimity. It is evident 
 that the secessionists understand the value of such a line of action. But it is 
 as evident that they overlook one great element of safety in a free country, 
 for it is only in a despotism that the existence of parties is to be deprecated; 
 for everywhere they are the machinery by which is operated that vigilance 
 Avhich is the price of liberty. 
 
 If I had any doubts of tlie accuracy of my position in the text, this speech 
 from a rebel general would tend much to remove them. Timeo Danaos et 
 dona fereiites. 
 
72 WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE. 
 
 jou and I were present, (and that four years before Lincoln's 
 election,) I used this language, which I believed then and believe 
 now, to have been strictly true : 
 
 " And now, day by day, we behold how sternly is denied to 
 even the Freemen of the South, to question whether sla^-ery is a- 
 great good." 
 
 " Our own citizens, visiting there, are captured and mobbed, 
 or driven from the territory, if they venture even to hint a 
 doubt of its propriety." 
 
 " The minister of the Gospel, wlio ventures to preach God's 
 freedom there, is silenced." 
 
 " The schoolmaster, who dares instruct the blinded ignorance 
 there surrounding him, and the bookseller who distributes a 
 word for freedom, are forcibly expelled." 
 
 " The editor, who, in the exercise of the freedom of the press, 
 discusses the matter ever so temperately, is beaten with many 
 stripes." 
 
 This state of things does not seem yet to have been changed. 
 This tyranny over freedom of opinion would appear to be as 
 rampant and as intolerant as ever, and the danger flowing from 
 it is as apparent. The apprehension of this danger has had 
 great effect with our people, and I should judge, also, in the halls 
 of Congress. And why not? In times past it controlled the 
 election of President, and the action of Congress ; it enlarged 
 the area of slavery by the annexation of Texas, and carried 
 civil war into Kansas : and it would be the heighth of folly to 
 suppose that while the feeling lived, it would not again aim at 
 the same results. 
 
 The feeling has, however, gone still further, and may again, 
 by producing in the minds of these people, a determination — 
 unknown at the North — not to submit to the decision of the 
 ballot box. What was it but this that stimulated Secessionism 
 into activity at the election of Lincoln? What, then, caused 
 them to appeal from that decision to the arbitrament of the 
 sword ? 
 
 There can be only one guaranty against this evil, and that is 
 the diffusion of education and the establishment of freedom of 
 opinion among them. 
 
AKE TIIET STATES STILL? T3 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 Arc they States Still? 
 
 I have often noticed, in the Halls of Congress and elsewhere, 
 disquisitions as to what is now the true status of the Confederate 
 States. Some claim that they are States still and entitled to all 
 rights as such ; some, that they are conquered provinces ; and 
 others that they are States with their rights as such in abeyance, 
 &c., &c. Of what use are all these subtle distinctions — these 
 metaphysical refinements, whicli have prevailed so long at the 
 South, that they have caused the people to reason themselves 
 out of house and home, out of property, country and political 
 rights ! For my part, I say, away with them all ! What we 
 want is practical good sense, that shall ])roduce, everywhere, 
 obedience to the supremacy of the law and a happy reunion 
 throughout all the land, Ko sylogistical subtlety can supply 
 that want.""' 
 
 The plain matter of fact is, that the condition in which our 
 country now finds itself, and in whicli it has been since the first 
 gun at Fort Sumter, is one which was not anticipated by the 
 framers of our Constitution, and was not provided for in that 
 instrument. Whether the Union then formed was to be indis- 
 soluble, except by general consent, or to be a mere partnership, 
 from wiiich any member might retire at pleasure, and thus dis- 
 solve the connection, was a question for Avhich no ex])ress pro- 
 vision was made. There was, however, an expression of inten- 
 tion on the part of the people of that day, and it aimed at 
 perpetuit3^ 
 
 * President Lincoln, in what, I believe, was the last speech he made, used 
 this language : " That question has not been nor yet is, a practically material 
 one, and any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, 
 can have no other effect than the mischievous one of dividing our friends." 
 
74: AEE THEY STATES STILL ? 
 
