♦LIBRARY OF C< I r{ / . . L 6>6, / s j UNITED ST. ERICA. J / Reconstruction and its Relations to the Business of the Country. AN ADDRESS BY HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, BEFORE THE OLD BAY STATE ASSOCIATION, BOSTON, DECEMBER 27, 1866. Ladies and Gentlemen : I trust no one will suppose that my subject implies any want of confidence in the patriotism of the business men of Boston, of our State, or of the country. I chose to speak upon the topic which has been announced, because I had observed occa- sionally in the public journals the suggestion that the business men of the country were largely interested in the immediate restora- tion of the Union, without much regard to the manner of doing the work. For myself, I have never accepted the suggestion, certainly not since the manifestations of patriotism during the war on the part of the business men of our State and of the country, that they would as a body be disposed to second any move- ment for the restoration of the Union not based upon sound principles of public policy. The restoration of the Union means the intro- duction again into the Government of the country of that considerable body of people and that vast extent of territory engaged in and covered by the rebellion. It implies a renewal of the exercise of power in this Gov- ernment by those men who for thirty years plotted for its overthrow, and for five years carried on a persistent and formidable, and at times apparently successful, rebellion for its de- struction. It is therefore no slight matter that these people at any time, or to any extent, until their spirit and purposes are changed, are to be received into the Government of the country. We accept, unquestionably, as far as the per- sons who have been concerned in the rebellion are to be considered, a body of men who are hostile to this Government, who seek its de- struction, and who will avail themselves of any opportunity that may present itself in the changing condition of public affairs to accom- plish that which they most desire. Therefore there should be on the part of all, accompanied with the desire for the restoration of the Union, attention to all those safeguards and securities which, under the circumstances, it is possible for us either to erect or to take. Again, consider that the restoration of the Union implies the renewal of power on the part of nearly four million people who, for the present moment, are excluded from all partici- pation in the Government of the country. It implies, also, the exercise of power on the part of their posterity and successors through many generations ; and if we accept them as they are, with supreme power in their respective localities and States vested in the hands of rebels, with all the institutions which control and mould public sentiment subject to their will, we cannot expect that in five or ten or twenty or fifty years even, the spirit of rebel- lion will be extinguished in that section of country. In the ten States that are not rep- resented in the Congress of the United States there were, in 1860, 4,620,000 white people ; there were at that time 125,000 free colored persons; there were also 3,265,000 slaves, making an aggregate of colored persons of 3,390,000, against 4,620,000 white persgns. These ten States have an area of 635,454 square miles — about one fifth of the entire surface of the Union, including all the Territories that are but partially settled this side of the Rocky mountains, and the vast mountain region be- tween the Mississippi river and the Pacific ocean. These ten States have a population at present of rather more than eight million ; they have an area of 635,000 square miles ; they have, for the most part, a fertile soil ; they are blessed with a salubrious and agree- able climate; they possess all the natural advantages which insure in the future a vast population. It is therefore a matter of the highest magnitude to so arrange the details of reconstruction and to proceed upon such prin- ciples as shall secure to the country a loyal public sentiment in all that region. If we leave to these four million rebels local power, undiminished sway in one fifth of the terri- tory of the Union ; if we confide to them and to their care the institutions of government, of education, of religion, of social life ; if we *"] *■? assign to them the undisputed control of the 3, what have we to expect in the future except generation after generation influenced he same principles and animated by the same purposes that have controlled the inhab- it am s of that region for the last thirty-five years ? These facts and views give us some idea of the magnitude of the subject with which we are to deal. For the purpose of showing how the business interests of this country are concerned in the work of restoration, I desire to recall your at- tention to certain well-known facts, developed by the census of I860, but indicated quite distinctly in all the censuses that have been taken from 1790 until 1860, showing how the system of slavery has tended to prevent the increase of the population of this vast and in- viting region of country, and how also it has contributed to depress labor, to degrade the laborer, and consequently to render that sec- tion incapable of producing wealth, as com- pared with the free States of the country. These facts are well known ; but in the rela- tion in which I speak to-night 1 think it not unwise to recall your attention to them. The area of New England, New