DESTROY NOT MAN'S FAITH IN MAN!
ACCEPT THE RIGHT MAN, WHICHEVER PARTY NOMINATES
HIM!
A people are
demoralized by being trained to the ready entertainment of charges of
corruption against those, whom they select to be their rulers, teachers and
exemplars. For, when they can easily suspect such ones of baseness and crime,
their faith in man is destroyed. It scarcely need be added that, when they have
no longer faith in man, they will be quick to acquiesce in the application of a
very low standard of morality to their leaders, and a still lower one to
themselves. I say a still lower one, inasmuch as they will, naturally, expect a
less degree of moral worth in the masses than in the individual, who is, here
and there, selected from the masses on account of his superior wisdom and
virtue. How much better it would be to persuade the people that it is their
duty to hold sacred the reputation of those, whom they elevate to posts of
honor! For how much more like would they, then, be to elevate those only, whose
reputation is worthy to be held sacred! Moreover, what could be more elevating
to themselves than such carefulness in selecting their guides and
representatives!
I have been led
to make these remarks by seeing the recent calumnious and contemptuous
treatment of the Chief Justice and such Senators as Mr. Fessenden and Mr.
Trumbull. The flood-gates of defamation were opened upon Mr. Fessenden and Mr.
Trumbull, because they voted for the acquittal of the President. I wish they
had voted for his conviction. For, although I had not, previously, taken much
interest in the proposition to impeach him, nevertheless, after reading those
parts of his last Annual Message in which he traduces the colored citizens of
our country, I was quite willing to have him removed from office. Were Victoria
to take such an outrageous liberty with the Irish or Scotch or Welsh, she would
quickly be relieved of her crown. I do not forget that insulting the negro is
an American usage. But not with impunity should the President of the whole
American people insult, in his official capacity, any of the races, which make
up that people — least of all the race, which is, already, the most deeply
wronged of them all. This gross violation of the perfect impartiality, which
should ever mark the administration of the President's high Office — this
ineffable meanness of assailing the persecuted and weak, whom he might rather
have consoled and cheered, should not have been overlooked, but should have
been promptly and sternly rebuked. How petty the President's affair with Mr.
Stanton, compared with his unrelenting wicked war upon these black millions, to
whose magnanimous forgiveness of our measureless wrongs against them, and to
whose brave help of our Cause we were so largely indebted for its success!
I said that I
wish Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Trumbull had voted for the conviction of the
President. Nevertheless, in the light of their life-long uprightness, I have
not the least reason to doubt that they voted honestly. Nay, in the light of
their eminent wisdom, I am bound to pause and inquire of my candid judgment
whether they did not vote wisely as well as honestly.
This clamor
against the Chief Justice was not, as is pretended, occasioned by his conduct
in the Impeachment Trial. That this conduct was wise and impartial, scarcely
one intelligent man can doubt. This clamor proceeded from the purpose of
preventing his nomination to the Presidency. It is said that he desires to be
President. But a desire for this high Office is not, necessarily, culpable.
Instead of being prompted in all instances by selfishness, it may in some
instances be born of a high patriotism and a disinterested philanthropy. For
one, I should rejoice to see the Chief Justice in the Presidency; — and I say
this, after a-many-years intimate acquaintance with him — after much personal
observation of the workings of his head and heart. I, however, expect to vote
for Grant and Colfax. I like them both; and, in the main, I like the platform
on which they stand. Nevertheless, if contrary to my expectations, the
Democrats shall have the wisdom to nominate the Chief Justice, and along with
him a gentleman of similar views and spirit — a gentleman honest both toward
the Nation's creditors and toward the negro — I shall prefer to vote for the
Democratic Candidates. And why, in the case of such nomination by the
Democrats, should not every Republican be willing, nay glad, to sustain the
nomination? If the Democrats, at last sick and ashamed, as I have no doubt tens
of thousands of them are, of ministering to the mean spirit of caste — prating
for “a white man's government,” and defying the sentiment of the civilized
world — shall give up their nonsense and wickedness, and nominate for office
such men as Republicans have been eager to honor — how wanting in magnanimity
and in devotion to truth, and how enslaved to Party, would Republicans show
themselves to be, were they not to welcome this overture, and generously
respond to these concessions!
By all means
should the Republicans let, ay and help, the Democratic Party succeed at the
coming Election, provided only that its candidates be the representatives of a
real and righteous, instead of a cutaneous and spurious, Democracy. That
success would bring to an end this too-long-continued War between Republicans
and Democrats. That success would turn us all into Republicans and all into
Democrats. The old and absorbing issues about Slavery and its incidents would,
then, have passed away. The “everlasting negro,” having gained his rights,
would then have sunk out of sight. Doubtless, new Parties would, ere long, be
formed. But they would be formed with reference to new questions or, more
generally, to old ones, which, by reason of the engrossing interest in the
Slavery Battle, have been compelled to wait very long, and with very great
detriment to the public weal, for their due share of the public attention.
And, then too,
when the quarrel between the Republican and Democratic Parties had ended, Peace
between the North and the South would speedily come. Hitherto, the Republican
Party has been so anxious to keep a bad Party out of power, that it has not
been in a mood to use or study all the means for producing Peace between the
North and South. It should, immediately on the surrender of the South, have
inculcated on the North the duty of penitently confessing her share of the
responsibility for the War—a share as great as the South's, since the
responsibility of the North for Slavery, out of which the War grew, was as
great as the South's. Quickly would the South have followed this example of
penitent confession. And, then, the two would have rivalled each other in
expressions of mutual forgiveness and mutual love. Amongst these expressions
would have been the avowal of the North to charge no one with Treason, and to
open wide the door for the return of every exile, who had not, by some mean or
murderous violation of the laws of war, shut himself out of the pale of
humanity. And amongst these expressions would have been the joyful consent of
the North to let fifty or a hundred millions go from the National Treasury
toward helping her War-impoverished sister rise up out of her desolations. The
heart of the South would, now, have been won; and she would have manifested the
fact by tendering to the North a carte blanche — feeling no fear that there
would be any designed injustice in the terms of “Reconstruction,” which her
forgiving and generous foe should write upon it. Yes, there would, then, have
been Peace between the North and the South — a true and loving and enduring
Peace. Ashamed of their past, they would unitedly and cordially have entered
upon the work of making a future for our country as innocent and as happy as
that past had been guilty and sorrowful. It is not, now, too late to have, by
such means, such a Peace. We should, surely, have it, were there to be, at the
coming Election, that oneness between Republicans and Democrats, which good
sense and good feeling call for.
Is it said that
the money, which in loans or (preferably) gifts to the South, I ask to have
used in effecting this Peace would make the Peace cost too much? I answer that
it would be returned tenfold. The improvement in our National credit, resulting
from such a Peace, would, very soon, enable our Government to borrow at an
interest of four per cent. Comparatively small, then, would be our taxes, and,
by the way, comparatively small, then, would be the temptation to cheat the
Nation's creditors.
Peterboro JUNE 12 1868.
G. S.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 266-7; Smith,
Gerrit. Destroy not man's faith in man! Accept the right man, whichever
party nominates him! ... G. S. Peterboro. Peterboro, 1868. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.12703100/.
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