 The Declaration of Independence in 1776 spoke of ns as " one 
 people," for whom it became necessary to dissolve the political 
 bands which connected them with another. 
 
 The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 177S, declared 
 themselves to be Ardcles of " perpetnal Union," and enacted 
 that tlie_y should be " inviolably observed by every State, and 
 the Union shall be perpetual."''^ 
 
 The Constitntion, in its preamble, declares its object to be to 
 " form a more perfect union," and to " secure the blessings of 
 liberty to ourselves and our posterity ;" and, in its enactments, 
 prohibits any State from entering into treaty, alliance or confed- 
 eration. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that the spirit of the Constitution, 
 and the intention of the wise and patriotic men who framed it, 
 and of tlie States which adopted it, contemplated permanence. 
 The right of any one State or of several, short of the whole, to 
 secede from the Union and thus dissolve it, was in conflict with 
 the very life and soul of what was then done, and would have 
 made that work at once puerile and futile. 
 
 That such was the vievv^ taken then, by the men of that day, 
 is apparent from another consideration. The Articles of Con- 
 federation, which thus aimed at "perpetual Union," were super- 
 seded by the Constitution, but that was done by unanimous 
 consent of all the States of the Confederacy ; and all of them 
 ratified and adopted it as the means of forming a " more perfect 
 union" of all. 
 
 Therefore it is that there is no provision in the Constitution 
 in conflict with this great purpose of perpetual union, and it is 
 equally true that there is no express prohibition against the 
 secession of one or more States. 
 
 The men of that day were too wise to suppose that all wisdom 
 was concentrated in them and that none was left for their pos- 
 
 * Our State Legislature, in 1779, having previously passed "An Act of ac- 
 cession to and approbation of certain proposed articles of confederation and 
 perpetual Union," passed another law authorizing our delegates to Congress, 
 "in behalf of this State, to unite for the final accomplishment of the said con- 
 federation and perpetual Union," &:c. 
 
SUMMAKY. 75 
 
 terlty, and, content with an explicit avowal of their purpose, 
 they left it to future ages to meet the events which time might 
 bring in its train, and to future wisdom to provide the remedy.* 
 
 It is in such a condition that we now find ourselves, with 
 power either by amendments of the constitution or by laws of 
 Congress (within the limit of its powers) to provide any remedy 
 which the emergency may demand. And we find nothing in 
 the way of the exercise of that redeeming power but the abstrac- 
 tions and refinements and subtle interpretations of the constitu- 
 tion, M'hich, ushered into prominence at the close of the last 
 century, have brought upon us in our day the disasters from 
 M'hicli we have not yet fully recovered. 
 
 Therefore it is that I say, away witli them ! For if they are to 
 rule, emancipation is not half achieved— secession is not half 
 tilled. 
 
 *The origin and history of the right of nullification and secession will be 
 found in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 179S; in Genl. Jackson's 
 special message to Congress, in 1832, and in a report to the Legislature of 
 New York in 1833, made by Gov. Tallmadge, but written by Martin Van 
 Buren. 
 
T6 SUMMARY. 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 Thus, Senator, have I completed the task whicli I assigned 
 myself of examining, somewliat in detail, the various matters 
 Avhich demand onr attention in the momentous work of recon- 
 struction, and it seems to me that it would now be fitting to 
 ofler to your consideration a brief, yet general summary of 
 them all, 
 
 A Siiinmary of the Wants and the Remedy. 
 
 I. — Jhe Slaveholders and the Secessionist. 
 
 They who were so ail through the war are so yet in heart, 
 and will probably be so to the end of life with them. There is 
 very little hope that there will ever be any very material change 
 in them. Pride and habit alike forbid it. The safety and wel- 
 fare of the country demand that their power to do any more 
 mischief shall be utterly crushed out. To do this they are to be 
 ultimately disfranchised, and in the meanwhile subjected to a 
 military government. As to punishment for past offences, we 
 need care little for that. The events themselves have caused, 
 have brought their own punishment along with them. The con- 
 trast between their past and their present condition must be 
 terribly severe now, and must be more and more full of affliction 
 while life may last. 
 