York, Ohio, Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware — a vast region of country — is but 213,786 square miles — just about one third the area of country covered by the ten unrepresented States. But these twelve States, with an area of but 218,060 square miles, against 685,000 square miles in the ten rebellious States, have a popu- lation of 13,682,000 against 8,010,000 in those ten States, nearly half of w T hom are colored people, showing how much more rapidly popu- lation has increased in the free States than in the slave States. In these twelve free States the population averages sixty-three persons to the square mile, while in the ten rebellious an|i unrepresented States the population is but twelve and six tenths persons to the Square mile : that is, the average population in the twelve free States is about live times as large as in the ten unrepresented States. If these ten rebel States, in proportion to their area, had an equal population with the twelve free States, they would number forty million people. That they have not the population is undoubtedly due, in a large degree (not entirely) to the insti- tution of slavery. Next, it may be well to consider how it is that slavery has prevented the increase of popu- lation in this inviting region of country. First, unquestionably slavery, as a system of oppres- sion, prevents the increase of population ; it deters those seeking a home from migrating into a region of country that is controlled by the institution. In the second place, where .- Lavefy exists there must prevail among the people generally a system* of ignorance from which they cannot escape. It is un- doubtedly true that the people may be in some degree ignorant oven where they are free, be- cause it is only by a certain amount of educa- tion, acquaintance with the world, experience, knowledge of history, that a man comes to realize the importance of education as a means of prosperity. But wherever the institution of slavery exists, wherever the mass of the people are denied their natural rights, there, of course, the laboring population are in a state of ignor- ance, because the controlling interests of soci- ety are opposed to every system of education. In Great Britain, for example, the interest in education is limited to those classes that are to participate in the Government. I have often said that even in our own State of Massachu- setts, where public instruction has existed for about two hundred years, and where there is a strong public sentiment in favor of its contin- uance, if we were to introduce a system by which the laboring people should be deprived of their natural rights, and especially if they were debarred the exercise of the elective franchise, our system of education would not last thirty years. It is because the mass of the people feel that a system of public in- struction is the chief means by which they and theirs are to be elevated from a condition of poverty to affluence, from ignorance to culti- vation and refinement,' that always and every- where they support schools and institutions of learning. Therefore, wherever slavery exists there must be ignorance, and so wherever slavery exists there must be a great degree of insecurity, not simply to the slaves themselves, but to every race and every condition of so- ciety. The system of slavery being in itself a despotism, and the system of African slavery in this country having proved the truth that every slaveholder was a petty tyrant, life, lib- erty, and property have always been insecure wherever the system has existed among us. We have destroyed the institution of slavery as a chattel system in the southern States, al- though to the dishonor of the Government it must be confessed that in several of those States efforts are making to reestablish some- thing like the institution of slavery. What we need now is air Executive who shall use the national authority for the protection of the colored and white loyal people in the States recently in rebellion. W e have destroyed the system of slavery in these fifteen States ; but we have not destroyed the spirit of slavery ; and if by any plan of restoration you put local power into the hands of the slaveholding classes ; if you give to them the control of those States ; if you give to them the exclu- sive right to be represented in the Congress of the United States, in some form and in some way they will devise means for the con- tinued oppression of the class recently in ser- vitude. Therefore it is the duty of the Gov- ernment and of the people, in considering the subject of restoration, not to allow the mind to be diverted at all from the necessity of our condition, which is to so reconstruct this Government that oppression shall cease, that ignorance shall be removed, and that there shall be security for life, liberty, and property in all that region of country. There have been suggested, during the last two years, four different ways of restoring the Union. I call them ways ; some of them are poor ways. The first is the President's way, which upon the views I have been presenting is really no way at all for the people of this country. It is a way which opens to the South, to the rebel States and to the rebel leaders, a renewal of power in the Government and con- signs all this vast territory and these eight million people to their undisputed control. I trust that the loyal citizens of this country with great unanimity are opposed to this way ; and they should be opposed to it as well for its origin as for its results. It is a simple