sound a blast to the cohorts of party, to beat the long-roll, and set the squadrons in the field. That is its object, as plainly to be seen as the ultimate object of the attempted overthrow of laws. Political speeches having been thus ordained, I have discussed political themes, and with ill-will to no portion of the country but good-will toward every portion of it, I have with candor spoken somewhat of my thoughts of the duties and dangers of the hour. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries.] Lincoln's Speech at Gettysburg. "Four-score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new Nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "Now, we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that Nation, or any Nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those, who here gave their lives that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. "But, in a large sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will 'little note, nor long remember what we SAY here, but it can never forget what they DID here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that Government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth. They are imploring us to protect them against the conquered enemies of the country, who notwithstanding their surrender, have managed, through their skill or our weakness, to seize nearly all the conquered territory. This is not the first instance in the world's history in which all that had been gained by hard fighting was lost by bad diplomacy. But they, whose feelings are entitled to so much consideration in the estimation of those who urge this argument, are not our southern brethren, but the southern brethren of our political opponents; the conquered rebels, pardoned and unpardoned; traitors priding themselves upon their treason. These people are fastidious. The ordinary terms of the English language must be perverted to suit their tastes. Though they surrendered in open and public war, they are not to be treated as prisoners. Though beaten in the last ditch of the last fortification, they are not to be called a conquered people. The decision of the forum of their own choosing is to be explained away into meaningless formality for their benefit. Though guilty of treason, murder, arson, and all the crimes in the calendar, they are "our southern brethren." The entire decalogue must be suspended lest it should offend these polished candidates for the contempt and execration of posterity. Out of deference to the feelings of these sensitive gentlemen, an executive construction must be given to the word "loyalty," so that it shall embrace men who only are not hanged because they have been pardoned, and who only did not destroy the Government because they could not. Out of deference to the feelings of these sensitive gentlemen, too, a distinguished public functionary, once the champion of the rights of man, a leader in the cause of human progress, a statesman whose keen foreknowledge could point out the "irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom," cannot now see that treason and loyalty are uncompromising antagonisms. It is charged against us that the wheels of Government are stopped by our refusal to admit the representatives of these southern communities. When we complain that Europe is underselling us in our marSpeech of Hon. John M. Broomall, of Penn-kets, and demand protection for the Amer sylvania, ican laborer, we are told to "admit the southern Senators and Representatives." When we complain that excessive importations are impoverishing the country, and rapidly bringing on financial ruin, we are told to "admit the southern Senators and Representatives." When we complain that an inflated currency is making the rich richer, and the poor poorer, keeping the prices of even the necessaries of life beyond tory shall be carried out, while the northern party corresponding with the rebels of the South ask that things should be con the reach of widows and orphans who are living upon fixed incomes, the stereotyped answer comes, "Admit the southern Senators and Representatives." When we de-sidered as if Lee had been the conqueror, mand a tax upon cotton to defray the enormous outlay made in dethroning that usurping "king of the world," still the answer comes, and the executive parrots everywhere repeat it, "Admit the southern Senators and Representatives." or at least as if there had been a drawn battle, without victory on either side. This brings the rights of those in whose behalf the opponents of the bill under consideration are acting directly in question, and in order to limit down the field of The mind of the man who can see in controversy as far as possible, let us inquire that prescription a remedy for all political how far all parties agree upon the legal and social diseases must be curiously con- status of the communities lately in restituted. Would these Senators and Rp-bellion. Now, the meanest of all controresentatives vote a tax upon cotton? Would versies is that which comes from dialec-. they protect American industry by in- tics. Where the disputants attach differcreasing duties? Would they prevent ex- ent meanings to the same word their time cessive importations? To believe this re- is worse than thrown away. I have always quires as unquestioning a faith as to be- looked upon the question whether the lieve in the sudden conversion of whole States are in or out of the Union as only communities from treason to loyalty. worthy of the schoolmen of the middle We are blocking the wheels of Govern- ages, who could write volumes upon a mere ment! Why, the Government has man-verbal quibble. The disputants would aged to get along for four years, not only without the aid of the Southern Senators and Representatives, but against their efforts to destroy it; and in the mean time has crushed a rebellion that would have destroyed any other Government under heaven. Surely the nation can do without the services of these men, at least during the time required to examine their claims and to protect by appropriate legislation our Southern brethren. None but a Democrat would think of consulting the wolf about what