 II. — The Loyal Men. 
 
 For their protection a military government now, utterly 
 beyond the reach of their enemies, and an ultimate transfer to 
 them of all political power, and with it ample means of self- 
 protection. 
 
 This has already been provided for, and if it shall happen 
 
SUMMARY. 77 
 
 tliat at any time the will of the nation, clearly expressed as it 
 lias been at the ballot-box and through Congress, shall not be 
 carried out in their behalf witli the ntniost fidelity, time will 
 point out the remed^y which fhe nation has the will, and the 
 power, and the constitutional right to adopt. All is initiated or 
 done now that existing circumstances would seem to demand, 
 nnless, perchance, it may be to give the assurance once and 
 again, that the loyal men of the whole nation can never forget 
 their compatriots in the seceding States. 
 
 III.— The Freedmen. 
 
 Their emancipation is already fully secured, and that by the 
 strongest obligations known to our institutions. Their present 
 relief and protection are already provided for through the Freed- 
 man's Bureau and the military governments. Their ultimate 
 enjoyment of the right of suffrage already devised, will afford 
 them the same means of self-protection that we enjoy. 
 
 Their education, their social condition, and the reorganiza- 
 tion of their system of labor, are matters in respect to which 
 much yet remains to be done. A recent instance of individual 
 munificence, shows how confidently private charity may be re- 
 lied upon. And as events occur, showing the necessity of fur- 
 ther public action, it will not be wanting. But in respect to all 
 three of these things, where the results must of necessity be the 
 work of time, much more must depend on the action of the 
 local rather than the national government. The latter can se- 
 cure entire freedom of action to the former, and then the work 
 must be completed at home. 
 
 lY.—The Poor Whites. 
 
 Their education and elevation must depend entirely upon the 
 influences in their immediate vicinity. 
 
 V. — The Anti-Slave?'}/ Men. 
 
 Having secured emancipation, protection, and free sufi'rage to 
 a greater number of human beings than were rendered independ- 
 
Y8 SUMMAEY. 
 
 ent by the Revolution of 7G, tliej will be content, for the pre- 
 sent, to wait and watch for the completion of the work they 
 began. 
 
 YI. — The Sympathizers with Secession, 
 
 Time, alone, must do the work with them. It may bring to 
 them " healing on its wings " or the condemnation of public 
 opinion, in which there is no mercy, and from which there is no 
 appeal. 
 
 VII. — The Conservatives. 
 
 This class is the least satisfied of any at the present condition 
 of things. They are disgusted with the contemptuous and even 
 insolent rejection by the South, of all oifers at conciliation. 
 They are surprised that the civil power, which had been so 
 liberally bestowed upon them, should not have been used even 
 in the slightest degree for the purposes of reunion. They are 
 alarmed at the necessity thus created, of withdrawing anywhere 
 in the nation, civil power, and substituting military in its place. 
 They dread the existence of a military despotism even for a day. 
 They are pained at the destruction of their hojDe of a speedy res- 
 toration of the Union, and at the indefinite postponement of its 
 consummation. And they are distressed to observe that any mea- 
 sure now adopted, must seem to be more temporary than perma- 
 nent in its character. 
 
 YIII. — Their Laljor System. 
 
 The entire reorganization of so vast an interest is a work of 
 time and importance. The emjjloyers and employed have each 
 to learn a lesson entirely new to them, though always familiar 
 to us, and that is, how to make voluntary labor a necessity, and 
 how to render it most available. To do this, must require the 
 establishment in their immediate neighborhood, and easily ac- 
 cessible to both, of tribunals which can enforce the performance 
 of contracts, and prevent the occurrence of pauperage from sheer 
 idleness. To efi'ect this object most thoroughly, would seem to 
 
SUMMAEY. 79 
 
 require the admission of the Negro to an equal participation 
 with the white man in the administration of justice, and the 
 establishment of many instruments of local government, familiar 
 enough to us, but unknown among them. 
 
