Monday, January 15, 2018

Salmon P. Chase to Edwin M. Stanton, May 5, 1865

Beaufort, N.C.  May 5, 1865
My dear Sir,

How would it do to issue an order forbidding the calling of the freedmen, “contrabands”, and the places where they are brought together in camps, “corrals.”  Words are things, & terms implying degradation help to degrade.  Such an order, expressed as you know how, would correct a great evil & help those who need help.

Here and at New Berne I have seen a number of the returned rebels – among them a Senator of the late rebel legislature & a Colonel in the rebel army paroled.  Evidently they would all like that restoration best which would give them most power & place; but they will, just as clearly, accommodate themselves to any mode of reorganization the National Government my think best – even including the restoration to the blacks of the right of suffrage which slavery took from them about thirty years ago.

Sincerely yours
S P CHASE
Hon E. M. Stanton

It is clear to me that the National Government must take or suggest the initiative.

SOURCE: John Niven, Editor, The Salmon P. Chase Papers: Volume 5, Correspondence, 1865-1873, p. 40

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