safeguard should be thrown around the flock. Those who advocate the admission of the Senators and Representatives from the States lately reclaimed from the rebellion, | as a means of protecting the loyal men in those States and as a substitute for the system of legislation of which this bill is part, well know that the majority in both Houses of Congress ardently desire the full recognition of those States, and only ask that the rights and interests of the truly loyal men in those States shall be first satisfactorily secured. agree if they were compelled to use the word "State" in the same sense. I will endeavor to avoid this trifling. All parties agree that at the close of the rebellion the people of North Carolina, for example, had been "deprived of all civil government." The President, in his proclamation of May 29, 1865, tells the people of North Carolina this in so many words, and he tells the people of the other rebel States the same thing in his several proclamations to them. This includes the Conservatives and Democrats, who, however they may disagree, at last agree in this, that the President shall do their thinking. The Republicans subscribe to this doctrine, though they differ in their modes of expressing it. Some say that those States have ceased to possess any of the rights and powers of government as States of the Union. Others say, with the late lamented President, that "those States are out of practical relations with the Government." Others hold that the State organizations are out of the Union. And still others that the rebels are conquered, and therefore that their organizations are at the will of the conqueror. The President has hit upon a mode of expression which embraces concisely all these ideas. He says that the people of those States were, by the progress of the rebellion and by its termination, deprived of all civil government." Much useless controversy has been had about the legal status of those States. There is no difference between the two parties of the country on that point. The actual point of difference is this: the Democrats affiliate with their old political friends in the South, the late rebels, the friends and followers of Breckinridge, Lee, and Davis. The Union majority, on the other hand, One step further. All parties agree that naturally affiliate with the loyal men in the people of these States, being thus disthe South, the men who have always sup-organized for all State purposes, are still ported the Government against Breckinridge, Lee, and Davis. Each party wants the South reconstructed in the hands of its own "southern brethren." at the election of the government, citizens of the United States, and as such, as far as they have not been disqualified by treason, ought to be allowed to form their In short, the northern party correspond- own State governments, subject to the reing with the loyal men of the South ask quirements of the Constitution of the that the legitimate results of Grant's vic- | United States. Still one step further. All parties agree | in the premises. He never would have set that this cannot be done by mere unauthor- up the theory that the citizens of the Uniized congregations of the people, but that ted States, though their representatives, the time, place and manner must be pre- are not to be consulted when those who scribed by some department of the Govern- have once broken faith with them ask to ment, according to the argument of Mr. have the compact renewed. Webster and the spirit of the decision of the Supreme Court in Luther vs. Borden, 7 Howard, page 1. Yet another step in the series of propositions. All parties agree that as Congress was not in session at the close of the rebellion, the President, as Commander-in-sor. Chief, was bound to take possession of the conquered country and establish such government as was necessary. Thus far all is harmonious; but now the divergence begins. At the commencement of the present session of Congress threefourths of both Houses held that when the people of the States are "deprived of all civil government," and when, therefore, it becomes necessary to prescribe the time, place, and manner in and by which they shall organize themselves again into States while the President may take temporary measures, yet only the law-making power of the Government is competent to the full accomplishment of the task. In other words, that only Congress can enable citizens of the United States to create States. I have said that at the commencement of the session three-fourths of both houses held this opinion. The proportion is smaller now, and by a judicious use of executive patronage it may become still smaller; but the truth of the proposition will not be affected if every Representative and Senator should be manipulated into denying it. Our opponents have no love for the President. They called him a usurper and a tyrant in Tennessee. They ridiculed him as a negro "Moses." They tried to kill him, and failing that, they accused him of being privy to the murder of his predecesBut when his "experiment" at reconstruction was found to result in favor of their friends, the rebels, then they hung themselves about his neck like so many mill-stones, and tried to damn him to eternal infamy by indorsing his policy. Will they succeed? Will he shake them off, or go down with them? But let us suffer these discordant elements to settle their own terms of combinations as best they may. The final result cannot be doubtful. If ten righteous men were needed to save Sodom, even Andrew Johnson will find it impossible to save the Democratic party. Our path of duty is plain before us. Let us pass this bill and such others as may be necessary to secure protection to the loyal men of the South. If our political opponents thwart our purposes in this, let us go to the country upon that issue. I am by no means an advocate of extensive punishment, either in the way of hanging or confiscation, though some of both might be salutary. I do not ask that full retribution be enforced against those who have so grievously sinned. I am willing to make forgiveness the rule and punishment the exception; yet I have my ultimatum. I might