 IX. — Their Social System. 
 
 First and formost here,' is the necessity of rendering the 
 marriage tie sacred, and illegitimacy detestable. This the law 
 can do. All else must be the work of progressive refinement. 
 
 X. — Education. 
 
 At present this is dependent mainly on charitable efforts from 
 abroad. This is far from being adequate to answer all the de- 
 mands of the occasion. A system must be introduced among 
 them like those whicli exist in the free States. It may be said, 
 and truly too, that this will follow free suffrage. But it ought 
 to precede or at least accompany the right, or confusion will 
 follow. Such a system as we have in our State, Senator, ought 
 to be an-ived at. Here, with a population of 3,831,777 we have 
 a permanent educational fund of over $7,000,000 ; we expend 
 over $0,500,000 a year in free education, and have nearly 12,000 
 school houses, and out of 1,398,758 children between the ages 
 of five and twenty-one, over 1,000,000 receive instruction, be- 
 sides those in ])rofessional schools. 
 
 It will be long before so enlarged a system can be produced 
 at the South from its now crippled resources ; and its poverty 
 and ignorance will have a mutually retarding effect, so that, 
 unless extra territorial aid, of a more permanent and reliable 
 nature than private charity, shall be afforded, it may be a long, 
 long time before the 12,000,000 of the lately Confederated 
 States, will be as well fitted to enjoy and exercise all the rights 
 of citizenship as any other like number selected from any other 
 part of the nation. 
 
 The hurtful influence upon the general welfare of such a mass 
 of " uninstruction" may be readily imagined. 
 
80 SUMMARY. 
 
 XI. — National Patriotism , 
 
 So generally prevalent at the South, and so long, has been the 
 idea of a sectional patriotism, that it is much to be feared that 
 even among the loyal there, it has not yet assumed its character 
 of nationality ; and that among them, even, it is not now as broad 
 and as enthusiastic as it is among us. Do their hearts warm as 
 ours do at the words " I am an American" ? 
 
 Among them, however, as well as in the colored population, 
 the protection the nation is now affording, will produce and en- 
 courage the growth of its national character. 
 
 But what is there to produce this result among those, who, 
 because of their participation in the rebellion, are now to be 
 disfranchised ? Must we wait until they all die and a new gene- 
 ration takes their place ? And must we, even in their succes- 
 sors, find those, who like the Jacobites in Great Britain, cherished 
 disloyalty as an heir-loom — a precious inheritance from the 
 past 'i 
 
 It is not the part of Avisdom to do so, but, on the other hand, 
 in all our measures, to so keep open the door, that regenerated 
 patriotism may enter either in the mass or by individuals. 
 
 XII. — Sel/' Government. 
 
 All these matters, industrial, social, educational and political, 
 are necessary precedents to self government, and we must be- 
 ware that Ave do not give it too soon or too irrevocable, so as to 
 produce mischief, and put it out of our power to apply the 
 necessary corrective, when an abuse of it shall occur. It is not 
 difficult to imagine what a long train of evils may grow out of 
 our neglect to take the proper precautions. Xow is the time to 
 do that. That wisdom is not worth much that does not look 
 beyond the footsteps of the present moment. 
 
 All must contemplate the ultimate restoration of self-govern, 
 nient to the Confederate States. It is thus alone that a harmo- 
 nious union can be brought about ; thus alone that the public 
 opinion, which revolts at the idea of a military government, can 
 
CONCLUSION. 81 
 
 bo satisfied, and thus alone that the injunction of the Constitu- 
 tion tliat " the United States shall guarantee to every State in 
 this Union a Republican form of Government," can be obeyed. 
 The mad infatuation of tlie South may retard the advent of this 
 result, but that it must come in the end, is a point from which 
 the American people cannot bo induced to depart, and to which 
 even the South will in due time approach. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Thus, Senator, have I spread before you the result of my 
 reflections upon the great work now before the Nation. If 
 thereby I shall aid you or any other one, in comprehending or 
 dealing with it, I shall be truly glad. That it will ultimately 
 be finished in such manner as will I'odound to our honor and 
 the advance of freedom throughout the world I have the fullest 
 confidence. I ma}' not hope to live to behold the end, but if I 
 do not, I may at least hope to be able to look down upon it from 
 my future home with satisfaction, augmented by feeling that I 
 have contributed — be it little or much, yet all in my power to 
 the result ; for that was a duty which I owed alike to my coun- 
 try and to freedom. 
 
 J. W. EDMONDS. 
 
 JYeio Fori:, March 4, ISGT. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 From the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 Testimony of Generals SCHOFIELI), SICKLES, WOOD 
 and THOMAS. 
 
 GENERAL SCHOFIELD'S OPINION. 
 
 Question — How is it about punishing offences by means of 
 civil law in Virginia, when thcj have been committed npon men 
 who have the reputation of being Union men, or Freedmen, in 
 respect to offences committed upon soldiers? Aiisiccr — I do not 
 think there are any cases in which offences against soldiers have 
 gone bfeore the State Courts at all. There are very few cases 
 reported to me in which offences have been committed against 
 men alleged to be Union men. I know some one or two of these 
 cases, where persons report alleged injustice in relations of that 
 kind ; that is, failures on the part of the State Courts to punish 
 men who have committed assaults on Union men ; but that dis- 
 tinction is comparatively rare in Virginia, as far as I have been 
 able to learn. But cases of hostility and outrage of one kind 
 and another by white men upon Freedmen are common, and in 
 almost all such cases the State Courts fail to do justice, that is, 
 fail to punish white men for assaults and outrages committed 
 upon Freedmen. 
 
 Q. What is the difficulty? Is it in arrest and punisliment, or 
 in the disposition of the men who try them? A. In the dispo- 
 sition of magistrates and jurors. AVhen it is a civil question 
 alone, a question of money, uninfluenced by any other question, 
 I think they almost always do justice to the Freedmen ; but when 
 that question is affected by the allegation upon the part of white 
 men of insubordination, or disrespect, or insolence on the part of 
 the colored man, that allegation will justify him, in the opinion 
 of the local magistrates, or jurors, for inflicting upon Freedmen 
 
84 APPENDIX. 
 
 any punishment he may see fit, either by driving them off the 
 phantation without wages, or, as has been done in some eases, 
 shooting them. 
 
 Q. The principal difficulty, then, is in the administration of 
 justice among Freedmen? A. That is the difficulty. 
 
 Q. Can you discover no remedy in the Courts ? A. I think at 
 present no speedy remedy can be expected from the Civil Courts 
 of Virginia. Report says that the higher Courts, almost with- 
 out exception, do justice as between whites and blacks ; but 
 that the lower magistrates, who are elected by the people, and 
 the jurors, scarcely ever do justice to the black man against the 
 white, 
 
 Q. And these lower Courts are the principal ones that try crim- 
 inal cases? A. Yes, sir. They dispose of nearlj^ all cases in 
 which the black men are concerned. The black man is too poor 
 to carry it to the higher Courts. Practically, if the employer on 
 a plantation chooses to drive the colored man off without his 
 wages, alleging that he was insolent, or insubordinate, or neglect- 
 ful of his duty, he is without remed_y. 
 
 GENERAL SICKLES'S OPINION". 
 
 Q. AVhat is the probability of justice being done in the Courts 
 of South Carolina, in cases where a citizen kills a soldier? 
 
 A In my judgment, the bias of the people is so strong against 
 the presence of garrisons in the State, and against soldiers, that 
 you could not find a jury in the State that would convict a man 
 for killing a Union soldier. 
 
 Q. No matter wliat the testimony? A. No, sir, I do not 
 think a garrison can remain in South Carolina or North Carolina, 
 if we are to rely upon the Civil Courts to protect the troops and 
 property of the United States, nor if we are to turn over to the 
 Civil Courts for trial, soldiers and officers who may be charged 
 with offences. I do not think they could expect justice at the 
 hands of the Southern Courts and juries. 
 
 Q. Within your knowledge, has any soldier suffered at the 
 hands of citizens, and a citizen doing the M'rong been indicted 
 therefor before the Coui-ts and escape punishment? A. They do 
 not even indict them. They do not arrest anybodj' nor prose- 
 cute anybodv for such offences ; yet soldiers and officers have 
 been in some instances wounded and in other instances killed. 
 They have been fired upon in repeated instances within the last 
 year and a half, and no one has been prosecuted or punished for 
 it by the civil authorities. Public teams and wagons have been 
 seized on the highway's within five miles of Columbia, the capi- 
 
APPENDIX. 85 
 
 tal of the State. The teamsters have been tied to trees and rob- 
 bed, the horses and liarness taken oft" and the wag'ons burned, jet 
 no notice has been taken of such occurrences. It has not been 
 possible for us, M'ith all the industry and energy at onr connnand, 
 to arrest the perpetrators. Horses have been run off miles and 
 miles, and not one person on the road would give information of 
 any of the offenders. We could not recover the horses, nor get 
 any clue to the offenders, nor make any arrests ; nor did the civil 
 authorities. 
 
 Q. It is upon facts thus stated that you predicate your opinion. 
 A. Yes, sir. If I send a detachment to arrest anyl)ody, the ap- 
 proach of my detachment is signalled by trumpets, flags, &c , 
 during the day, and by light at night. Thus the approach of 
 my force is notified to an accused man miles away, and so he 
 makes his escape. I do not mean to be understood as saying 
 that in no part of North or South Carolina, and in no Court could 
 a fair trial Ije had. The question is general, and the answer is 
 intended to be general. I mean to say that there would be fail- 
 ure of justice in so many cases, and in so many localities, that 
 you could not rely upon that sort of administration for the secu- 
 rity of the lives and property and rights of the people and the 
 troops. In North Carolina the most frequent complaints arose 
 from prosecutions of Union men for occurrences during the war. 
 Union men have been wronged and severely dealt with, while 
 men who participated in the rel)ellion and sympathized with it, 
 if prosecuted at all, got oft". I think the Judges of the higher 
 Courts desire to hold the scales of justice even ; but the men you 
 would have on the jury, in the case of a Union man, orUnion offi- 
 cer, or Union soldier, would not heed the Court or the law. 
 
 Q. You say the same thing in regard to the civil government 
 of the State of South Carolina, the Governor and other officers, 
 that you have said in regard to the higher Judges of the State? 
 A. The Governor has given me every assurance of his desire to 
 cooperate with me in the arrest and punishment of offenders, 
 but he has not been able to do much. He responds promptly to 
 every suggestion. I may state in confirmation of what 1 have 
 said with regard to the inferior magistrates and ministerial offi- 
 cers of justiiic, that the Governor, in his efforts to assist me, has 
 been obliged to sit as magistrate himself and to issue warrants, 
 because he could not rely upon any magistrate in his region. 
 lie has l)een obliged himself to designate persons to execute war- 
 rants, offering private rewards to them in cases of success, because 
 he could not rely upon the constabulary. I have no fault to find 
 with the Governor of the State, nor with the high officials, gen- 
 erally. I believe that those gentlemen, at least" most of them, 
 sincerely deplore the existing state of things, and see as clearly 
 
86 APPENDIX. 
 
 as any one how injurious it is to their iuterests and their good 
 name. But they seem to find themselves powerless to apply any 
 adequate remedy. 
 
 Q. How do you find it in cases where alleged oiFence is com- 
 mitted by Union men, or Freedmen ? A. In that case officials 
 make arrests. They are vigilant, zealous and successful in those 
 cases. It is this particularly that impairs confidence. If the 
 oflfender whose arrest is desired is a man of property, and was 
 on the other side during the war, they cannot find him. It is 
 impossible to get information about him. But if the alleged 
 offender is a negro or some man who has not come up to their 
 mark during the war, every newspaper trumpets the offence with 
 a description of the man, every road swarms with hunters, every 
 forest and swamp is searched to secure him. A prodigious de- 
 gree of activity and zeal is apparent, and seldom fails. In such 
 cases, not only sheriffs and constables, but everybody turns out, 
 and there is a general hue and cry, exclaiming, " Let us catch 
 the fellow," " "Where is my shot gun V '' Where is my horse ?" 
 " Which way has he gone, let us go after him." If I could 
 have such assistants in pursuing ottenders, I should never have 
 any trouble in making arrests. I have many times appealed to 
 the leading men to get on their horses and help us find some of 
 these fellows, to do it for their own sakes, for the sake of peace 
 and quiet, so that we may not have to keep garrisons among 
 them. Governor Benham and many other prominent gentlemen 
 have assured me that they would be glad to assist me if they 
 could obtain the necessary cooperation in their neighborhood, 
 but that this could not be done. 
 