way. The President wishes to invite these ten States back into the Union ; to give them for the present the representative power which they had under the old Constitution ; repre- sentation based upon three' fifths of the old slave population, and after the census of 1870 representation to be based upon the entire ne- gro population of the South, while the negroes are to be excluded from all participation in the government of the country. But the Presi- dent's way is equally objectionable on account of its origin. _/Vou remember very well the proclamation concerning North Carolina, issued in May or June, 1865. It was the beginning of a system of usurpation, which to-day in its results is the chief obstacle to the speedy and safe restoration of the Government. He as- sumed in that proclamation power which neither he nor any President since the beginning of the Government had a right to exercise under the Constitution. His premise for the procla- mation was the fourth section of the fourth arti- cle of the Constitution, which declares that the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government. After various other non-essential statements, he deduces his conclusions, and proclaims a gov- ernment in North Carolina, assuming that he was, as the United States, carrying out this pro- vision of the Constitution. There were two difficulties in the way of his theory. First, he was not the United States : and secondly, the Supreme Court had declared that it ..was .Congress, and Congress only, which could decide whether the govern- ment of a State was republican or not. In the case of Luther vs. Borden the Supreme Court, ypu remember, held that it was for Congress to decide whether the constitution of a State was republican, and that every department of the Government of the United States was bound thereby. But the President assumed to be the United States, to erect a government in the State of North Carolina, and to take upoii him- self authority to decide that question which could be decided only by Congress. That was the beginning of our difficulties with reference to reconstruction. Then the President departed still further. If I am not in error, Mr. Lincoln, during his administration, was very careful, in the provisional governments which he estab- lished or authorized, to act exclusively in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and not at all as President, clothed with civil authority. And further, he either appointed an officer of the Army to be the provisional or military governor of a State, or if civilians were appointed, they received commissions in the military service. But Mr. Johnson acted differently, and not only did not proceed in the reconstruction of this Government as Com- mander-in-Chief of the Army, but he exercised authority merely in his civil capacity. He not only did not go to the Army of the United States ; he not only did not go exclusively among the loyal people of the country, but he pardoned rebels, exercising therein a high function which he could exercise only as Pres- ident of the United States; restoring to their civil rights men who had participated in the rebellion, and then appointing them Govern- ors of these various States or districts of coun- try. I think the nation has already reached the conclusion, that whether we look to the grounds on which these governments are estab- lished or to the results that are likely to flow from them, they are to be regarded as uncon- stitutional and invalid organizations. Another plan of restoring the Union is to admit these ten States respectively whenever they shall ratify severally the pending amend- ment to the Constitution of the United States. The character of this amendment I need not detail to you. I may say that on the very day, I think, that the House of Representatives voted to admit Tennessee to her place as a State in the Union, a bill was laid on the table which declared that whenever any one of the States recently in rebellion should ratify the constitutional amendment it should be admitted to representation in the govern- ment of the country. The constitutional amend- ment, as far as understood lyy the radical men in the Congress of the United States, meant just this, and nothing more : that it was a con- dition-precedent to the recognition of the right of those States to be represented in the gov- ernment of the country ; a condition which we would not dispense with, but a condition which we were not bound to regard as the sole condi- tion. It was so treated at the time by many members of the House of Representatives. Finally, I am bound to declare that it would be in the highest degree unwise and unsafe for the people of this country to accept these States when the constitutional amendment shall be ratified by the country or by them respectively ; and the reasons are apparent. Like the Pres- ident's policy, the amend. uent turns over these ten States to the control of rebels. The amend- ment itself only by indirection obtains security for the recognition of the rights of the negroes. It will be practicable for the white people of the ten States to exclude the negroes from all voice in the government of them. They will lose eighteen of their present Representatives, but still, I have no doubt that on the whole the mass of the rebel leaders in the South will prefer the loss rather than the extension of the right of suffrage to negroes. They will still have their two Senators from each State, and an aggregate of seventy members in the House of