excuse the pardon of the traitors Lee and Davis, even after the hanging of Wirz, who but obeyed their orders, orders which he would have been shot for disobeying. I might excuse the sparing of the master after killing the dog whose bite but carried with it the venom engend On the other hand, the remaining fourth, composed of the supple Democracy and its accessions, maintain that this Statecreating power is vested in the President alone, and that he has already exercised it. The holy horror with which our opponents affect to contemplate the doctrine of destruction of States is that much political hypocrisy. Every man who asks the recog-ered in the master's soul. I might look nition of the existing local governments in the South thereby commits himself to that doctrine. The only possible claim that can be set up in favor of the existing governments is based upon the theory that the old ones have been destroyed. The present organizations sprang up at the bidding of the President after the conquest among a people who, he said, had been "deprived of all civil government." If the President's "experiment" had resulted in organizing the southern communities in loyal hands, the majority in Congress would have found no difficulty in indorsing it and giving it the necessary efficiency by legislative enactment. In this case, too, the President never would have denied the power of Congress calmly upon a constituency ground down by taxation, and tell the complainants that they have neither remedy nor hope of vengeance upon the authors of their wrongs. I might agree to turn unpityingly from the mother whose son fell in the Wilderness, and the widow whose husband was starved at Andersonville, and tell them that in the nature of things retributive justice is denied them, and that the murderers of their kindred may yet sit in the councils of their country; yet even I have my ultimatum. I might consent that the glorious deeds of the last five years should be blotted from the country's history; that the trophies won on a hundred battle-fields, the sublime visible evidence of the heroic devotion of America's citizen soldiery, should be burned on the altar of reconciliation. I only a few remarks, suggesting some obmight consent that the cemetery at Gettys- jections to the bill. burg should be razed to the ground; that its soil should be submitted to the plow, and that the lamentation of the bereaved should give place to the lowing of cattle. But there is a point beyond which I shall neither be forced nor persuaded. I will never consent that the government shall desert its allies in the South and surrender their rights and interests to the enemy, and in this I will make no distinction of caste or color either among friends or foes. The people of the South were not all traitors. Among them were knees that never bowed to the Baal of secession, lips that never kissed his image. Among the fastness of the mountains, in the rural districts, far from the contagion of political centres, the fires of patriotism still burned, sometimes in the higher walks of life, oftener in obscure hamlets, and still oftener under skins as black as the hearts of those who claimed to own them. These people devoted all they had to their country. The homes of some have been confiscated, and they are now fugitives from the scenes that gladdened their childhood. Some were cast into dungeons for refusing to fire upon their country's flag, and still others bear the marks of stripes inflicted for giving bread and water to the weary soldier of the Republic, and aiding the fugitive to escape the penalty of the disloyalty to treason. If the God of nations listened to the prayers that ascended from so many altars during those eventful years, it was to the prayers of these people. Sir, we talked of patriotism in our happy northern homes, and claimed credit for the part we acted; but if the history of these people shall ever be written, it will make us blush that we ever professed to love our country. The government now stands guard over the lives and fortunes of these people. They are imploring us not to yield them up without condition to those into whose hands recent events have committed the destinies of the unfortunate South. A nation which could thus withdraw its protection from such allies, at such a time, without their full and free consent, could neither hope for the approval of mankind nor the blessing of heaven. I look upon the bill before us, Mr. Speaker, as one of the series of measures rising out of a feeling of distrust and hatred on the part of certain individuals, not only in this House, but throughout the country, toward these persons who formerly held slaves. I had hoped that long before this time the people of this country would have come to the conclusion that the subject of slavery and the questions connected with it had already sufficiently agitated this country. I had hoped that now, when the war is over, when peace has been restored, when in every State of the Union the institution of slavery has been freely given up, its abolition acquiesced in, and the Constitution of the United States amended in accordance with that idea, this subject would cease to haunt us as it is made to do in the various measures which are constantly being here introduced. This bill is, it appears to me, one of the most insidious and dangerous of the various measures which have been directed against the interest of the people of this country. It is another of the measures designed to take away the essential rights of the State. I know that when I speak of States and State rights, I enter upon unpopular subjects. But, sir, whatever other gentlemen may think, I hold that the rights of the States are the rights of the Union, that the rights of the States and the liberty of the States are essential to the liberty of the individual citizen. * * * * * Now, it may be said that there is no reason for this distinction; but I claim that there is. And there is no man that can look upon this crime, horrid as it is, diabolical as it is when committed by the white man, and not say that such a crime committed by a negro upon a white woman deserves, in the sense and