 GENERAL WOOD'S OPINIOK 
 
 Q. I wish to inquire as to the frequency of criminal offences 
 against Union men. United States soldiers and Freedmen in Mis- 
 sissippi ? A. The commission of such crimes has been frequent. 
 It might be well to add that the commission of crime, generally, 
 has been frequent; but more particularly against persons of union 
 proclivities, and Northern men who have emigrated to Missis- 
 sippi since the termination of the trouble, and against Freedmen 
 and colored persons. Murder was quite a frequent offence against 
 Freedmen, everywhere in that connnunity, and the commission 
 of crimes of a lesser grade, such as beating and assaults, was still 
 more freqent than the commission of murder. 
 
 Q. State as to the machinery for bringing people to justice in 
 the Civil Courts ; whether adequate or inadequate ? A. The 
 
APPENDIX. 87 
 
 criminal laws of the State of Mississippi are, I think very simi- 
 lar to the criminal laws of other States, but the great trouble 
 grew out of the manner in which the executive and judicial offi- 
 cers performed their duties. They do not take proper measures 
 to bring criminals to justice. They do not use that vigilance as 
 magistrates investigating these cases, in issuing warrants of ar- 
 rest and causing the constables and sheriffs to execute these war- 
 rants, that is essential to tlie proper administration of justice. 
 "When cases come into the higher Courts, some of the better class 
 of Judges are more disposed to do justice and to have the law 
 faithfully executed ; but my observation has been that justice 
 cannot be administered with the public sentiment such as it is 
 against black people and Union men. 
 
 Q. Could you suggest any remedy for these difficulties? 
 
 A, The result of my observation led me to the conclusion that 
 there should, l)y legislation of the government, be established 
 some system by which when the local Courts fail to administer 
 justice, some higher power could be brought into play in order 
 to secure it. 
 
 GENERAL THOMAS'S OPINION. 
 
 Q. Will you state, in relation to offences against Union men, 
 or Freedmen, or soldiers in your department generally, whether 
 they are frequent or infrequent, and what class of offences is 
 most so ? A. Offences against Freedmen occur quite frequently. 
 Offences against Union men also occur quite frequently. Of- 
 fences against soldiers do not occur so frequently. 
 
 Q. Please specify, if you are able, the relative frequency of 
 these offences in the different States witiiin your command du- 
 ring last year. A. They occurred in Kentucky, all over the 
 State ; In Tennessee, they occurred in particular sections, such 
 as West Tennessee, and in two or three sections of Middle Ten- 
 nessee. In East Tennessee I do not know of more than one sec- 
 tion where they occurred very frequently. These classes of of- 
 fences are quite common in Georgia, and they occur frequently 
 in Alabama. Until recently they were quite common^in Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 Q. Were they increasing or diminishing? A. That is a diffi- 
 cult question to answer. The impression made upon my mind 
 is that they would occur frequently if the occasion presented it- 
 self. If one citizen regarded as a secessionist had any fault to 
 find with a Union man or a Freedman, he would be apt to take 
 some measures of revenge, or persecute him in some way. 
 
88 APPENDIX. 
 
 Q. Whether the civil autliorities are nsnallj prompt or suc- 
 cessful in punishment of offences sncli as you have spoken of I 
 
 A. I cannot say that it is habitual for them to show a clispo- 
 siiion to brin*]:; these people to justice. They do it sometimes, 
 because they know that the oifenders will be arrested under Gen. 
 Grant's order No. 44, and held until they are tried. 
 