Repre- sentatives ; they will still be a compact and powerful organization for the purposes of over- throwing the Government. As a matter of policy, setting aside the ques- tion of right, it will be unfortunate for the peo- ple of this country to admit any system of res- toration which allows the ten States to continue a unit in opinion with reference to the exist- ence of the Government. As a matter of policy we must divide the public sentiment of these States ; divide their local governments, placing some of them on the side of the Union ; se- curing representation by loyal men, even though those loyal representatives be black men. It is the most dangerous of all propositions that these old slave States should hereafter be rep- resented in the government of this country as a unit upon the question which is vital to us — whether the Government shall exist ; there- fore for one I look for such a policy in this work of restoration as will secure to the Gov- ernment of the United States 9, loyal support. If we cannot have the united force of the old fifteen slave States let us at least take a por- tion. If South Carolina has a majority of black people, I prefer that she should have loyal black rather than disloyal white repre- sentatives. And therefore I say secondly, that the constitutional amendment, right in itself and necessary as a condition-precedent to the restoration of the Union, is wholly insufficient as a final and complete measure of pacification ; and it is better for the country to reject it alto- gether and fight out the battle upon the plain issue of human rights, equal and exact justice to all men, than to accept this as a complete and final measure of restoration. There is a third proposition that the Union shall be restored, the constitutional amend- ment beingadopted, whenever these States shall inaugurate a system of impartial, restricted suffrage, whenever they shall be ready to de- clare that any man who can read the Constitu- tion of the United States, or write his own name, or who owns property of the value of $200, is entitled to the right of franchise — the law to apply to the black man and the white man alike. I regard this plan of restoration as delusive and dangerous in the highest de- gree. In Massachusetts, where there is a sys- tem of public instruction, where there are pub- lic schools that furnish as good an education as was afforded by Harvard College eighty years ago, we may with some degree of pro- priety say that no man shall be entitled to vote unless he can read and write ; for we place before him the means of knowledge. But are you to say this to the three million people who are, in those ten States, and who have been denied every opportunity and every means of acquiring education ; men, women, and children who are ignorant because it has been and is to-day, as far as the penalty of the law is concerned, a crime to teach them? When you erect schools by charity the enemies of freedom give them to the flames, and the south- ern horizon is lighted up by the fires of the burning houses that the North has erected for the education of freemen. When you have said that no person can vote in the ten States except on those conditions, you have offered an additional inducement to the rebels to pre- vent the education of the freedmen. If you consent to the reconstruction of this Govern- ment upon the basis that those only shall vote in the ten States who can read and write, you have excluded the whole negro population of the South from the ballot-box, and you have placed, perhaps for a century, power in the hands of the rebel slave-holding classes of that region of the country. I think this one objection alone is sufficient to condemn the proposition for impartial, restricted suffrage. I come then to what I believe offers the only safe way out of our present difficulties. The constitutional amendment recognizes all per- sons born in this country as citizens of the country ; but after all it is insufficient and un- trustworthy unless you add thereto universal suffrage in the ten States. I do not mean to say that I suppose that the extension of the elective franchise to the negro population of the South will at once remove all our difficulties-. I do not expect that there will be then every- where peace. I suppose there will be resistance on the part of the whites, and very likely there will be blood shed in some places and lives may be lost; but after a little excitement and some resistance, after a few struggles, the people of the South will come to the conclusion that they had better submit. Out of these four million white people of the South we may expect that a million will ally themselves with the Govern- ment. They will be willing to unite with the negro population of the South for the restora- tion of the State governments upon a loyal basis. And when we have secured this we may then consider that other question, which some per- sons desire to have considered before all other things in the matter of restoration : the question of amnesty to the rebels, either partial or uni- versal. I agree that not much time can pass after the restoi-ation of these States to the Union before the men who have participated in the re- bellion will be restored to their political rights. I expect it, and upon the whole I desire it; but what I seek most to guard against is the res* toration of the States that have been disloyal to the Union upon dangerous conditions. What is the aspect of public affairs in the. South to-day? What, are we to expect if