judgment of the American people, a different punishment from that inflicted upon the white man. And yet the very purpose of this section, as I contend, is to abolish or prevent the execution of laws making a distinction in regard to the punishment. In But, further, it is said the negro race is weak and feeble; that they are mere children-"wards of the Government." many instances it might be just and proper to inflict a less punishment upon them for certain crimes than upon men of intelligence and education, whose motives may Speech of Hon. Charles A. Eldridge, of have been worse. It might be better for Wisconsin, Against the Civil Rights Bill, in the House of Representatives, March 2, 1866. the community to control them by milder and gentler means. If the judge sitting upon the bench of the State court shall, in Mr. Speaker: I thought yesterday that carrying out the law of the State, inflict a I would discuss this measure at some higher penalty upon the white man than length; but I find myself this morning that which attaches to the freedman, not very unwell; and I shall therefore make that I suppose it is ever contemplated to enforce that, yet it would be equally ap-lieve that the people who have held the plicable, and the penalty would be in- freedmen as slaves will treat them with curred by the judge in the same manner precisely. more kindness, with more leniency, than those of the North who make such loud professions of love and affection for them, and are so anxious to pass these bills. They know their nature; they know their wants; they know their habits; they have been brought up together; none of the prejudices and unkind feelings which many in the north would have toward them. But I proceed to the section I was about to remark upon when the gentleman interrupted me. The marshals who may be employed to execute warrants and precepts under this bill, as I have already remarked, are offered a bribe for the execution of them. It creates marshals in great numbers, and authorizes commissioners to I do not credit all these stories about the appoint almost anybody for that purpose, general feeling of hostility in the South toand it stimulates them by the offer of a re-ward the negro. So far as I have heard ward not given in the case of the arrest of persons guilty of any other crime. It goes further. It authorizes the President, when he is apprehensive that some crime of that sort may be committed, on mere suspicion, mere information or statement that it is likely to be committed, to take any judge from the bench or any marshal from his office to the place where the crime is apprehended, for the purpose of more efficiently and speedily carrying out the provisions of the bill. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thayer) tells us that it is very remarkable that it should be claimed that this bill is intended to create and continue a sort of military despotism over the people where this law is to be executed. It seems to me nothing is plainer. Where do we find any laws heretofore passed having no relation to the negro in which such a provision as this tenth section is to be found? Generally the marshal seeks by himself to execute this warrant, and failing, he calls out his POSSE COMITATUS. But this bill authorizes the use in the first instance of the Army and Navy by the President for the purpose of executing such writs. The gentlemen who advocate this bill are great sticklers for equality, and insist that there shall be no distinction made on account of race or color. Why, sir, every provision of this bill carries upon its face the distinction, and is calculated to perpetuate it forever as long as the act shall be in force. Where did this measure originate but in the recognition of the difference between races and colors? Does any one pretend that this bill is intended to protect white men-to save them from any wrongs which may be inflicted upon them by the negroes? Not at all. It is introduced and pressed in the pretended interest of the black man, and recognizes and virtually declares distinction between race and color. opinions expressed upon the subject, and I have conversed with many persons from that section of the country, they do not blame the negro for anything that has happened. As a general thing, he was faithful to them and their interests, until the army reached the place and took him from them. He has supported their wives and children in the absence of the husbands and fathers in the armies of the South. He has done for them what no one else could have done. They recognize his general good feeling toward them, and are inclined to reciprocate that feeling toward him. I believe that is the general feeling of the southern people to-day. The cases of ill-treatment are exceptional cases. They are like the cases which have occurred in the northern States where the unfortunate have been thrown upon our charity. Take, for instance, the stories of the cruel treatment of the insane in the State of Massachusetts. They may have been barbarously confined in the loathsome dens as stated in particular instances; but is that any evidence of the general ill-will of the people of the State of Massachusetts toward the insane? Is that any reason why the Federal arm should be extended to Massachusetts to control and protect the insane there? It has also been said that certain paupers in certain States have been badly used, paupers, too, who were whites. Is that any reason why we should extend the arm of the Federal Government to those States to protect the poor who are thrown upon the charity of the people there? Sir, we must yield to the altered state of things in this country. We must trust the people; it is our duty to do so; we cannot do otherwise. And the sooner we place ourselves in a position where we can win the confidence of our late enemies, where our counsels will be heeded, where our advice may be regarded, the sooner will the people of the whole country be fully reconciled to each other and their changed relationship; the sooner will all the inhabitants of our country be in the possession of all the rights and immunities essential to their prosperity and happiness. |