 Q. You reply you give the order to arrest them? A. Yes, 
 and hold them until we can secure a trial. We cannot secure 
 an impartial trial. We can only insist that they shall have an 
 impartial trial. They proceed to trial in many cases, but the re- 
 sult shows that it is not impartial. I do not think the civil au- 
 thorities are disposed to administer impartial justice, if left to 
 their own will. 
 
 Q. What is the difficulty ? Is it in failing to arrest the of- 
 fenders or in their trial ? A. Failing to arrest, unless their atten- 
 tion is called to it, and then the trial is generally sluri'ed over. 
 
 Q. Does that observation pertain to all the States you have 
 desiguated equally, — Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Iventucky 
 and portions of Tennessee? A. The practice is about the same 
 in each. Tlie sentiment of these different localities is about the 
 same, and the prejudices against Union men and Freedmen 
 about the same. 
 
 Q. Did you hear of any ii:istances where offences against Freed- 
 men have, within the last year, been punished in Georgia? 
 
 A. I cannot say that I know of a single instance where they 
 have punished any one for a serious oilence against Freedmen. 
 They have been punished, sometimes, for slight offences, where 
 the punishment is merely a fine ; but in cases where the penalty 
 extends to imprisonment, or summary punishment, I do not 
 know of a single instance. 
 
 Q. Have murders in Georgia been numerous within the last 
 year ? A. Yes, sir, quite numerous. 
 
 Q. From your knowledge, wliat would be the probability, if 
 murder was committed in that State by a white man upon a 
 Freedman, of his being brought before a jury and convicted ? 
 A. I do not believe there is much chance of convicting a resi- 
 dent, or citizen of Georgia for murder, if the victim was a Union 
 man or a Negro. If the murderer was a Union man, or a 
 Negro, they would convict him very speedily ; or a maTi who 
 had moved into Georgia since the war, and was known as a 
 Northern man or a Union man. 
 
 Q. Then if these people were left to themselves, simply, would 
 the ordinary modes of justice, as administered there by the Civil 
 Courts, be sufficient for the protection of persons of that part of 
 the population of Georgia ? A. Not as administered now by 
 these people. 
 
ArrENDix. 
 
 -69 
 
 Q. Do the obsGi'vations you make in reference to Georgia ap- 
 ply to other States with equal force? A. With equal force^ 
 with the exception of the districts I have named. 
 
 Q. Can you suggest any remedy for this state of things? 
 
 A. The remedy 1 would suggest would be the establishment 
 of solne supervisory authority in these States, with power to ad- 
 vise and insist on the impartial administration of justice, accom- 
 panied by a sufficient force, if necessar}-, to induce the people to 
 feel that the authority is able to enforce its advice or instructions. 
 
 Q. As time runs on, and ordinary justice is denied to a large 
 share of the people of these States, is there a fair chance of the 
 state of affairs there improving ? A. I think not, because enter- 
 prising people, knowing the state of affairs to exist in that coun- 
 try, would be discouraged from going there and entering into 
 business. I don't thinlv the people tliemselves have either the 
 energy or the disposition to undertake legitimate enterprises, 
 that is, enterprises resulting in improvement of the condition of 
 affairs in the State and bringing wealth to the country. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 After this letter was written and while it was in the printer"'s hands, I 
 received from Senator Morgan, the report of the Reconstruction Comnaittce 
 to the 39th Congress. It is an octavo volume of about 800 pages, and con- 
 tains the evidence taken before them. The general committee of 12 was 
 divided into 4 sub-committees of 3 each, by whom the testimony was taken, 
 in respect to particular portions of territorj- attached to each. 
 
 It is very much to be desired that that testimony should be made known 
 to all the people. It shows a state of things in the Southern country, since 
 the war, far worse than I had any idea of, and removes from ray mind, the 
 apprehension that I have occasionally uttered, that perhaps I was exagger- 
 ating the evils existing there. It shows, also, in a stronger light even than 
 I have presented them, the difficulties that there are in the tas'c of a har- 
 monious reunion. 
 
.^ 
 
 Lbl\'ir '12 
 
M