the Government shall be restored upon an unjust basis ? It is humilia- ting to admit, but it is nevertheless true, that the South as a whole is in a more unpromising condition to-day than it was a year and a half since. It is not too much to say that through- out these ten States, from North Carolina to Texas, there is one grand carnival of all the spirits of disquiet, disorder, and bloodshed ; and I cannot refrain from the remark that this con- dition of things is due in a large measure to the course which Mr. Johnson has chosen to pur- sue. If he had refrained from issuing a proc- lamation of peace ; if he had been disposed to wield the great powers of the Government in the interest of loyalty and of the Union, it would have been in his hand to have maintained order and peace throughout that whole region of country. But what is their condition to-day ? The civil rights bill passed by Congress by a constitutional majority, notwithstanding the opposition of the President, is a dead letter. The Freedmen's Bureau bill is disregarded. Weekly I receive letters from officers of the Army, stationed throughout the South with small squads of men, in which they declare that they are powerless to serve the country and protect the loyal blacks or whites in that region. They are insulted by the rebels. The Army of the Republic, through themselves or representa- tives, is constantly insulted, its power disre- garded, and the authority of the Government everywhere contemned. We know, too, for the testimony is conclusive, that colored men, freemen, are murdered frequently ; not a sin- gle case, here and there, but by tens and hun- dreds ; and from Texas it is reported that even more than a thousand have been thus sacrificed. Throughout the whole South the black people are insecure in their lives, in their persons, and in their rights, and nowhere in that vast region of country is there any power to protect them. I know not in the history of nations a more melancholy example than that which this Gov- ernment exhibits to-day in the condition of the southern country. I say further, after most careful reflection, that I see no possible way out of these difficulties while the present Chief Magistrate is at the head of the Government. Congress is strong; it has received the sup- port of the people ; it has now a two-thirds majority in each House, to be increased in the Fortieth Congress, and it can pass whatever measures it prefers, notwithstanding the Presi- dent's veto. But after all it is helpless to execute; it has no hand by which it can wield or control the powers of this Government. Therefore I say that during the two years fol- lowing the 4th of next March, if Mr. Johnson continues to be President of the United States, no efficient steps can be taken for the restora- tion of the Government. Disorder will still be the rule in the South. To-day we know very well that citizens of the North who went South during the last twelve or eighteen months to develop the resources and apply their skill and industry to that country are preparing to aban- don it and to come away. There is little prob- ability that the next year will yield an amount of cotton equal to the product of the year 1866. I make no prediction as to what the future has in store for us with reference to the Presi- dent; but I only say that if he continues in office during the two years to come, I know of no means by which human life can be pro- tected, by which human rights shall be regarded as sacred, or by which any efficient means can be taken for the restoration of these ten States to their ancient place in the government of the country. We have, then, before us for these two years for the South, ignorance, poverty, and misrule. Further, the transfer of the government of that region of country to the rebels, to the slaveholders, means repudiation of all the public debts which those ten States owe. Vir- ginia is indebted $43,000,000, exclusive of what she incurred on account of the rebel- lion. Returning to the census of I860, we find that the average annual product in the free States was $131 for each person. In the slave States the annual product was $70 for each person, giving an excess in favor of the free States of $61. If you compare Mas- sachusetts, a good representative of the free States, with Maryland, the most prosperous of the old slave States, you will find that, exclu- sive of her returns for commerce in 1860, the annual product in Massachusetts was $235 for each person, and in Maryland only $96, aD excess, however, of nearly fifty percent, over the average of the South, but still giving a balance of $139 in favor of Massachusetts. And this balance, this excess, is due, not to any superior physical capacity on the part of the people of the North, not due to any superior intellectual or natural ability, but due simply to the fact that our people are educated, and to the consequent fact that here labor is honorable and respected. In the South the laboring population are ignorant, labor is considered dishonorable, and as a nat- ural consequence the laboring classes produce very little. The political economical problem to be worked out by the people of this country is to reestablish government in the South ; to restore, those States to the Union upon such a basis that the laboring people shall become edu- cated, and that it shall be honorable for any one tolabor. Thenyou will seetheproductivepower of the people of the South increase fifty or one hundred per cent. Therefore I say that it is of the