Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

the National Legislature, must necessarily, according to the intendment of the Constitution, be a loyal man, willing to abide by and devoted to the Union and the Constitution of the States. He can not be for the Constitution, he can not be for the Union, he can not acknowledge obedience to all the laws, unless he is loyal. When the people send such men in good faith, they are entitled to representation through them.

"In going into the recent Rebellion or insurrection against the Government of the United States we erred; and in returning and resuming our relations with the Federal Government, I am free to say that all the responsible positions and places ought to be confined distinctly and clearly to men who are loyal. If there were only five thousand loyal men in a State, or a less number, but sufficient to take charge of the political machinery of the State, those five thousand men, or the lesser number, are entitled to it, if all the rest should be otherwise inclined. I look upon it as being fundamental that the exercise of political power should be confined to loyal men; and I regard that as implied in the doctrines laid down in these resolutions and in the eloquent address by which they have been accompanied. I may say, furthermore, that after having passed through the great struggle in which we have been engaged, we should be placed upon much more acceptable ground in resuming all our relations to the General Government if we presented men unmistakably and unquestionably loyal to fill the places of power. This being done, I feel that the day is not far distant-I speak confidingly in reference to the great mass of the American people-when they will determine that this Union shall be made whole, and the great right of representation in the councils of the Nation be acknowledged.

"Gentlemen, that is a fundamental principle. 'No taxation without representation' was one of the principles which carried us through the Revolution. This great principle will hold good yet; and if we but perform our duty, if we but comply with the spirit of the resolutions presented to me to-day,. the American people will maintain and sustain the great doctrines upon which the Government was inaugurated. It can be done, and it will be done; and I think that if the effort be fairly and fully made, with forbearance and with prudence,

and with discretion and wisdom, the end is not very far distant.

"It seems to me apparent that from every consideration the best policy which could be adopted at present would be a restoration of these States and of the Government upon correct principles. We have some foreign difficulties; but the moment it can be announced that the Union of the States is again complete, that we have resumed our career of prosperity and greatness, at that very instant, almost, all our foreign difficulties will be settled; for there is no power upon the earth which will care to have a controversy or a rupture with the Government of the United States under such circumstances.

"If these States be fully restored, the area for the circulation of the national currency, which is thought by some to be inflated to a very great extent, will be enlarged, the number of persons through whose hands it is to pass will be increased, the quantity of commerce in which it is to be employed as a medium of exchange will be enlarged; and then it will begin to approximate what we all desire, a specie standard. If all the States were restored; if peace and order reigned throughout the land, and all the industrial pursuits, all the avocations of peace, were again resumed, the day would not be very far distant when we could put into the commerce of the world $250,000,000 or $300,000,000 worth of cotton and tobacco, and the various products of the Southern States, which would constitute in part a basis of this currency.

'Then, instead of the cone being inverted, we should reverse the position, and put the base at the bottom, as it ought to be; and the currency of the country will rest on a sound and enduring basis; and surely that is a result which is calculated to promote the interests not only of one section but of the whole country, from one extremity to the other. Indeed, I look upon the restoration of these States as being indispensable to all our greatness.

"Gentlemen, I know nothing further that I could say in the expression of my feelings on this occasion-and they are not affected-more than to add that I shall continue in the same line of policy which I have pursued from the commencement of the Rebellion to the present period. My efforts have

been to preserve the Union of the States. I never, for a single moment, entertained the opinion that a State could withdraw from the Union of its own will. That attempt was made. It has failed. I continue to pursue the same line of policy which has been my constant guide. I was against dissolution. solution was attempted; it has failed; and now I can not take the position that a State which attempted to secede is out of the Union, when I contended all the time that it could not go out, and that it never has been out. I can not be forced into that position. Hence, when the States and their people shall have complied with the requirements of the Government, I shall be in favor of their resuming their former relations to this Government in all respects.

"I do not intend to say anything personal, but you know as well as I do that at the beginning, and indeed before the beginning, of the recent gigantic struggle between the different sections of the country, there were extreme men South and there were extreme men North. I might make use of a homely figure, which is sometimes as good as any other, even in the illustrations of great and important questions, and say that it has been hammer at one end of the line and anvil at the other; and this great Government, the best the world ever saw, was kept upon the anvil and hammered before the Rebellion, and it has been hammered since the Rebellion; and there seems to be a disposition to continue the hammering until the Government shall be destroyed. I have opposed that system always, and I oppose it now.

"The Government, in the assertion of its powers and in the maintenance of the principles of the Constitution, has taken hold of one extreme, and with the strong arm of physical power has put down the Rebellion. Now, as we swing around the circle of the Union, with a fixed and unalterable determination to stand by it, if we find the counterpart or the duplicate of the same spirit that played to this feeling and these persons in the South, this other extreme, which stands in the way must get out of it, and the Government must stand unshaken and unmoved on its basis. The Government must be preserved.

"I will only say, in conclusion, that I hope all the people of this country, in good faith and in the fullness of their hearts,

will, upon the principles which you have enunciated here to-day, of the maintenance of the Constitution and the preservation of the Union, lay aside every other feeling for the good of our common country, and, with uplifted faces to Heaven, swear that our gods and our altars and all shall sink in the dust together rather than that this glorious Union shall not be preserved.

"I am gratified to find the loyal sentiment of the country developing and manifesting itself in these expressions; and now that the attempt to destroy the Government has failed at one end of the line, I trust we shall go on determined to preserve the Union in its original purity against all opposers.

"I thank you, gentlemen, for the compliment you have paid me, and I respond most cordially to what has been said in your resolutions and address, and I trust in God that the time will soon come when we can meet under more favorable auspices than we do now."

CHAPTER XII.

STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AT THE END OF 1865-FATE OF THE ASSASSINS - THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION-RECONSTRUCTION-THE PRESIDENT'S POLICY-MR. JOHNSON'S FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.

THE

HE court which had been organized for the trial of the persons implicated in the assassination of President Lincoln completed its work after the examination of several hundred witnesses; and Mr. Johnson approved the sentence by which four of them, one being a woman, were hanged on the 7th of July, 1865, and the others, three to imprisonment for life, and one for six years. The bodies of these

creatures were buried at the arsenal grounds at Washington, and with them that of the actual murderer of President Lincoln.

Shortly after this horrid event, Henry Wirz, the keeper of Andersonville Prison, was tried on the charge of being a traitor and murdering prisoners contrary to the laws of war and civilization, and he was also sentenced and hanged early in November, 1865. Wirz's main defense was that he was the mere instrument of others, and was acting under orders which he could not disobey, and not a few there were who deemed his plea a good one.

But time had begun to soften public feeling, and

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »