Sunday, January 28, 2018

Charles Sumner to Francis Lieber, May 2, 1865

I read to President Johnson Colonel Baker’s letter,1 with your introduction. He said at once that he accepted every word of it; that colored persons are to have the right of suffrage; that no State can be precipitated into the Union; that rebel States must go through a term of probation. All this he had said to me before. Ten days ago the chief-justice and myself visited him in the evening to speak of these things. I was charmed by his sympathy, which was entirely different from his predecessor's. The chief-justice is authorized to say wherever he is what the President desires, and to do everything he can to promote organization without distinction of color. The President desires that the movement should appear to proceed from the people. This is in conformity with his general ideas; but he thinks it will disarm party at home. I told him that while I doubted if the work could be effectively done without federal authority, I regarded the modus operandi as an inferior question; and that I should be content, provided equality before the law was secured for all without distinction of color. I said during this winter that the rebel States could not come back, except on the footing of the Declaration of Independence and the complete recognition of human rights. I feel more than ever confident that all this will be fulfilled. And then what a regenerated land! I had looked for a. bitter contest on this question; but with the President on our side, it will be carried by simple avoirdupois.”
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1 Of North Carolina, late a Confederate officer.

SOURCE: Edward Lillie Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Volume 4, p. 243

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