highest importance to business men, not so much with reference to this year or the next two years— for I suppose business men will consider this matter in a broad view, and for a long period of time, for a period often, twenty, or fifty years — it is of inestimable importance to the business men of the country that the Government be reconstructed upon the right basis. Let us consider another fact. In those ten States there were, in the year 1860, eight mil- lion people. If yon can so educate those eight million people as that their abilities shall be applied to the work of production as efficiently as the people of the North apply their abilities, and the average should go 6 up from $70 for each person to $131, the average of the North, you add in a single year to the production of the South the sum of $487,946,000. A fifth of the entire public debt of the United States would be added to the resources of the country in a single year if you could give to the people of the South the productive power which is exhibited and enjoyed by the people of the North. The continuance of the existing state of things at .the South, or the restoration of the Union according to the President's way, or upon the mere ratification of the amendments to the Constitution, or upon the system of im- partial but restricted suffrage, means, then, repu- diation of the State debts. Does anybody sup- pose Virginia can pay a debt of $43,000,000 un- less she is regenerated, unless her people are able so to improve their powers of production as to augment the resources of that region far beyond its previous development? New Eng- land must be carried to Virginia and North Carolina; Ohio must be carried to Georgia and Alabama; New York must be carried to South Carolina, before the natural advantages of that country will be so developed as to enable the people to pay the debts they owe. And again, the restoration of this Government, with the South a unit against the Union, means repu- diation of the debt of the United States. I do not stop to dwell upon that. It is also to be observed that unless the South can be restored upon a basis such as I have indicated, there can be no resumption of spe- cie payments for a long period of time. One difficulty in reference to the resumption of spe- cie payments is this : that three, four, or five hundred million of our public securities are owned abroad. Whenever there is a panic on the other side of the Atlantic, as there was upon the opening of the late Continental war, and there is a demand for gold, these securi- ties will he worth more in our markets than they are in foreign markets, and they will be sent here in quantities of twenty-five, fifty, or a hundred million dollars, according to the necessities or the fears of the people on the other side, the proceeds drawn from our banks, if they should be paying specie, and the banks consequently would be compelled to .suspend. Therefore, one of the difficulties which we have to encounter, and which we must, look in the face while we have so large a public debt, a portion of which is owned abroad, is that, ■"I- there is a panic in Europe there will be a demand upon the banks and upon the people of this country for specie. One of the benefits to b ■ derived from the restoration of order in the South is, that you apply the labor of that section of country to the produc- tion of those articles which are a substitute for specie. We produce grain in the West in vast quantities : but the condition of transportation between the West and the Atlantic coast is such that we cannot expect to export quanti- ties of grain sufficient to meet an exigency such as I have indicated. But if we can apply the labor of the South in the most productive way we can augment the quantity of cotton pro- duced from two to four, six, eight, or even to ten million bales, and supply Europe, supply indeed the whole world, with the kind of cot- ton which this country produces. Cotton is perhaps the nearest to specie of any product of the soil. When the southern country is cut up into small holdings, when the negro popu- lation shall be stimulated to produce cotton by the incentive which stimulates us all, personal pecuniary advantages;'' I doubt not we shall begin to realize what has been set forth by our friend Atkinson, that the South is capable of producing many million bales of cotton in ex- cess of any previous production. Cotton will be a substitute for specie, and in the nature of the case it is the chief means upon which we can rely to meet the balances abroad. Until the South is regenerated, until the labor of that section of country is wisely and profitably ap- plied to the production of cotton, it is a very grave question whether, in view of the large amount of our public debt owned abroad, the banks of this country can resume and maintain specie payments. In the next place, until there is a restoration of the Union upon sound principles, there must be a degree of weakness in the Government, which cannot by any means be overcome. If we have ten, twelve, or fourteen States known to be hostile to this Government, what is our condition for protecting our rights? I am not alarmed in regard to any attempt on the part of other Governments to interfere with the United States ; but it is a humiliation to every Amer- ican citizen that the country is in such a condi- tion that we cannot assert our rights under any circumstances and against all odds. Mr. John- son, as you have seen, has just sent two am- bassadors to Mexico. Laboring under the delusion that he has restored this Govern- ment to peace, order, and quiet, he thinks the time has come when he can interfere in Mexico and undertake to manage Maximilian, Juarez, and all the rest who are contending for suprem- acy in that distracted country. As far as Mr. Johnson is concerned, I think he had better not interfere in the affairs of other Governments until he has clearer evidence of his success in managing the affairs of his own country. I may be justified in an observation rather aside from my theme. The people' of this country will not hesitate to declare their rights in reference to the claims upon England for depredations by the Alabama and other piratical corsairs upon our commerce ; they will not hesitate to maintain the ancient tradi- tional doctrine of this country that it is an offense for any foreign nation to attempt by force or by external pressure to establish a monarchy upon this continent; they will not hesitate to declare their opinions upon every question concerning the rights of the people ; but I take it for granted that neither the Con- gress of the United States nor the people will intrust either Mr. Johnson or Mr. Seward with any power whatever to interfere in the affairs of Mexico, to press our claims for compensa- tion on Great Britain, or to offer any offense to the Emperor of the French. They know per- fectly well that we can delay all these questions until after the 4th of March, 1869 _; and then if we choose to interfere in the affairs of Mex- ico we may do it with the certainty that we shall have the power to execute what we undertake ; if we choose to demand compen- sation from Great Britain we. can do it with every reason to believe that she will concede whatever we shall consider right' and just. They also know that the French Emperor will withdraw his troops from Mexico long before the 4th of March, 1869 ; that it is not for us now to assert offensively any right we may have, however just it may be ; that in our strength we can afford to rest, confident that the time is not far distant when there will be an executive department of the Government representing the judgment and opinion and purpose of the people of this country, and an executive depart- ment disposed to execute this purpose under the Constitution and according to the laws of the land. The South itself will come soon to the opinion that those who demand universal suffrage and the restoration of the Government upon sound principles are, after all, its best friends. The South will soon discover that Mr. Johnson himself, whether intentionally or not, is in reality their worst enemy. No man has done more to injure the cause of the South than he. Of all things, the necessity of the southern people when the rebellion was overthrown was this: that the man in the presidential chair should enjoy the confidence of the loyal people of the country. Enjoying the confidence of the loyal people of the country he could have done those things in behalf of the South which were necessary for its prosperity and security ; but such is the popular impression now in regard to Mr. Johnson throughout the whole North, that he is utterly incapable of taking any step for the support of what are the just rights of the people of that section. Mr. Lincoln's death was as great a calamity to the South as to the North. They needed a man like Mr. Lincoln in the presi- dential chair, whose kind heart, guided by the principles of the Government, true always to justice, to the Union, and to the Constitution, would yet have melted in the presence of their distresses, and yielded from time to time that influence and support which in their depressed and^rostrate condition they so much needed. But by his death they were deprived of the be- nign influence of his administration, and the conduct of his successor led them to expect a restoration of the ancient order of things, when they controlled the policy of the United States. In that expectation they are to be disappointed ; but it has had this evil effect. They have un- dertaken to assume authority and to exercise power in their respective localities as though the ancient order of things had been restored already, and now the work of restoration upon sound principles is made more and more diffi- cult. But from what I know of the purpose and opinion of Congress I do not hesitate to say that the great majority of the loyal mem- bers of the two Houses are in favor of declaring, by solemn resolution or public act, that the governments set up in these ten States are ille- gal and invalid. It is their purpose also, by legislative authority, to establish governments in those districts — call them territorial gov- ernments, or what you will ; abd in the act es- tablishing those governments to decide that all loyal male citizens shall be entitled to the right of suffrage. I believe the time has come when we should cut clear of all theories and of all speculations concerning the rights of the people of that sec^ tion of the country, growing out of their ancient relations to the Government of the United States. It is our duty to establish institutions upon the fundamental pricinples of natural justice, beginning at the foundation, recogniz- ing the rights of men because they are men, and building up governments republican in form; and whether the time necessary for the consummation of this plan be one year or five years, or ten years we shall appeal to the people to maintain that policy unto the end. Printed at the Congressional Globe. •